How to Digitize Business Cards and Set Them as Virtual Backgrounds: Benefits and Methods Explained

Benefits of Using Business Cards as Virtual Backgrounds

Enhancing Credibility with a Professional Impression

During online business meetings, the impression conveyed by your screen significantly impacts your corporate image. While using a meeting room wall as a background to avoid showing a cluttered office is one approach, it makes it difficult to differentiate yourself from other participants. Even when uploading a simple, business-appropriate image, selecting the optimal one can be challenging. By setting your business card as your background, you create an ideal professional setting that conveys cleanliness and enhances your company's credibility.

Enabling Personal Branding

Corporate business cards often include logos and slogans in addition to basic information like addresses. In reality, when exchanging paper business cards, there are few opportunities for the recipient to carefully review the content beyond the moment of exchange. By setting your business card as your virtual background during online meetings, it remains visible to participants throughout the session, making a lasting impression. Consistent use of a branded background helps solidify your professional image and contributes to both individual and corporate branding.

Facilitating Icebreaking and Communication

Since online meetings rely solely on screen-based information, they can sometimes be more difficult to initiate icebreaking compared to face-to-face meetings. By including information such as an employee's hometown or hobbies on a virtual business card, you can create opportunities for conversation among participants. Knowing each other's profiles expands the range of topics and serves as an effective icebreaker before diving into the main agenda.

How to Use Business Cards as Virtual Backgrounds

Scanning Business Cards into Image Data

The essential requirement for using a business card as a virtual background is that it must be digitized. A method you can use immediately without special tools is to scan your physical business card into image data and set it as your virtual background. While this incurs almost no cost, it presents challenges such as reduced image quality, which can make the card content difficult to read. Furthermore, simply converting a business card into an image only discloses basic information like the company address, which may be insufficient for icebreaking or sparking conversation.

Creating Your Own Using Image Editing Software

Recently, there are many image creation tools that can be easily used in web browsers. You can also create them using PowerPoint by preparing data such as logos and referencing your existing business card. When creating your own business card image, you must consider whether the aspect ratio of the image data matches the actual screen display, which can be time-consuming if you are not accustomed to image production. Additionally, if you allow employees to create their own, it may lead to discrepancies in quality or design inconsistencies, so it is necessary to decide whether to use a unified image across the company.

Representative Free Tools Include the Following:
• Virtual Business Card Background Generator
• zoome
• Regional Support Online Business Card Virtual Background Maker

We recommend selecting the optimal tool based on your objectives.

Using Business Card Management Tools

To effectively set business cards as virtual backgrounds for enhancing corporate image, employee branding, and conducting effective online meetings, using a "business card management tool" is essential. Business card management applications offer convenient features for virtual backgrounds, such as the ability to select designs and styles to add originality. However, depending on the tool, there may be additional fees for setting virtual backgrounds, or free tools may not support the creation of virtual backgrounds at all. Furthermore, if the application includes features that improve sales efficiency while creating virtual backgrounds, it can lead to an increased closing rate for online meetings.

Leveraging Business Cards with mSonar

Use It for Virtual Backgrounds! QR Code Conversion for Business Cards

mSonar allows you to convert your business card information into a URL or a 2D barcode, which can then be used for your virtual background.

Enabling Online Business Card Exchange

mSonar can issue business card data as a 2D barcode. By displaying this 2D barcode on your virtual background, you ensure you never miss an opportunity to exchange contact information, whether with participants at the start of the meeting or those who join late. It is also possible to efficiently exchange business cards with a large number of participants, such as during product training sessions. Additionally, duplicate data is automatically merged, preventing double registration.

Supporting Preparation Before Online Meetings

mSonar manages information using one of the largest corporate databases in Japan, allowing you to view various information related to prospective customers and conduct thorough preparation even before exchanging business cards. Because it is constantly linked with the corporate database, data is always cleansed and kept up-to-date even if a company relocates or changes information after the card is registered.

You can check information about the other company even if you have not yet obtained their business card, in addition to viewing your exchange history. Because you can consistently and smoothly manage everything from pre-meeting preparation to post-exchange management, it leads to more efficient sales activities. By thoroughly preparing for online meetings based on comprehensive corporate information, you can conduct appropriate interviews.

Exchanging Business Cards via Email Signatures

mSonar also enables business card exchange via email signatures. With a feature that automatically splits and reflects necessary information by copying and pasting your email signature, registration is simple.

Even in situations where you have only met through online meetings or web conferences and cannot exchange business cards in person, you can extract business card information from email signatures if you are corresponding via email. By having the ability to register business cards from email signatures, you can obtain contact information for all participants even in remote environments where physical exchange is not possible.

It also supports sending in vCard format (the standard file format for electronic business cards). Being able to reliably register business card information even from online touchpoints can lead to new business opportunities.

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Using Business Cards as Virtual Backgrounds Leads to Improved Sales Efficiency

Online business cards eliminate restrictions caused by physical distance, offering the significant benefit of allowing you to exchange contact information from anywhere, not just in person. By using a business card as your virtual background, you expand your business opportunities online. Let's aim for increased sales with a business card management tool that also improves sales efficiency.