Featured image by Annie Spratt
As the holiday season approaches, gratitude becomes more and more of a prominent theme, aside from the act of gift-giving. This time of the year is also an opportune time to send out thank you cards to your current, as well as past clients, regardless of whether they are physical cards or thoughtfully designed e-cards.
When creating these cards, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure that your message is not only clear, but also sincere and heartfelt.
One of the best ways to maintain engagement with your customers is well, by engaging with them. No one can pass up the opportunity to be thanked, especially if they are using your company’s service. By sending out a thank you card during the holidays, you are accomplishing several things at once:
Just because a client doesn’t do business with you anymore, doesn’t mean that they, too, are not worthy of a thank you holiday card. Like current clients, a simple “thank you,” even if it refers to past experiences can elicit positive emotions on their end; that’s never a bad thing. In fact, if such a gesture resonates with them, then they’re even more likely to speak well of and recommend your services to others. Give your previous clients a walk down memory lane in the most pleasant way possible, and write something heartfelt enough to remind them why you enjoyed working with them. Thank them for their enthusiasm, patience, and any other qualities you found them to have demonstrated when they were a client of yours.
Because the holiday season consists of so many holidays, depending on different religions and cultures, try to keep them as general as possible. For example, write a card that say “Happy Holidays” as opposed to a specific holiday. Since the business you run is a global one, you want to be as inclusive as possible when creating holiday cards.
In addition to creating the cards and the messages in each one of them, another way of thanking your current and previous clients is to give them a small gift within the card, in the form of a discount or gift card. Make both your current clients, as well as past ones, a special offer for your company’s services. This is a sure-shot to maintaining good relations with clients you had in the past, as well as those you are serving today.
You can write a blurb along the lines of “In honor of the upcoming holiday season, we’d like to give you 10% off of _______ as a way to thank you for your business.” That way, in addition to whatever other message you’d like to convey before or after the essential aspect of it, the reader will be able to associate your gratitude to them with a discount (gift).
The holiday season is also an optimal time to spread joy and creativity, so definitely consider hiring a graphic designer, or purchase a nice set of stationery from Etsy, as this would help another SMB owner benefit during this time. It could be especially helpful to write out a few versions of templates that can be used, making the process easier to begin.
Then, if you want to say something even more specific to a particular client, you can make note of it to ensure it’s include in their card. Regardless of which way you go about choosing designs, cards (both physical and virtual), and their messages, make sure that you feel good during the process, because at the end of the day, that’s what the holidays are all about: giving cheer, but also receiving it.
Important tip: Make sure you leave enough time in advance to mail out your cards, especially those that are going to make an especially long trip across the globe.