Ever wonder how small business owners use business greeting cards to set up effective campaigns increasing customer retention and building loyalty? You’re in the right place. Direct mail flyers have been around for what seems like eons, but that’s not what you’ll find here. Business greeting card campaigns take the efficiency and almost guaranteed open rate of direct mail flyers and combine it with the quality of branded greeting cards. The best of both worlds means you know your open rate will be 100% and your customers will associate your brand with quality.
Business greeting card campaigns vs. direct mail marketing
What are the benefits of *both* of these types of mail marketing?
The benefits of sending snail mail over email in our digital age is clear: people don’t want to open yet *another* marketing email, while opening their real mailbox is exciting. This means that while email marketing open rates can fluctuate wildly (and can often be quite low), snail mail open rates are practically at 100%. Founder and CEO of WordAgents, Vincent elaborates on the benefits of snail mail and more specifically, greeting cards for growing a business, “greeting cards are heavily overlooked in our digital age. Most communications are happening online, and people rarely receive meaningful communication in paper format. When your customers do receive greeting cards from you, they’re perceived as something of a novelty. This means that people appreciate them just that little bit more, and express their appreciation through continued patronage and brand advocacy.”
Send really nice business greeting cards in minutes. Postable will print, address, and mail them for you.
Business greeting cards trump direct mail flyers. Here’s why.
Business greeting card campaigns are just as automatic and efficient as direct mail from the business owner’s point of view, but far more personal to the customer. Consumers don’t pay attention to junk mail ––aka direct mail flyers–– casually tossing the cheap cardstock just as quickly as they see them. Personal snail mail — in a lovely handwritten envelope — will never be tossed. Who in their right mind would throw away something that looks like a personal birthday card without opening it first?!
Because what used to take hours upon hours to write, stamp, and address — now takes minutes. You can use tools like Postable to quickly customize your own personal business greeting cards and set them up to automatically get mailed for you in minutes. Your clients will be pleasantly delighted and surprised to see a personal note since most of their business interactions will unlikely have that same personalization.
Bottom line: the pros of business greetings card campaigns over direct mail flyers
- Personal touch
- Practically 100% open rate
- Quality brand image
- Delight and surprise effect
What are the different types of business greeting cards that I can automize?
There are several opportunities to touch base with clients by setting up campaigns using business greeting cards. Here, we’ve outlined a few of them with a short description of each.
Setting up your campaigns using Postable comes with the following:
- Easy set-up in minutes
- Designer stationery
- Custom stationery with your company logo
- Master message with automated recipient name customization
The process is easy and quick! There’s designer stationery created by the best designers around and the option to use custom stationery with your very own logo. Apply the same message to all of your cards while at the same time, customizing each message with the recipient’s name.
Send really nice business greeting cards in minutes. Postable will print, address, and mail them for you.
Automated birthday card campaign
Let your clients and employees know you care about them on their special day with birthday cards that are automatically mailed out to everyone on your list just in time for each birthday.
How to set up this campaign (start here):
- Pick and customize your business greeting card.
- Upload your customer list with the birth dates listed.
- Write a master message to be automatically customized.
And click send!
Automated business anniversary cards
Auto anniversary cards for businesses can be sent to either clients to mark a special anniversary (first purchase, last service etc.) OR an employee work anniversary. Marking special milestones with clients and employees can boost morale and remind your customers how amazing you are.
Pro tip for Real Estate professionals: Send a Happy Home Anniversary card each year to remind your clients of how much you’ve helped them. This will keep your services at the top of mind when they’re ready to sell.
How to set up your auto anniversary campaign (start here):
- Pick and customize your anniversary card.
- Upload your customer list with whatever anniversary date you’d like.
- Write a master message to be automatically customized.
And click send!
* Same as the auto birthday*
Business Holiday Cards
Make sure your customers keep you in mind during the holiday season by mailing them something joyful. Your clients will be in the perfect mood to open holiday mail — don’t miss the opportunity to remind them of your company during the busiest season.
How to schedule your business holiday cards:
- Choose and customize your business holiday card design.
- Set the date you’d like the cards to reach your customers by.
And… That’s it. Easy as it gets.
Pro tip: The USPS slows down significantly during the holiday season. To make sure your cards reach your customers by the holidays, schedule your cards to arrive shortly prior to the holiday and schedule them at least 9 days in advance.
Owner of WheelieGreat, Perry shared a rather unique approach to his business holiday greeting cards that worked out super well. “We sent a holiday card with an offer of a $10 Starbucks gift card or $10 donated to a local charity in their name. All they had to do was go to our website and fill out the form saying which one they wanted. We had a 83% response rate. This completely floored us as we had expected about 20%. The real advantage to us though was when they filled out the request form it gave them a chance to update all their contact information. We have never updated our customer list more efficiently than this, and it wasn’t even our primary goal. We did make the process pretty painless by having a unique URL for each recipient that pre-populated the contact info we already had on file into the form so they only had to key in the information if it had changed. In addition to updating our records, we received some repeat business from about 20% of the people we gave the gift to and most of that 20% were customers that we hadn’t done work with for over 9 months!”
Business Thank You Cards
Have a great lead? Don’t let them slip through your fingers — send them a follow-up thank you note. Whether you’ve got a business partnership opportunity or a sales lead, give them a little nudge with a follow-up business thank you note and show them you’re dedicated.
How to send business thank you cards:
- Select a design and customize it.
- Write a thank you for your business message.
And click send!
“I always believe that a thank you card never fails to make someone smile. I strive to achieve that in my beard care business. It feels a little mushy for males so I inject a little bit of humor in our thank you cards. I got this idea from customer reviews where they attach pictures of thank you cards and mention how the simple message made their day. Some even relate their impression of the company to the message they received. Overall, sending thank you cards makes the customers feel special which makes them trust the product even more.”
Pavel, founder of TheBeardStruggle
A few tips for setting up an effective greeting card campaign from a small business owner:
Owner of photography business KevMRC, Kevin lays out a few tips for getting the most out your business greeting cards:
- Making the notes as personal as possible without being too creepy is a great way to earn brand loyalty. Use the customers’ first name, mention their previous purchases, likes, and offer special discounts.
- Personalized birthday messages to employees are always appreciated. You can do so by pointing out their admirable features and by acknowledging the value that they add to the organization.
- A good greeting/birthday card leaves out any traces of advertising and is as sincere as possible. If customers sense the sincerity of your greeting cards, that itself will act as a call to action.
Real small business owners who use Postable to grow their customer and employee retention rates using business greeting cards.
Ever wanted to hear first hand what it’s like to use Postable? We asked some of our business users what they thought.
Who: Chloe Friedman
Title: Marketing and Communications Specialist
Business name: Psychiatric Medical Care
*Member since August 2018*
How do you use Postable to grow your business?
Our company uses Postable for the automated birthday and anniversary card feature.
Have you seen any changes in your business after using Postable?
Yes! Our cards are consistent amongst our 500 employees and on time. It saves our team members a huge amount of time not having to do the cards by hand, and we are still able to recognize each employee on their special day.
How has Postable helped your business with business greeting cards?
We were doing our company birthday and anniversary card by hand before. With our growth, we could not keep up manually anymore. Converting to Postable’s automated birthday and anniversary cards have been a huge process improvement for our company!
Send really nice business greeting cards in minutes. Postable will print, address, and mail them for you.
Who: Amanda Blum
Title: HR Generalist
Business name: Capital Farm Credit
* Member since June 2018*
How do you use Postable to grow your business?
We use Postable for sending automated birthday cards to our employees. With over 500 employees, it saves a ton of time and effort by not having to handwrite and address each card. We were able to customize cards that fit the needs of our company and Postable has been extremely helpful in the entire process. I have also used it to create other celebratory cards for our employees.
What [feature] do you like most about Postable?
The automated send-out feature is WONDERFUL. It is what initially attracted me to Postable and it saves the headache of setting reminders for each employee’s birthday since it is all done through the website. It is very cost-efficient for the services it provides. You can’t buy a card at your local supermarket and send it with a stamp for cheaper than Postable!
How has Postable helped your business with business greeting cards?
It has definitely helped improve the culture of our company. Employees enjoy being recognized and it is always exciting to receive “fun mail”! It is a small token of employee appreciation and shows employees that the company cares. We have received positive feedback from employees so I have no doubt that we will continue to use the service in the years to come.
Send really nice business greeting cards in minutes. Postable will print, address, and mail them for you.
Who: Jacqueline D. Hennessy
Business name: Wangler Wealth Management
*Member since July 2018*
How do you use Postable to grow your business?
We use it for all of our card sending needs to our clients- birthday cards, holiday cards, client appreciation event invitations.
What [feature] do you like most about Postable?
I like the automation tool for birthday cards. This makes it easier to set up cards ahead of time and for them to be sent right before our client’s birthdate. I also believe one of the best things about Postable is the quality of the actual product, the feel & look of the cards is better than other companies we’ve used.
How has Postable helped your business with business greeting cards?
I feel like it does take less time to send out cards now than it used to take me and saving time is definitely a good thing. I also feel better about the quality that our clients are receiving and that the cards are not being duplicated (we had an issue with the last company where our holiday cards were sent 3 times to the same clients). I also want to note how responsive and helpful the customer service is!
Send really nice business greeting cards in minutes. Postable will print, address, and mail them for you.
Who: Christina Kozsukan
Business name: One Tree Planted
*Member since September 2018*
How do you use Postable to grow your business?
We currently use Postable to send individuals and business partners greeting cards. We also plant a tree for every card that is sent out!
What [feature] do you like most about Postable?
I like that the cards are very customizable; a lot of fonts to choose from, and that we can upload our own images for the cards. It is also fairly easy to use.
How has Postable helped your business with business greeting cards?
Everyone likes sending/receiving a card, especially when it’s 100% post-consumer waste paper, and we plant a tree on top of that 🙂
Have questions about the best ways to grow your own business using business greeting cards?
Want to sign up for your own free Postable account? Feel free to reach out at any time — info@postable.com.Get started with your own business greeting card campaign and sign up here.
