It is always a good day when you get a special card in the mail. Remember grandma sending you $5 in a birthday card? It was always such a wonderful surprise! Well, that same tradition can be carried on with cards for customers. Christmas cards are a standard mailer for most businesses to send during the holiday season. But, there are so many other holidays, birthdays and anniversaries during the year where a card can be sent creating quite a surprise! Cards are excellent for customer appreciation, but realistically, they are a great for a marketing campaign. They are a wonderful way to keep your name in front of your customer in a unique way. You can create a new tradition of excitement for sending and receiving cards on any day, not just the holidays. Personalized cards that connect with clients, partners or even prospective customers in a fresh and memorable way are a perfect way for a company to express their personalities and a Business brand. The following are some ideas and tips to help your business stand out from all the others with Greeting cards that are unforgettable.
Cards that you hold in your hand are the best Greeting Cards to send, not the ones that are digital and sent online. Because people pull the mail physically from the mail box, you have already gotten your mail piece into their hands. An email greeting card tends to be deleted without having been read. Ninety eight percent of people check their physical mail box every single day. Email in boxes will be checked every couple of days on average. You have a much better chance of getting your name seen with a hand held card.
Greeting cards to customers should be designed to be as personal as possible. When designing your cards, include your logo or a piece of artwork that symbolizes your business. Include graphics that reflect the culture of your company. Hand write the recipient's name in the greeting of the card content. Write a short personal message to every person and hand sign the card in ink. Not only does this little extra effort go a long way, but the receiver will feel like you truly care. Eighty four percent of the people who receive the card, have said that the personalization made them more likely to open the card.
Sending a greeting card for a special occasion to a customer, client or prospect is probably the easiest way to obtain customer acquisition and retention that is out there. You can turn customers into repeat purchasers and keep them coming back with a simple birthday or anniversary card and especially a thank you card. Feeling valued by a company is what people seek. When they begin to feel that way, you have them for life. Sending a greeting card “just because” is also a great tool to use to develop and improve your relationships with past customers. If people who went away from your business for some reason, you can bring them back by sending a “happy day” card making them feel special and appreciated for their past contributions to your business. It shows that you value them.
Keep the cards you send generic. Don’t send political statements or religious leanings to your customers. Make them light and funny and positive. The funny cards need to be appropriate for all age groups so that no one will be offended. The big impact of the card is the private and individual message that you hand wrote on the inside of the card. Your message needs to be short and easy to read and it needs to be sincere. It should reflect your company culture with a dash of humor mixed with sincerity.
When sending your greeting cards, remember that an envelope is part of the overall presentation. Your company logo or a slogan should be on the front of the envelope. Add some color with the paper and perhaps a bit of artwork or a graphic. The stamp should always be a real one so that no one ever feels like a machine just spit the greeting card out. You want the recipient to feel like this is a special piece of mail from the moment they pull it from the mailbox.
The purpose of sending the greeting card is two fold. Of course, you want to wish your customer, client or prospect the best wishes for the occasion, but you also want to remind them of who you and your company are. Marketing your company is always a part of your story. You are simply showing your company’s appreciation while also trying to make an impression and creating the desire for more business. Your company greeting cards should always be sincere and demonstrate your company’s appreciation while also making a lasting impression.
Designing the card depends on what message you are sending. Some companies will have a set of cards for all occasions and they will have a series of similar artworks on the front. You can design all the cards with a series of flowers, boats, trains and landscapes. Over the course of a year, a customer could receive all of the variations for the different celebrations. Companies also have cover art from their business featuring a product that they are known for. Others will use the letters of their company in a classic font on the front with a handwritten message on the insie. The most popular card covers are the ones that feature photographs of the people who work in the business.
When photos of the people working for your company appear on the cover of a greeting card, it needs to be decided who the people are and why they are going to be on the cover. Should it be the founders, the management team, separate departments or the entire company? Funny setups of a particular department doing something silly while working is a solid card cover. Follow that photo with a funny one liner inside, and it becomes the kind of card that goes on bulletin boards. A well posed photo of all of the managers is good for a serious greeting card and another with the administrative assistants can be shot with a happy flair. Many photographers recommend taking group photos outside in better lighting where people tend to be more natural than posed inside at their desks.
Besides photographs on cards, ones using the companies own design elements get a great response. Faux foils, sequins and hand lettered sayings are all fashionable and unique. Geometric shapes, a one item photo or a single word can also create huge impacts and achieve the surprise element of a greeting card. The cover of the card should best express your company’s personality.
Although the Christmas greeting card is the standard card for most companies, there are also a thousand of other things that greeting cards should be used to celebrate. Share a company milestone by sending cards such as the opening of a new location, special promotions or the announcement of a new product. Send them out for anniversaries of all kinds, for birthdays and for retirements. There are many funny holidays such as National Chocolate Milk Day or Plant a Tulip Day that create opportunities for interesting cards. A Happy New Year card is sometimes better than a Christmas card mostly because few people send them and yours can stand out in the mailbox!
Greeting cards for businesses are meant to be fun and light hearted. Let everyone in your company get in on the creation of the card by holding a contest that awards a prize to the team member that comes up with the most creative theme for a card. Connecting with your clients, customers and prospects is the ultimate goal of a greeting card and many others in your company make these connections daily. Their ideas can highlight some interesting ideas for a series of cards and will help make your company card more meaningful and special.
We atEverest Direct Mail and Marketing, have birthday greeting card marketing postcard designs that have a proven track record of success. Other businesses have had amazing success with not just postcards, but Letters with Real Stamps, HANDWRITTEN envelopes with a special card inside guaranteeing 100% open rates. Our in-house design specialists will work with your business every step of the way, ensuring everything from the mailing list to the design is completely covered. Also consider adding Everest Integrated Marketing where we combine Direct Mail, Facebook and Google Advertising for just pennies more per piece and increase your ROI by 200%.
