Christmas card Greetings wording for Business

BizChristmas001 Thank you Vistaprint for sponsoring this post. While this was a sponsored opportunity from Vistaprint, all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

When you are a B2B business, it is important to keep up a steady stream of communication with your customers. One great way to do that is to send them business Christmas cards. It gives you a great reason to touch base and do some business relationship maintenance. Here’s a start-to-finish guide for creating a stellar B2B Christmas or Holiday card.

Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1: Figure Out Your Approximate Cost

, costs are generally more economical. Per card, you can expect to spend around $1.50-$2.25, depending on the kind of card you get (folded vs. postcard, etc), that’s including the cost for a $.49 Forever stamp (see step 6 below). So to figure out your approximate cost estimate, you simply take the number of B2B contacts you want to send a card to and multiply by $1.50 for your low end estimate and $2.25 for your high end.

For example:

Low End: 150 B2B contacts x $1.50 = $225
High End: 150 B2B contacts x $2.25 = $337.50

If you already have a budget in-place, knowing the cost-per-card makes figuring out your list-size a breeze. Just take your budget total, say 0, and divide by your low end and high end estimate. Using this formula, with a budget of 0, you could send out between 222 (.25/card) and 333 (at .50) cards.

Step 2: Decide Your Card’s Purpose

Deciding what you want to accomplish with your cards is an important first step. It can really help you later on when you are narrowing down your list and working on your message and design. There can be a lot different reasons to send out a card. Also, cards can certainly accomplish more than one purpose at a time. But having an overall focus helps the process moving forward as you design your business Christmas cards, put together your contact list, and send cards out.

Here are some specific purposes that may be applicable to your business:

To Reestablish Contact – This Christmas card is very warm and message oriented. The front generally consists of some holiday greeting and a picture of you or your business. On the back/inside, include a handwritten message about reconnecting, ie, “Let’s get together in January, ” etc
To Thank the Customer – This card does not have a pitch, it is just thanking B2B customers for their business. It is similar to the reestablishing contact card, but the message is different.
To Spread the Word About Your Business – One great way is to send cards out to prominent media companies in your local area, key industry suppliers, important industry participants such as bloggers and analysts, etc, potential referral sources, and others who have influence in your area or industry.

Step 3: Make Your Contact List and Check It Twice

Now you have to figure out who exactly to send your cards to and make an official contact list. If you only have 100 clients, you can probably afford to send a card to all of them, making your decision simple. If you have hundreds of thousands of clients, you may have to be more selective. Here are some effective strategies for creating your Christmas card list.

B2B Clients or Possible Clients that Have Significant Contract Potential – Let’s say you have 500 clients but only 75 of those account for 50% of your business contracts. You also know of around 25 other clients that are considering expanding on their current contracts. Prioritizing those 100 contacts, your bread and butter, is a solid strategy.
Get Your Sales People Involved – Another way to craft a quick and quality list, is to go your sales people and have them each give you the names of 20-30 businesses that they think could benefit most from a holiday card, whether that be existing or potential clients.

Step 4: Design a Card that Pops and Says “Look At Me”

Direct mail marketing is still extremely effective, especially for B2B marketing, having nearly 37 times the response rate of B2B marketing emails. But because so many feel it has gone out of style, fewer and fewer business owners are actually using direct mail marketing. What this means for your business, is that you have an exceptional opportunity for your business Christmas cards to stand out. The key is to have a beautiful, eye-catching card that screams, “Look at me, open me, I belong on your desk.”

Here’s how to do it:

Find a Pre-Made Template or Design that Makes Sense for Your Business

For most small businesses, using a design and print service like Vistaprint is the best, quickest, and cheapest option. Vistaprint has a lot of great designs, the key is to find one that looks good and makes sense for your business.

Here are some design tips:

Keep it Classy – Minimalistic and classy is in right now, and it is hard to go wrong with that style of card. Relatively neutral colors and flat colors are a good choice. As a general rule, do not get more than 3-4 colors going on at once or your card gets too busy (especially if the colors are bright). Here are some examples:

If you want to go for a more fun or quirky card, here are a few options that are more whimsical but still look good.

Make Sure it Fits Your Brand and Brand Message – If you are a high profile attorney’s office, you probably do not want a card like this one, which communicates craziness, chaos, and WOW:

Something like the card below would probably be a better fit. It’s simple, professional, and to the point. It says: “We are trustworthy, steady, and high quality” In other words, try to match the design of your card to your brand and brand message.