When you go to a local event or chamber function, its typical you walk away with a handful of business cards from other professionals.  It's not unusual to go back to your office and give these new contacts a follow up call, but that's the old way of doing things!  Take a look at these ways of utilizing those business cards.

 1)  Input the business contacts in an address organizer such as outlook or gmail.  Create contact groups such as clients, advertisers, friends etc...  You can access the info from just about anywhere.  

2) Sign up for facebook, twitter, linked.com and follow your contacts.  Since you have their emails stored on outlook and email, you can upload the contact list to facebook and twitter and instantly add them to your network.  This is a great way to develop business leads if your clients happen to mention something that you can help with.

3) If you currently have an email marketing campaign, send an invitation to your new contact so they can subscribe.  Never add a new contact to your email campaign unless they agree to it (otherwise it's considered spam!).

Maximize the use of your new contacts instead of just giving them the typical follow up call!