Getting your timing right is a key tenet of successful marketing. Making the most of seasonal opportunities is an excellent way of creating opportunities to make a positive connection with existing customers, and reach people who don’t yet know you. The festive season ahead is a classic example of this.

This is the first in a series posts, drawn from our FREE Christ

mas Marketing Checklist, to get you prepared to create brilliant Christmas marketing.

Many of you will be thinking about your company Christmas Card, so we’ve put together a quick list to help you make the most of this. You have started thinking about it, haven’t you?!

Who will you send a Christmas Card to?

Writing your company’s Christmas Card list can be a mammoth task. It is important to make sure you don’t miss important people. So, here’s our list of five categories of contacts to consider:

• Employees, plus their partners and families: Remembering the special people in their lives shows that you know and care about them. It is worth taking the time to spell their children’s and spouses’ names correctly is a must.
• Clients, previous clients and prospects in negotiation: You’ll definitely want to send your best wishes to the people who pay you!
• Suppliers and business partners: Think about the organisations on whom you rely to keep your business ticking over. Definitely worth sharing a little seasonal warmth with them.
• Industry influencers: There’s an opportunity here to get on the radar of key people in your industry. For example, journalists or local big-wigs.
• Everyone else! The rest of your database, social media followers and people in your market you’ve not met yet!

Top Tip: “I wouldn’t rely on the data in your database! I know, you should be able to, but let’s be honest, they are never perfect. Get your salespeople and customer service staff to give you a list of who they would send cards to. And, when you have your list together, get them to eyeball it for spellings, etc.” Cheryl Crichton, Certified Practitioner

What kind of card will you go for?

There are a number of options for your company Christmas Card. What you choose needs to reflect your business in exactly the way you’d want it to:

• An off the shelf company Christmas card: A card you’ve bought at the local stationers would probably make me think you’d left it ’til the last minute and couldn’t do anything better.
• An adapted vanilla company Christmas card: Then there’s the standard card, but with you logo and a tailored message on the inside. This tells me that you’re thoughtful, but not particularly creative.
• A custom designed company Christmas card: Definitely the best option, in my opinion. Working with a designer to create a card that says something about your values and style sets you apart. Even better if there’s a fun creative hook into what you do for a living. You can go to town on this… cardboard engineering is rather funky with pop-ups and the like. But, you don’t have to spend vast sums on this. A great idea and a great design, provided to you as a print-ready file means that you can upload it to a print house, or even print-on-demand as you need them.

With all these options, you can also choose to support a charity. And, of course, you can make them into e-cards.            

Segment your company Christmas card list

To make your budget go further, we’d suggest that you segment your list:

• High value clients and key contacts: Funky custom card, hand-signed by you all.
• Other clients and contacts: Digitally printed custom card.
• Everyone else: E-card with something useful or fun.

Top Tip: “Always have a stock of back-up cards to send to people who only pop into your mind when their card lands on your desk!” Ben Wheeler, Certified Practitioner

So, go for it. Get those fabulous cards out there…

© Bryony Thomas – The Watertight Marketer