In Part 1 of Holiday Communications, we considered the holiday greeting card as part of an organization's overall communication package and customer relationship strategy. But, as numerous season's greetings came pouring in to my home-office, I recently began to question, “do any of these messages stand out?”
Indeed, some firms send cards on less traditional occasions. My accountant sent one around Thanksgiving. Not only did that seem appropriate (what better time to thank me for my patronage?) it also came before the onslaught of Christmas missives (whose verses sometimes read like worn cliches).
New Years also seems like a great time to make contact, although I've already received my quota of calendars from financial planners and not-for-profits, thank-you-very-much!
There are literally dozens of non-traditional holidays you could acknowledge with cards. Which now begs the question, are greeting cards -- for any holiday -- an efficient communications option?
With proper planning, I think they can be. Your organization should already have some sort of customer relationship management tool in place. If not, hold the cards for now and make this a priority. But assuming you've got a functional client database in place and can begin planning approximately two months out, a card campaign should be on par with any other mass mailing.
But can we make it easier? I suspect so, but here's where I will defer to two experts within the Des Moines Alliance. The first is Sandy Renshaw. Among her entrepreneurial efforts, Sandy works to make sending business and personal greetings easy through her SendOutCards Web site. With this novel system you can pick and personalize cards on-line ... and leave the mailing to these pros.
Want to increase your communications effectiveness? Ask our e-mail expert Kathy Towner how a targeted, permission-based email campaign goes hand-in-hand with holiday mailings.
Which brings me to my final thought. Holiday cards can be an effective part of client communications, but other forms of contact may be more critical. As I say this my mind is wandering to a start-up tech support company I did business with last year. Their follow-up was non-existent, so I was surprised to get a Christmas card from them. The card was nice but follow-up support would have been nicer and, as you probably guessed, I'd already switched providers.
The moral of the story? Before you prepare for a seasonal mass-mailing, assess your entire customer relationship program. Maybe a well-organized greeting card program is the right move for your organization. But, then again, what you need might be a good client feedback mechanism. After all, communication goes both ways.
-- by Brenda Friedrich, Communications Consultant / Freelance Writer
Join fellow AWC members on Wednesday, December 12, for holiday fun with a little twist. We'll meet at Trostel's Dish for a taste of tapas!
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