Custom Business Christmas Cards

I've just discovered there are a lot of companies and CEOs, or those delegated by them, looking for business Christmas cards to send to their mailing lists. How interesting. I've been making my own big batches of Christmas cards (other occasions too) for about 26-27 years, and have tried out a number of ideas for making mass-produced cards with a personal touch. Just now I'm sorting through many thoughts to zero in on the ones most applicable to business Christmas cards.

There are certain groundwork facts to get clear first. They appear as you answer questions like;
1. Who are the intended recipients?
2. What message and attitude do we want to convey?
3. What resources do we have for the designing and printing of the cards?
4. What is the deadline for getting the Christmas cards into the mail? Or are they to be sent by email?
5. What results do you hope to gain, and how will you measure those results?

Personally, I would also like to know how much of the true Christian Christmas message might be incorporated into the card idea.

There is so much for the creative idea person to choose from, but a narrowing of purpose like this helps to decide from a smaller smorgasbord of ideas for preparing the template card.

It seems very likely that the business owner does not want to go through all the creative stages him or herself. It is one of those things you would like to delegate to someone, have them do the legwork and bring back some sample business Christmas cards to consider and choose from. That gives me the brilliant idea that is called for in this situation.

Provide the answers to the above questions, and make the following announcement to all your employees;

A Contest for Designing
our Next Business Christmas Card

We are inviting submissions to our contest for a good design for our next Business Christmas card.

This card is to be mailed to [eg. all employees, customers and/or suppliers].

We want to convey Seasons' Greetings with a discount coupon and... [eg. if company is owned and run by Christians, add: A Christian theme may be used/encouraged].

There will be a prize of ...?.... [fill in] for the winning design, and we will have ...?.... [i.e.500?] copies printed by our contract printer. [or, ie., on our colour laser printer in the front office].

All contest entries must be received by .................[date].
The winning design must be ready to print by .................[date].
The mailing dept. will have them out in the mail by ........... [date].

The users of the discount coupon will show us the numbers who opened and read the card.

On the latter point, I'm just using the idea of a discount coupon as one suggestion. There are other things that could be incorporated with the Business Christmas card too. If, for instance, you were looking for testimonials to use in your advertising, you might provide a small card inside the Christmas card with blanks for their testimonial, and a line promising a gift if they bring it in. (You may have to consider local laws about unsolicited testimonials first). You could also include a survey card.

To go the extra mile and add more value to the card, you might want to consider extra options.

A greeting card of any kind is considered much more special if it has some two or three-dimensional features. This involves manually gluing on say, a ribbon, or a cutout, even adding a spring under the cutout. If your design is submitted in plenty of time, - may I suggest January - you might have some employees who would not mind volunteering some hours to attach the extras and inserting the promo cards.

Perhaps they would even address the envelopes by hand - but that depends most likely on the quantities you are talking about. Some companies are dealing with hundreds or thousands (and probably chalking this expense up to marketing), where as smaller companies have only a dozen or less cards to prepare.

In fact, if you as the owner, know your employees, clients, etc., personally, and can get the cards done early in the year, then it would be especially nice to have them stacked on the corner of your office desk, and from time to time, open a card, and add a note of thanks for the individual's work done, naming specific acts. You might want to address them at that point too.

In my heart, I know that the amount of loyalty you would foster with that touch could never be measured!

See also Creative Christmas Cards