Greeting Cards

How would you spend this five dollars?

Picture me holding up a five dollar bill….
“How would you spend this $5?”

(Some people may say: Subway, Starbucks, etc)

If you are in business, how ’bout this –

How hard did you WORK to GET those CLIENTS –
what are you doing to KEEP them????
one card – “Thank you for the referral”
second card – “Happy Birthday”,
next card – “Sorry for your loss”,
next card – “I appreciate your business”,
last card – “Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays”

“For a few dollars per customer per year, we cultivate and build relationships and your customers will know they are valued and appreciated.”

http://www.SendOutCards.com/1999

Trends in the industry…

Reaching Out
After spending several years concentrating on personal fulfillment and “cocooning”, Americans are now focusing outward, seeking to connect, enhance and nurture their relationships with others.

Friendship cards, encouragement cards and other everyday non-occasion cards are proving popular in meeting this need, and continue to show the greatest sales growth of all card categories. The desire to reach-out with greeting cards appears to be strongest with Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, who are likely to view family and friends as the most important priorities in their lives.

The Designer Look
Greeting cards featuring high-style looks, inventive designs, unusual paper stocks and eye-catching embellishments are gaining favor with consumers who are seeking “something special” in their card-giving. This has led to the creation of more handcrafted cards, cards that are intricately designed or innovatively engineered, and cards incorporating ribbons, feathers, glitter, beads, etc. Despite their higher cost, the designer-fashion flare and artistic uniqueness of these cards continues to win the favor of many card purchasers.

Preserving Memories
Generation after generation, people have been saving greeting cards to remind them of the special relationships and events in their lives. Rather than tuck their keepsake cards in a dresser drawer or cedar chest, many consumers are now formally organizing and preserving their greeting card collections to enjoy time and again. “Scrapbooking” with greeting cards has become an especially fashionable way to document and share memories of special occasions. Similarly, many retailers now sell decorative boxes and files designed specifically for storing keepsake cards. They often include special pages or dividers for jotting down notes and dates.

The Internet and Greeting Cards
E-mail and other electronic methods of communicating have given Americans a convenient and inexpensive way to keep in contact with friends and acquaintances. Interestingly, the increased use of electronic forms of communications seems to be bolstering rather than reducing sales of traditional greeting cards.

Some sociologists believe this is because the Internet has allowed people to increase the number of relationships they are able to maintain, which they then subsequently strengthen by sending traditional greeting cards. Others believe E-greetings are a form of communication that both senders and recipients recognize as transient and treat accordingly. As such, they turn to traditional greeting cards to establish an emotional connection that can be saved and cherished.

I have 6 packages, starting from about $3 up to $500.

The 1st one is about $3/card, that allows you to send out any greeting card to anywhere in the world. This package allows you to send any of the 70,000+ cards we have in our online system, even create your own CUSTOM (by uploading pics from your computer) cards.

The 2nd one is Pay as You Go – (just buy cards and stamps as you need them). Allows you to send out greeting cards to anywhere in the world. This package allows you to send any of the 70,000+ cards we have in our online system, even create your own CUSTOM (by uploading pics from your computer) cards.

The 3rd one is $9.80/mo – (this gives you about 7 cards/mo, you just add postage) (they roll over each month if you don’t use them up, and you can cancel at any time) allows you to choose any cards we have plus allows you to create any CUSTOM cards (basic uploading pics from your computer) you want, and you buy postcards at .49 each, and greeting cards at 1.47 each (then add postage).

The 4th one is $39/mo (this gives you about 33 greetingcards/mo, you just add postage)(they roll over each month if you don’t use them up, and you can cancel at any time) allows you to choose any cards we have plus allows you to create any CUSTOM cards (uploading pics from your computer) you want, ALSO we have many templates, clip art and more you can use with this – like digital scrapbooking (create layers and more), and you buy postcards at .39 each, and greeting cards at 1.17 each (then add postage).

The 5th one is $395 (one time fee) – basically gives you a system JUST LIKE MINE, where you can buy AT MY COST. this gives you about 66 greeting cards to start with, the personal handwriting font with 4 siggys (reg $49), and the ability to use all our 70,000+ cards and make your own CUSTOM cards, PLUS the option, if you want to do autoship, to get future postcards at .31 each, and greeting cards at 93 each.

Master Keys To Client Loyalty

Do you send birthday cards to your clients?
Anniversary cards?
What about holiday cards????
Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays are master keys to client loyalty.

This is a simple concept. Your clients will demonstrate dramatically increased client loyalty to you, naturally, when you communicate that you value the importance of their personal and family celebrations.

Does this ring true for you?
With enough loyal clients, any business will exceed its financial goals.

Is there a magic bullet? Yes. Of course. It has been proven over and over again, for 600 years – send your best clients a greeting card.

Basic, but very, very effective.
Then, why is it so difficult to act on this truth?

Because it is a staffing nightmare to organize and execute. Remembering dates, buying cards, writing the message, stuffing, stamping, mailing!!!

It takes determination, but wait….
We have solved the problem.

In fact, this technology did not exist several years ago.
Never again address, stuff, stamp and mail another birthday card.
In less than 60 seconds, enter your client’s basic information online.
As easy as sending an email, except that your client receives a photographic quality greeting card in the postal mail.

The company prints, stuffs, stamps and mails the card.

Choose from over 60,000+ cards. Custom cards are easy to create.
Even upload your current database in mere minutes.
The online data manager never lets you forget a birthday or anniversary.
Send multiple cards as a follow-up campaign, automatically, whenever you say, even months from now.

Add your signature, even use your own handwriting font.
Add a picture or image from your computer – they print it next to your message.

Compassionate client follow-up the easy, effective way.

This works – beyond your expectations.

Contact me, or see more about the system we use to keep in touch with our clients – at www.ILoveCards.net

The History of the Greeting Card

The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese, who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year, and to the early Egyptians, who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls.

The first known published Christmas card (1843), by artist John Calcott Horsley
Courtesy of the Hallmark Archives, Hallmark Cards, Inc.
By the early 1400s, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year?s greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in the early to mid-1400s.

By the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from a relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing and mechanization, as well as the 1840 introduction of the postage stamp.

The first known published Christmas card appeared in London in 1843, when Sir Henry Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design a holiday card that he could send to his friends and acquaintances.

Although the first known valentine card can be traced back to 1415, it wasn’t until the early 1800s and the Penny Post that they became popular and affordable. Esther Howland, a young woman from Massachusetts, was the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States. She sold her first handmade valentine in 1849, eventually establishing a successful publishing firm specializing in the elaborately decorated cards.

The American Greeting Card
Louis Prang, a German immigrant who started a small lithographic business near Boston in 1856, is generally credited with the start of the greeting card industry in America.

Within 10 years of founding his firm, he had perfected the color lithographic process to a point where his reproductions of great paintings surpassed those of other graphic arts craftsmen in both the U.S. and Great Britain. In the early 1870s, Prang began publishing deluxe editions of Christmas cards, which found a ready market in England. In 1875, he introduced the first complete line of Christmas cards to the American public.

Prang’s cards had reached their height of popularity in the early 1890s, when cheap imitative imports began to flood the market, eventually forcing Prang to abandon his greeting card publishing business. Between 1890 and 1906, there was a marked decline in U.S. greeting card production.

In the years immediately following 1906, the domestic business climate for greeting cards improved, and a number of today’s leading publishers were founded. Most of the cards by these fledgling U.S. publishers bore little relation to Prang’s elaborate creations. The expressed sentiment was the predominant element; the illustrated portions were incidental.

Following World War I, new publishers continued to enter the field and healthy competition produced important innovations in printing processes, art techniques and decorative treatments for greeting cards.

In the early 1930s, publishers increasingly adopted the use of color lithography, a move that would propel the U.S. greeting card industry toward continued growth and expansion.

During World War II, the industry rallied for the war effort, helping the government sell war bonds and providing cards for the soldiers overseas. This period also marked the beginning of its close relationship with the U.S. Postal Service.

By the 1950s, the studio card – a long card with a short punch line – appeared on the scene to firmly establish the popularity of humor in American greeting cards.

During the 1980s, alternative cards began to appear – cards not made for a particular holiday or event, but as a more casual reminder of our connections to one another. The popularity of “non-occasion” cards continues to swell.

Explosive growth in electronic technology, and burgeoning consumer use of the Internet, gave birth to the electronic greeting card or E-card in the late 1990s. The development of this entirely new medium for card-sending served to further expand the industry, producing new E-card publishers as well as E-greeting product offerings by traditional publishers.

Although studies have shown, that most people prefer, the actual heart felt card, in the mail, that they can cherish forever.

The Fire and Forget System

(A metaphor for any businessperson who seeks loyal clients & quality referrals.)
Once upon a time, the commander of an F-15E Strike Eagle squadron was issued a warehouse full of *fire and forget* missiles.
Surely, a no-brainer. Simply acquire the contact, launch the missile, then concentrate on the next target.(Like I said, an easy decision.)
Strange as it may seem, the squadron commander decided against employing this massively effective weapons system.
His reasoning?
It takes too much effort to attach those things to the aircraft.

You will recognize that this story, of course, is a fairy tale.
In reality, any manager or business owner (or salesperson) who fails to acknowledge that all business is a type of warfare, just doesn’t get it.
But they will – eventually.

Why in the world would any businessperson leave to chance, whether or not a client decides to return (and refer friends)?

But, we gave them courteous service and a fine product, is the lament voiced too often by good and earnest businesspeople. Without question, service and product are essential to success. But they are not enough. And the statement is a little naive.

The answer obviously is to go after them (your clients). Make sure that they come back, again and again. Make sure that they want to come back (and refer their friends).

Nagging and cajoling won’t work. Postcards, brochures and letters rarely prove effective. The average consumer receives dozens of these each week.
(Personally, I rarely even open the ones I receive. Although, I sometimes read the postcards.)

The 7.5 billion dollar greeting card industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to indoctrinate every living American that those who care enough, send greeting cards.
(Why not take advantage of three decades of their successful, and extremely expensive, advertising stratagem?)

When you send your new or best clients a greeting card they know you care, because the greeting card giants have taught all of us that this is true. And we believe it, without exception.
Nobody leaves a greeting card unopened for long. In fact, studies show that a person is 11 times more likely to open a greeting card than any other piece of mail.

Your customers will respond, naturally, with greater client loyalty toward you, if you do this correctly. (Just as customers have responded since 1400 A.D.)

Transcendental Marketing Magic

You never know when the person you meet by chance will help your business in ways that you cannot imagine.

Some people call this synchronicity. “Business Networking” is the more common name.

And building a network of business contacts (expanding your circle of influence) is a “no-brainer.” That’s why you have business cards.

The big question, what’s your next move, after you exchange business cards with your new contact?
You need an edge, something to set you apart from every other person with a business card.

The ideal solution has a 600 year history and remains the world’s favorite form of written communication – send your new acquaintance a greeting card.

Without question, it’s the most vibrant way to say:

“I’m glad I met you.”

It’s also a stunning way to tell a new or favorite client “Thank you.”

You say this sounds too simple (not as transcendent as promised)?

Think about it. When was the last time you received a “glad I met you” greeting card from someone you just met?

Try this experiment. Send a “glad I met you” greeting card to the next ten people who give you their business cards.

The results will knock your socks off.

Greeting cards have a powerful impact – far beyond their pretty exterior.

But greeting cards present their own set of challenges~
buying the cards, writing the message, stuffing, stamping, mailing!!!
It takes determination, but wait….a radical new idea in business networking.

A national greeting card company has solved the problem.
No greeting card company has ever offered anything like this before.
In fact, this technology is new, just in the last few years.

Never again address, stuff, stamp and mail another greeting card.
In less than 60 seconds, enter your contact information online
As easy as sending an email, except that your contact receives a “photographic quality” greeting card in the mail.
The company prints, stamps and mails the card for you.

Choose from over 15,000+ cards. Custom cards are easy to create.
Even upload your entire contact list in mere minutes.
The online data manager never lets you forget a birthday or anniversary.
Send multiple cards as a follow-up campaign, automatically, whenever you say…..even months or years from now.

Add your signature, even use your own handwriting font.
Add a picture or image from your computer – they print it next to your message.

An aggressive and radical new idea in business networking – the easy, effective way.
This works – beyond your expectations~