Direct Sellers: Stop Sending Christmas Cards!

No, I am not going all bah humbug on you, just hear me out. If you are in the habit of sending Christmas cards to your customers, here's why I want you to stop:

1. Everyone else is doing it, and in my book that means it's NOT the way to go, because it's not showing your individuality or setting you apart.
2. Think about how many Christmas cards you get from about the last week of November til the end of December. I'd wager it's a lot. Your customers are swimming in them, too. Therefore a card at this time of the year is getting a lot less attention than a card at say, I don't know, ANY other time of the year. Sure, it'll get hung up with the rest of them, or put in the ever-growing pile, and they might think "oh, that was sweet" but then when the next batch arrives tomorrow, it's forgotten. 

I personally think if you're going to spend the money to buy (or design, or make) a card for your direct sales customers, and then spend the money to mail them all out, you want it to get more than ten seconds of attention. So, rather than jumping in with the masses and sending a Christmas card, here's a few other ideas to choose from that you could implement into your marketing plan (and budget) instead.

• Send a New Year's card - wish them the best for 2018, just wait to do it until at least a week or so after the year starts, because by then they are more likely to have already trashed the Christmas cards.
• Send a card for your business anniversary. Are you celebrating a year, or 3 or 14 or whatever with your company? Send a card announcing that and thanking them for supporting your business. 
• Choose a random holiday to send a card for. Personally, I have a marketing plan this year around Groundhog's Day (yes, I'm serious) and I'll be sending cards for that in 2018.
• Choose any other big holiday (Easter, St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, etc.) and use that as an occasion to send cards out to your customers. 
• Are you Facebook friends with your customers? Send them a birthday card for their birthday instead. You can see all the birthdays coming up in the next month, and while it's a little more work for you to keep up with, as adults we don't tend to get a whole lot of birthday happy mail, so this would probably get noticed and be appreciated.

Pick your fave, and give it a whirl for 2018. And look for a future blog post coming soon on 10 other things I am going to encourage you to do for your business in 2018!