Do you take the time to send out greetings from your business for the holidays? And if you do, do you do it only for the most traditional card holidays—Christmas and Hanukah, maybe New Years?
If you have not been doing so at all, you are missing out on a great way to keep in contact with anyone and everyone who has been a customer, or who could possibly be a customer. You might want to consider sending out a business holiday card to all your associates and customers and close friends as a gesture of reaching out and letting others know you hold them in high regards.
If you have made it a practice to send out cards but only during the most expected holiday seasons, you might think about switching it up a bit, and sending out a business holiday card mailing for, say, Thanksgiving, or possibly even Easter. Look at your client and customer list. Review each one, and pay attention to your product or service. From there, see how you can best gear a business holiday card send-out to your clientele. For example, you certainly would not send an Easter business holiday card to a company you know to be owned and operated by a Jewish family. Obviously, this isn’t a holiday they celebrate. Or you wouldn’t send a Halloween business holiday card to a company that specializes in only Christian items. Many Christian-based companies see Halloween as a non-holiday.
It’s all about individualizing and respecting different customs. If you keep this in mind, you will easily operate with common sense and a universal understanding. You can then become well-known for your thoughtfulness in sending out a business holiday card for any and every possible festive opportunity. Others may even come to expect such a business holiday card from you, and look to their mailbox each time a holiday is coming around the corner. Grow a reputation as a fun and festive company, one which takes every opportunity to celebrate life in general. Have a good time with your clients and customers, as well as your business neighbors. It doesn’t all have to be strictly business.
Think about how best you can start to use a business holiday mailing as a regular part of “touching base” efforts. What will be the easiest and best way for you to grow your bottom line through the use of a thoughtfully sent-out business holiday card to every client and customer of importance to you? There are a number of options.
Standard Business Holiday Cards
You could buy boxes of cards which would cover any and every holiday. Generic. Maybe nothing more than a nice card stock with your company logo on the front. Sending out a business holiday card like this would allow you to not worry about what is or is not politically correct. Just a business holiday card that says, “Have a happy day” sent out on any given holiday will let others know you are thinking of them. This option does, however, run the risk of seeming too mundane and if it’s done this way too many times, it loses its edge. There is no surprise and no real fun factor.
Traditional Business Holiday Cards
There is no question that sending out a business holiday card on all the “usual” holidays is a smart and thoughtful thing to do. It’s a good habit to get into. For all of those end-of-the-year holidays, a “Seasons Greeting” message is standard and will easily cover each one of the various holidays that come near the same time. If you send out these cards, you are also sending out a message that says you are thoughtful and conscientious, and that each and every association with you is appreciated.
All The Other Business Holiday Cards
How are you going to handle sending out a business holiday card for any of the other holidays? Do you want to go there? You will have to make that assessment on your own. Consider whether or not it’s important to you, and the image of your company, to be seen as truly open and friendly, and possibly even fun. Is that a necessary part of your corporate image? Also make the determination as to whether or not yours is the sort of company from which such greetings would be well-received. You may, for example, run a booming novelty gifts shop. It has rather easily kept up with the flow of the current economic issues, even raising profits, despite the downturn in the economy. You are certain this is because you deal seriously in the business of fun and silliness. People turn to whatever makes them laugh when they are stressed, and you have been right there for them, always at just the right time.
So why not? In your case, it would be a bad business decision not to go ahead and send out a business holiday card that can make people laugh and forget their problems. Cards lift the spirits, if even for a short period of time. Go ahead, intentionally give people something to smile about.
But even for other types of business folks, this isn’t such a unique idea. If you are an executive assistant and work hard every day to make your big-wig corporate boss look good, a business holiday card from that boss that arrives on National Secretaries’ Day will surely lift your spirits. However, a business holiday card received from him on, oh, Wednesday, for seemingly no particular reason, that will make you feel good for that day and for many days to come. Just knowing that the person you work for thinks that much of you, and appreciates you, this is a business holiday card message that will shore up your energy and make you work even harder.
Or maybe it’s a business holiday card for St. Patrick’s Day which you give to a co-worker who has just come to live here from Ireland. This will surely make her feel more at home . . . and give her the sense that you care enough to share in her holiday traditions.
Sending a business holiday card can be the right token of appreciation to share with colleagues, business associates, and customers, whatever the holiday. Reaching out to let them know you are thinking of them can be the perfect message, and you can do that any time of year, no matter the holiday. As long as you are sincere, and show genuine care for them as individuals and not as just another business contact, you generate good will and friendship, and that goes a long way toward good relations—both business and personal.