The Role of Corporate Greeting Cards in a Pandemic
With the holiday season approaching, it's a good time to think about whether or not you want send a corporate greeting card to your clients this year. Throughout the pandemic you have probably increased your use of e-mail, text, phone, and video conferencing. You may have amped up your blog and social media efforts, but have you considered the role that frequent print communications could play in the coming year, starting by mailing a holiday greeting card to your clients and prospects? There are, of course, pros and cons.
The pros:
- Regular mailings (beginning with a holiday card) remind your clients that you are still there and show them that you believe in the effectiveness of print
- You can use a holiday card to show clients and prospects that tools like personalized URLs (PURLs), quick response (QR) codes, bar codes, personalized videos, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and/or near-field communication (NFC) tags used along with print provide a gateway to the e-world in a cross-media campaign
- When you use printed pieces in your own promotional efforts you are demonstrating more than a new printing method, finishing technique, or variable data tool, you are modeling its effectiveness and showcasing its quality
The cons:
- The biggest concern with sending cards out this year is that because so many people are working from home you may not have an accurate address list (however, this is a good excuse for your marketing and sales people to do a sweep through your list to identify the most current pandemic addresses)
- The cost and non-billable employee time required to produce a card is significant, but I maintain that few of your marketing efforts will be as memorable as a well-produced holiday card (which also gives your art & design department a chance to show off)
If you do choose to send out a greeting card for your company, you may find it useful to have a look at some of the video reviews of corporate greeting cards that I did at InfoTrends for the holiday seasons stretching from 2010 to 2016. I collected all the cards I received in those years and reviewed the processes and strategies employed.