Season’s Greetings Highly Valued Customer!
Dear [$firstname $lastname],
Has it been a year already? Here at Acme Inc. it seems like just yesterday we were bothering the one person in our office who knows how to do a mail merge to get our holiday cards printed out and in the mail!
We all want to thank you for the relationship we have been able to build together in 2014, except for those of you who we haven’t seen at all. And if that’s you, you can be sure that as soon as the person doing the mail merge is finished, we’re going to get her working on our new CRM software – so you should be hearing from us again…soon!
In any case, we wish you, your families and everyone on your team a wonderful holiday season and a prosperous 2015!
Sincerely,
[$accountrep($lastname)]
• • •
Hopefully you never send out a holiday card as bad as what I’ve created above, but I’m exaggerating for a reason: messing up the “niceties” can be worse than doing nothing.
For instance, over the years I’ve had my name messed up so many ways – and how hard is it to spell Susan?!
No, I’m kidding. It’s Solovic that takes the abuse. I’ve seen everything from Solovick to Solovitz. There are some things you must get right, and a person’s name is at the top of the list. We live our entire lives with our names, they are our most “personal” piece of property. Be certain you get it right, and that includes whether or not a person goes by a shortened version of their first name.
If your biggest client is Bob Smith and you call him Robert in your greeting card, you have immediately eliminated any personal message you were trying to express. (I am never Sue, by the way.) Here are some more guidelines:
- Don’t use a greeting card to push sales. You may seem like you’re being a really great company by also offering 15 percent off, but don’t fall into that trap. If you want to offer a holiday special, do it under separate cover.
- Make your card reflect your company. Does your company have a personality? Try to express that. If nothing else, a photo card of your staff can be a good call. Cards pulled off the sale table at Walgreens don’t cut it.
- Include lower level employees. Don’t over look receptionists, assistants and associates. These are the people your employees deal with on a daily basis. They do a lot of the hard work; show them the respect they deserve.
- Don’t be late; in fact, be early. See if you’re like me: I always remember the first business holiday greeting card I get each year. It’s hard to notice those that arrive accompanied by 20 others in the mail each day throughout the last week before Christmas.
Tackle your holiday card project like you should be doing everything else in your business: Do it right or don’t do it at all.
