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November 27, 2013

How to Write Warm Christmas Greetings for Your Valued Clients

Filed under: Designing Your Business Communication — Tags: , , — PDWriter @ 2:51 pm

Star Tree Deluxe Holiday Greeting Card by PaperDirectWhen you’re the one put in charge of writing the Christmas cards for the holiday season, it may seem to be a bit of an overwhelming task. You want to write warm Christmas greetings for clients and you don’t want to come off as sounding phony or impersonal. The best way to handle it is to start off with a great, high-quality card, such as the ones we offer, and then personalize it.

  • Pick a design that works with your holiday message, whether it’s religious or more neutral
  • Keep your language natural
    • If you sound stilted or too formal your message becomes impersonal
    • Write to your customers in the same way that you would speak to them
  • Thank your customers for their business over the past yearCrimson Thank You Deluxe Holiday Greeting Card by PaperDirect
    • Tell your customers clearly how important their business is to you
    • Express your desire to continue working with them
  • Take some time to talk a bit about your company
    • Let customers know what you’ve done during the year
    • Give them some information on what you hope to accomplish in the new year
    • Point out any big changes or improvements you may have made during the past year
  • Include a separate sheet on Christmas paper with cards that are too thick to work in your printer
  • If your business is small, mention customers by name
    • If you name some customers you should name them all
    • If you have too many customers to mention individually, don’t name anybody
  • Offer customers your wishes to them for a wonderful holiday season and a great new year
  • Use cards that are either professionally printed with your company name or signed by hand
  • Place your cards in high-quality envelopes – foil-lined envelopes usually impress customers
  • Cards can be heavier than regular letters, so check the postage before you send them
  • Get your cards to the post office in plenty of time to get to your customers before Christmas

Snowy Day Deluxe Holiday Greeting Card by PaperDirectRemember that while you may not have time to write an individual Christmas greetings for clients, to keep things warm and friendly your greeting should be relevant to all of them. Avoid focusing on events that many of your customers won’t know about and instead talk about those things that impact most, if not all, of your customers. Don’t forget that your customers’ very first impression is the card that you use; make it a great one.

May 3, 2011

How to Conduct a Mail-In Survey

Filed under: Marketing & Sales Promotion Techniques — Tags: — PDWriter @ 8:00 am

Kids at Play LetterheadOne level of marketing means getting feedback on various aspects of the business. Being able to poll customers about the quality of products and service will enable you to see where areas of improvement are so you can have an even more effective business. But finding the best way to conduct a mail-in survey can be a problem if you’ve not done one before.

The approach to take on a survey like this would be to define what you hope to accomplish. Depending on how much information you want to derive, deciding on what kind of mail out you want to use will also be affected. The best way to ensure you get as much response as possible, it is suggested to do a one page letter explaining the survey, a singleKids at Play Envelopes page for the survey and also include a stamped, self addressed envelope. Adding the envelope removes the expense of the recipient having to go to the hassle of finding an envelope and the expense of postage.

While you may want to get a lot of data from a survey, limit it to a maximum of 10 to 15 questions, and make the questions answerable with a yes or no checkbox. If a survey is too complex or requires a lot of choices, the recipient will rapidly become bored with it and not complete it. While that may seem like a stingy limitation, consider the surveys you’ve received and why you did or didn’t complete it. That will create a basis for yours.

A lot of information can be delivered from just a few well developed questions as well. One way to refine your survey would be to do a limited test run on a small number of clients. This will show you where possible improvements in the survey can be made. The goal is to have as close to 100% response rate as possible, and having a survey that is easy to complete is key.

There are other ways to encourage survey completion as well. Use an incentive of a discount or of a free product or gift for those who return the surveys. This may seem like a bit of a bribe, and in a way, it is. But there are no real rules on how to conduct a mail-in survey, and the need for the information the customers can give you back will be of far more value than the “bribe”. Check out all your options to get the most from your survey.

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