Great Holiday Marketing: Send Clients a Holiday Card They Cant Forget

This is the time of year when many sales messages are simply a waste of moneyunless youre a toy shop! Creative Holiday Marketing Tips to maintain customer loyalty and show your appreciation.

PRWEB) November 10, 2004 -- The best way to address your holiday marketing needs may be to address Holiday Cards to your customers. This is, after all, the time of year when many sales messages are simply a waste of moneyunless youre a toy shop! For most service businesses, however, we recommend no sale mail from December 10 January 12 since it usually goes in the trash unread.

Simple, effective Holiday Cards are a great choice to make up for this sizeable gap in your marketing year. They enable you to send an inspiring message to your customers when it really helps to hear it. They also allow you to express appreciation for their business and keep your name in your customers top of mind awareness.

The trick, however, is to get your card to stand out from all the other cards. Everyone you know is inundated with tons of mail this time of year, so youve got to find a way for your card to get noticed. Weve been working on this for years and have some tips to help you.

1.     First of all, the regular sized cards blend in to the stack and may not get read. Go oversized so people will see it. Usually a 5 x 8 is perfect. Its large enough to be seen and its inexpensive. Good combo.

2.     Next, the stock cards with a picture of an ornament, or some cartoon Santa, with over-used Holiday phrases may be very common, but thats the trouble: theyre common. The message is either worn out or just plain goofy, and they dont stand out or hold a customers interest. Your message should be unique, inspiring, and thoughtful. If you want to see some successful examples, weve created some you can review at http://www.customerpostcards.com. There are designs for both Thanksgiving, and Christmas that may give you some ideas.

3.     For Postage, we recommend going First Class. Why? Well, these should go to your complete customer list, which means youll get back the undeliverables, allowing you to clean your list. If you go standard rate trying to save a few pennies, youll never know whos moved, plus itll take them far longer to get there and may miss the target date. So whatever you saved is lost in a hurry. Yet sending inexpensive Holiday Cards first-class gives you a great once a year list cleaning. Makes sense.

Most of all, a great Holiday Card to your customer list gives you the opportunity to say thanks to the people who are keeping you in business. Customers do all the buying and all the referring; they pay for your employees and they pay you. This is the time of year to say thanks with a nice Holiday message. Plus, your competition probably wont send one, so youll stand out even more!

A unique, creative oversized card that hits your customers at a time where theyre most receptive to thanks will get you remembered for customer retention, referrals and rewards.

Whether you choose our cards or have your own personal cards designed and printed, just make sure you send this important message to your customers: Happy Holidays. And also to you.

Adams Hudson is president of Hudson, Ink, a creative marketing firm. You can review holiday card selections at http://www.customerpostcards.com or call 1-800-489-9099 for more information.

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