The question of whether or not to include a photo on a real estate business card is far from new. In fact, it’s one of the most common questions new agents have as they set up shop and choose their marketing materials.

We’ve even answered the question here before at BestPrintBuy, offering lists of pros and cons and solutions for different types of real estate business cards that can be a good fit for your niche with or without a photo included.

But one thing we haven’t done as often is take a look at it from the other angle: What niches or markets do benefit from having a photo on your business card? And if you choose to use a photo, what are the best practices?

What a real estate business card photo can do

There are two primary reasons that real estate professionals elect to use photos on their business card. They both trace back to the basic principle of people doing business with those they know, like, and trust.

When you include your photo on your Coldwell Banker business card, it automatically boosts your trustworthiness. You’re not anonymous. You’re not hiding. In fact, you’re laying it all out there: “This is who I am. This is what I look like. This is what I do.”

The other reason agents tend to use photos on their business cards is even more basic: people are far more likely to recognize a face than they are a name. Whether you attend a lot of networking events, sell a lot of homes in a particular area, pride yourself on community involvement – if people see your face often in positive contexts, they will start to know, like, and eventually even trust you.

Those are exactly the situations where agents benefit from photo business cards. If you’re already putting in the work to make an impression, why not let your impression benefit your business?