Why Innovative Companies Embrace Traditional Ways To Keep In Touch
In the face of rapid, almost out of control change, humans tend to gravitate back to things that comfort them.
At home, when things start to feel a little overwhelming, you might lean on comfort foods and your favourite sweatshirt from high school. Within professional spheres, the same phenomenon is occurring.
Bombarded with email, text messages, and so on, there is a digital hum that surrounds each and every one of us, with the world hurtling along and evolving at a remarkable pace.
Getting Back To Basics With Holiday Cards
With this era of change in mind, even the most innovative and edgy companies are pivoting their thinking and embracing some old school ways of keeping in touch with clients and suppliers. It’s a natural response: it’s not about advertising to them; it’s about keeping the lines of communication open.
Authentic engagement with clients is key to a company’s success. If your customers feel like you’re only going through the motions, they’re not going to respond to you. To get a real connection, you need to reach your clients in ways they’re not expecting.
Stand Out From The Crowd
Call it ironic, but it’s essentially true that these days, sending a greeting card by mail will actually make you stand out from your competitors.
It’s a throwback style of communication that, like the comfort food and sweatshirt, reminds people of a time when things moved a little more slowly.
No one harkens back to the days before modern medicine, but we can all lament a time when people would actually write a note to one another, take the time to choose their words and express themselves with thoughtfulness.
That sort of effort shows a level of gravitas that draws positive attention.
Build A Conversation With Your Clients
Using social media is a great way to stay in touch, but it has to be a conversation, otherwise any communication will be seen as just one-way push marketing.
Our own experience with social media has told us that it’s best to include some follow up using a different medium. Preferably something completely opposite!
Why not communicate with clients on a more traditional platform? A written note or card, works so well as a follow up to digital tactics. Receiving a card in the mail reinforces that you are a real person/your company is made up of real people who not only care about what they do, but they care about your clients.
Create Inspiration For Your Clients
Operating your business on the backdrop of a solid philanthropic style is not only good business, it’s good for everyone else who is touched by your choices too.
The selections you make in terms of resources, suppliers, methods of doing business all reflect on your basic beliefs as a company. It’s those core beliefs that allow clients to see what you’re really about. Of course, you can’t just talk the talk: you have to walk the walk.
Working with organizations that give back to the community—like Charity Cards, where 20% of proceeds go to the Children’s Wish Foundation—shows your clients that you care and you’re careful when you choose whom to do business with.
It matters and you may find that they emulate your example, in time. What better contribution to make than to be the company that others want to copy?
Entertain And Delight Your Clients
Whoever said “It’s not personal, it’s business” has never been an a professional service professional!
Working with clients, building relationships, gaining their trust… it’s all personal. Even the most seasoned professional in any industry will crack a smile at a well timed and tasteful joke, or shed a tear at the pull of a heartstring.
So share a story or message with them that will bring out that emotional reaction, one that they’ll remember the next time they are thinking about a new project or new plans. They’ll think of you first because you took the time to make a personal connection.
Real Cards For Real Clients
If you want to cut through the noise and make an impact, you aren’t going to get there with an e-card.
If this post was an e-card, your client would have already deleted it and moved on with their day.
Take the time to send a real greeting card whether to congratulate them on their success, thank them for the business, wish them the best of the season, or just to say ‘how’s it going?’ It’s that little extra bit of effort that your clients will appreciate and remember.