It’s that time of the year again. The first Christmas greeting cards arrive in your mail. Customers or businesses you do work with send you their holiday greetings. Some even send presents to you. Now you feel obligated and often that can be the reason why someone sends you presents or holiday greetings to your business.
Do you work with corporate holiday gifts to keep your customers happy and to grow your business? Are you just sitting tight and don’t do anything at all? Maybe it is time to work out a marketing strategy that includes corporate holiday gifts or at least holiday greetings send to your most important customers. So, what can you do?
1) Email Blast
Send a friendly Christmas greeting (or to be political correct: a holiday greeting) via email to all your customers. Thank them for their patronage and wish them the best for the holidays and for the next year.
2) Snail Mail Holiday Postcards
Everyone loves to get mail. Especially if it is not a bill or an invoice. Sending our Christmas Cards via snail mail is a nice way to thank you customers. You’re probably limited to local or country-wide customers as international postage would expand the cost for postage too much.
3) Corporate Holiday presents
Eventually consider to send small Christmas presents to your most important customers. A nice pen engraved with your company logo, a stress-relieving ball, or other small signs of your appreciation work OK. Having that one big customer that brings you a lot of business? Maybe it is worth it to step up a little bit. A friend of mine once received a box of fresh Salmon delivered out of Alaska to his front door in Europe. Now, that is something he still remembers. Maybe do something similar. How about Omaha Steaks? Or a DVD player?
Start taking notes through-out the year if you meet with clients or talk to them via email, IM, or over the phone. If they mention things they like or dislike it might give you a good hint of what to buy or not to buy for them. By early November you might have a good impression of how to surprise those really important customers. Plan for this early enough to avoid problems and stress when the Christmas season arrives.
Yes, sure – these efforts will cost you a little money, but the marketing effect can be quite lasting. And a good relationship with your customers will ensure that your business continues to thrive – based on an existing customer base.
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