In the 30 plus years that I have been in business I have received many Christmas cards from clients and I have often felt they lacked any impact… usually because they simply looked too corporate or dull! This year a stream of cards will arrive and vie for display space in your clients office – will yours make an impression?
It will cost more to have one created for you but hopefully yours will stand out compared to the many bought cards crowding your clients shelf.
So, are they worth it? Do your clients even notice you have sent one? Perhaps not, but they may notice if you don’t! When aunt Mabel forgets to send you a card at Christmas, do you wonder why not? Is she alright? Should I get in touch and see? Will your client think the same about you if they don't hear from you? Unless the company you are sending to is small and knows you personally I doubt they will even notice one missing card!
Is it better to send an e-card then? Well again there will be loads of these arriving in your inbox in the coming weeks. The question is: who opens them and reads them? They do get opened with varying success: our own Christmas e-cards for example have an open rate of between 40–55% which is higher than our e-newsletter open rate. That would indicate that people are more in the mood to see a Christmas e-card! They probably have much the same impact as a printed card but get binned as soon as they are opened – no shelf life whatsoever, so the effect is short-lived, however the cost of sending e-cards is far less.
People expect to receive something at Christmas, but do you go along with every one else or make yourself stand out from the crowd? This year, why not be different, perhaps send something after Christmas celebrating the New Year? How about a Burns Night card or something for Valentine’s Day? There are many occasions other than Christmas when you could send a card or an e-card and have much more impact because you are not competing against anyone else. Think about it, what would work for you?
Remember there are no rules – you can time your card to arrive whenever you like, but just be sure that you are creative about it! And if you do want to send something… whatever the format and whenever the date… of course we would love to help!