6 cooler things to do with old business cards than tossing them

Hopefully you treated yourself to a fresh stack of updated business cards for 2017. (If not, get started here.) But what should you do with all of the old ones? Instead of throwing them away, try one — or all — of these:

1. Enter for a free lunch. Whenever you visit your favorite restaurants, look around for a lunch giveaway basket — then make sure your business card is in all of them! You can't win if you don't play, right?

2. Reach potential clients. As long as your contact information is the same, they'll still be valuable when left at coffee shops and other places your ideal clients might shop.

3. Offer them up for swag bags. Again, if your primary contact information is accurate, donate them to local event organizers or your city's Chamber of Commerce.

4. Bring them to conferences. Exhibitors love hosting raffles at their booths! (wink, wink — we would know). Use your old cards to enter all the giveaways, and save your new ones for networking.

5. Hang on to some for a fun #ThrowbackThursday post. We love showing off our founder and president's (very) old Magnets USA business card. It's a great conversation starter and a reminder about our humble beginnings.

6. Recycle them if possible. Save a tree by recycling all of your magnetic, plastic and paper business cards.