One of my goals as a greeting card business owner is to use greeting cards in my own business to build relationships with customers, prospects and networking partners. A good excuse for sending a heartfelt card is a holiday. Many people send holiday cards to friends and family, and many businesses send a promotional holiday card to their customers. The “corporate holiday card” is typically all about the business, with a logo, the business name, or even a business card thrown inside. The recipient probably doesn’t get a warm, fuzzy feeling of appreciation when receiving those cards. A better idea may be to create a heart-felt message expressing appreciation for the customer, their patronage and support, with all the focus of the card being directed toward the customer rather than the business sending the card. This approach will let your customers know you care about them, and they are important to you.

Another great idea is to pick a holiday that is not traditionally a card-sending holiday – like Halloween, or Ground Hog’s Day, or Memorial Day. You should probably send a Christmas or Seasons Greetings card, even though your customers will be getting many of these and you fear getting lost in the pile of other cards they receive. When you send a Halloween card, you can be confident that’s the only Halloween card your customer will have received!

Sending a heart-felt card is the important step we are stressing here. Using the holidays as a ready-made excuse to send cards is a great idea. So put on your creativity hat and start thinking about what would make a splash for your spooky Halloween card this year. For more info on starting your own greeting card business, click here.