Postcards from the marketing edge

Reconnecting with friends and family, prospects and clients

It’s that time of year again when you get a festive card from Great Aunt Violet and all the other friends and relatives you’ve scarcely heard from since the last card.

Hope all is well with you, they say. Let’s catch up soon!

Sometimes you do, and sometimes you mean to – but before you know it, another 12 months has slipped by, and you send and receive cards with the same promise to get in touch. 

I’ve been thinking over the Christmas period about reconnecting with people who’ve disappeared off the radar, or become a faint glow when once they shone bright. It’s such a great opportunity to rekindle friendships and even acquaintances that it’s a shame to let it pass by.

And with the new year just around the corner, and resolutions about to be made (and no doubt broken) I’ve also been thinking about how Christmas cards might provide some ideas about how we can – and why we should – reconnect with clients.

Here’s what I’ve come up with: 

• Find a hook. Christmas is the perfect excuse to contact people you’ve lost touch with, since you’re almost expected to send a card. At other times of year, it may be harder to find a reason, but you should, as it’ll provide a conversation starter. So maybe it’s a year since the last order, or you have a special offer that’s exactly right for your prospect or client, or it’s Easter or Valentine’s Day, or there’s a story in the news that ties in with your product or service. Find the hook and you’ll find a way in. 
• Make the first move. If you’ve lost touch with a client, it’s easy to think they’ve gone elsewhere and don’t want to deal with you anymore. Much in the same way as you think a friend no longer likes you. But personally and professionally, it’s often the same story: you’re waiting for them to get in touch, and they’re waiting for you. So make the first move. What’s the worst that could happen?
• Make it personal. The Christmas cards I appreciated most this year were the ones with a few handwritten lines of news or content specific to me. The ones I appreciated least were probably the corporate printed ones with not even a squiggled signature. The ones with an enclosed mailshot newsletter (Here’s what I’ve been up to in 2016…) were somewhere in the middle. Personal is more effort, but it always pays off. 
• Keep it simple. A couple of days after Christmas, I had a text message from a reflexologist I visited last year. The timing was perfect (new year, new you, and all that) and it couldn’t have taken more than a couple of minutes to compose. She hoped that 2017 would be another ‘beautiful adventure’. And so it will be, starting with a series of blissful foot massages which I’ve now set up. (And yes –  sometimes, simple beats personal.)
• Do it because you want to. If you send out a Christmas card, it’s best not to expect to get one back – because sometimes you don’t. People are busy, or they’ve left it too late, or they think physical cards are so yesterday. But that shouldn’t stop you sending one, any more than you should hesitate before contacting clients past and present. Sometimes, you don’t hear back immediately – much like I didn’t last year until March from somebody I’d sent a card to. So do it because you want to. Plant the seed and let it grow. ‘Expect nothing and appreciate everything’, as a yoga teacher said to me, and karma will get you there in the end. 
• Stand out from the crowd.  Each year, I get a card that’s handmade – beautifully crafted, elegantly written, and usually folded slightly skew. That gets pride of place on the mantelpiece, together with odd-shaped, oversized and undersized cards. Early cards get pole position, and even late cards linger longer, as I can’t bring myself to throw them out as soon as I’ve put them up. The message is simple: do something different and get yourself noticed. Whether it’s card or a marketing email, a new year SMS or a newsletter, make it stand out.

Connecting means putting people first, and seeing the trees, not the wood. Meeting them on their own ground, and making them feel like you’re sincere. And sometimes, all it takes is a couple of words to break the ice and start a conversation. 

Which is exactly what I did with the Romanian waitress who served me turkey with all the trimmings on Christmas Day.

Crăciun Fericit (pronounced cra-choon ferri-chit) is my phrase of the week, and may well make it into my card next year when I reconnect with Great Aunt Violet. ‘Merry Christmas’ in Romanian could just earn me pride of place on her mantelpiece.

Happy New Year.