Category: Business Christmas Cards

Show your Company’s Strength with Business Christmas Cards

In today’s unstable economy, it is important for corporations, big and small, to let both their customers and vendors know that they are fiscally strong and solvent. With the holiday season fast approaching, what better way to do so then by sending business Christmas cards? Even in normal market conditions, sending business Christmas cards is a classy and thoughtful way to express the greetings of the season. They also allows you to let your customers and vendors know how much you appreciate the relationship you have with them.

This year more than ever, sending corporate holiday cards will send all the right messages to customers and vendors alike. You want them to know that your corporation is successfully weathering these tough financial times. Sending business Christmas cards with a beautiful design on the finest card stock imprinted with high-quality ink is a perfect way to do so. Not to mention how surprisingly cost-effective and convenient it is! More importantly, it shows that despite the difficulties we are all facing, your company still realizes what and who is important. It may seem like a simple and subtle gesture, but it can also function as a powerful tool to reassure recipients that your company is financially sound and that you are looking forward to continuing your fruitful business relationships with them in the future.

A Business Christmas Cards Reminiscence

As the corporate greeting cards Creative Director for The Gallery Collection, I ‘m privileged to have been involved with our business Christmas cards designs for the last 20 years and I have watched, in amazement, our growth in technology, creativity, and talent.

When our Creative Team gets together to review ideas and designs, they will groan when I start reminiscing about “back in the day” when my only design tools were a pair of scissors and some rubber cement and there was only one computer on the entire floor, reserved for management only…no artist-types allowed! Groaning aside, those old-fashioned ideals that I was fortunate enough to have been taught then – of making quality and imaginative corporate Christmas cards, with quality materials supported by top-notch customer service – were lessons well-learned and principles that have remained strong in this fast-paced, electronic world we live in now.

Today, the Creative Team works away on state-of-the-art Macs with the most up-to-date programs, utilizing all the newest technologies available. Although, in maintaining traditions, we still pull out the scissors and some glitter pens from time to time and still manage to go home with glue in our hair!

Using Christmas Cards to Think Outside the Box

Christmas cards are sometimes more than meets the eye. Yes, I did just use a line from Transformers but not the movie…the only place real Transformers exist in my mind – the cartoon!

Take any of those business Christmas cards you received this holiday season for instance. They may look like just mere Christmas cards to you, but there are other things you can do with these works of art. How about converting them into your own masterpiece? Cut the front off of these beautiful designs; make a collage; and hang them on your wall. Maybe put them in your cubicle, and keep that holiday spirit all year long.

If you want to be really advanced, try and make a customized gift box out of them. These Christmas greeting cards can help make any gift look good. Take a plain gift box, spruce it up with a bunch of cut outs from Christmas cards from years past. Now look at that plain gift box…not so plain anymore, now is it?!?

I kept last year’s Christmas cards and strung them altogether, hung them off the top of the ceiling, and look at that…I had a festive banner. So don’t think all you have to do with your Christmas cards is open them, hang them on your mantle, and then throw them out. There’s infinite ways to use these little pieces of art. Just be creative and think outside the box.

An Ironic Business Christmas Cards Keepsake

When I got divorced from my ex-husband in 1989, it was a very stressful eight months of going back and forth between lawyers and negotiating over every possible detail involving the custody of our children. During the middle of all the negotiations, Christmas arrived with all the usual mail full of holiday cards. But this year, one particular card stood out amongst all the other business Christmas cards I had received. It was from my lawyer and it was the most beautiful and peaceful card I had ever seen. It was a slate blue winter scene with silver snowflakes and a silver full moon. It was the same color blue as my kitchen, so when Christmas was over, I threw all the others cards I received away except for the one from my lawyer. I put it in a Ziploc bag and said I would get a frame for it and hang it in my kitchen.

Several years passed and I got a job working for a company that sells Christmas cards. After my two week training period, I was on the phone selling cards and looking through the catalog, and there was the beautiful card that my lawyer had sent me. I was now working for that company! The card still sat in my kitchen drawer, unframed. Was it fate or irony? The beautiful card that cost me over $5,000 in lawyer’s fees was made by the company I now worked for. The card originally represented peace in the midst of a very stressful period. It now represented my new life at a wonderful greeting cards company!

Twelve years later the beautiful card still remains in the Ziploc baggie, the white paper just starting to turn yellow around the edges. I don’t want to frame it since my kitchen is no longer a slate blue; but I cannot throw it out either. I guess I will put it back in my kitchen drawer and perhaps when I need some peace in the future I will take it out and look at it again.

Business Holiday Cards are the Perfect Expression of Gratitude

This was my first year as a small business owner and I was searching for a way to reach out to my customers during the holiday season. More specifically, I was looking for an inexpensive way to express my gratitude towards 150 of my clients. This presented a major challenge for me. While there are an infinite number of gift ideas, I needed to maintain a budget of about $275 or less.

Exhausted from brainstorming gift ideas, I decided to take a break by looking through my mail. All of a sudden I saw something that caught my attention…it was a catalog which advertised business holiday cards. Bingo! This was it. I could reach out to my clients by creating custom Christmas cards. I immediately turned to the pricing guide and saw that I could order enough holiday cards and stay within my budget. So I went through the catalog, picked out my card, and submitted my order.

It wasn’t even two full weeks when I received my corporate Christmas cards. I was very impressed at the quality of the cards and the speed at which I received my custom order.  And the cards seemed to have left the same quality impression on my clients. I received several phone calls commenting on the thoughtfulness of the holiday cards. I even received a few people who asked me where I ordered the cards from, as they wanted to reach out to some of their more important clients before the holiday season was over.

Business Christmas Cards and the Appreciation Factor

Last year, a little before Christmas, I was in my friend’s office (she is a doctor) and found a Gallery Collection business Christmas card hanging on her door. Even though I had worked for The Gallery Collection for over a year, this was the first time I had seen one of our Christmas cards in a place other than at work. A few days later, I was visiting my dentist, and what did I find? Another business Christmas card by The Gallery Collection!  “How exciting,” I thought. And then right before Christmas I was in my church’s office helping to get ready for the children’s pageant, and what did I see? A table full of business Christmas cards by The Gallery Collection!

Before that happened, I never really had thought much about business Christmas cards. I knew that people sent them (obviously…since I work for a company that makes them), but they never really were something that I had taken the time to recognize. But it got me to thinking about why people send business Christmas cards. Generally speaking, they are sent to show people that you appreciate them and are thinking of them. But this notion as it relates to business never really occurred to me before! While I do think of and appreciate the friends and family members to whom I normally send cards, it never occurred to me how much the people we work with and help us throughout the business day would appreciate these cards as well….and appreciate knowing that THEY are appreciated!

A Business Holiday Card with a Year-Round Gift

When a company that makes games needs to spread a little timely cheer, they look for business holiday cards that will deliver more than just a message. Ignition Entertainment’s video game publishing studio in Gainesville, Florida chose a dazzling Gallery Collection die-cut holiday card to feature their company name and send as a gift to their press and media friends this holiday season.

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Included as a bonus to the beautiful Season’s Greetings holiday card was a desk calendar featuring art from the video game Blue Dragon Plus. It’s always nice to receive a holiday gift, and one that’s aesthetic and practical is doubly welcome. Media contacts and other recipients of this holiday package will be sure to remember Ignition Entertainment in the coming months.

So always think of your clients and vendors when selecting and sending business holiday cards, and spend some time pondering over what small gift they would appreciate. It will make a difference to the person on the other end. A warm gesture is always welcome and will truly endear yourself to your receiver.

What do Brushing Teeth and Christmas Cards have in Common?What do Brushing Teeth and Christmas Cards have in Common?

Brushing teeth and Christmas cards in my house have A LOT in common. My children are the age of “real teeth” and they must brush them religiously! Every parent loathes the idea of having a child less than perfect in a fashion that was avoidable. That whole parent-child psychology thing is a big topic and not one to get into right now. So you ask what’s the connection? The answer is simple – I constantly remind my kids to brush their teeth.

I have four children and they all react differently. Lindsey is great. She has generally already brushed her teeth, and so when I ask, her response “I did!” comes with a big smile. Daisy most often says “Oh yeah! I forgot,” and she rushes off to brush her teeth (despite the fact that I probably reminded her 20 minutes before…she just gets distracted, I guess). Katie, the oldest, rolls her eyes, huffs and says “Daaaddddddddyyy, pluuuuuuease” and pouts, and won’t make a move towards the bathroom and the toothbrushes. Jackie says “Oh yeah!  I will right after this…” and then she seems to always forget until the next reminder when she promises again “Right after this…”

The thing is, helping customers to remember to order their Christmas cards and corporate holiday cards in time often feels like trying to get my kids to brush their teeth. Everyone knows it needs to be done. Some just put it off more than others or mean to order and then forget. In the end I’m hopeful my kids teeth are beautiful – a testament to their responsible upbringing. Of course, I also worry that too much responsible reminding will impact our relationship if they perceive me to be pestering or annoying.

A Healthy Dose of Business Holiday Cards

The popularity of sending business holiday cards is increasing in leaps and bounds as more companies begin to realize the real value of doing so. Working for The Gallery Collection has taught me a few things, among them being the importance of remembering all the people in our lives during the holidays. What might seem like a small gesture can be quite meaningful to the person who receives a business holiday card.

Case in point is my mom, who called me one fine day in mid-December of last year, elated that her doctors had sent her Christmas cards (and beautiful ones at that!) She described one of the Christmas cards in detail, oohing and aahing over the lovely winter scenes card complete with snow-covered evergreens and personalized in elegant gold foil. She couldn’t wait to show the Christmas cards to me.

That Thursday night I joined her for dinner as I usually did once a week. She loves the thin-crust pizza that I always order for us, since they never serve it at her assisted living facility. She always complains about the food there, but that’s another story. Anyway, as soon as I walked in she said “Before we eat, I have to show you the wonderful Christmas card that Doctor B. sent me. It really is special and you know, I’ve been to lots of doctors in my 87 years and this is the first time I ever got Christmas cards from one of them.”

She handed me the Christmas card and all I could do was smile. I recognized the Christmas card as soon as I saw it! It seems that Doctor B. had excellent taste, since the greeting card he sent was from The Gallery Collection. It was one of my favorite winter scenes holiday cards!

As I looked at the Christmas card, I wondered if the good doctor realized how much happiness he brought, not just to my mom but to all his patients. That one little Christmas card was the best medicine my mom could have gotten from him!

Christmas Cards or Holiday Cards? Decisions! Decisions!

A well-meaning office faces a quandary: send clients best wishes for the holidays and appreciation for their business all year with good old-fashioned Christmas cards. Or expand the warmth and gratitude in greeting cards that say “Happy Holidays” or “Season’s Greetings” instead, to show respect for the culture of each of its customers.

It’s tempting either way. Christmas evokes tradition, comfort, and the times when we lived so similarly to our neighbors and the folks at the office.  The Christian faith, the feasts, the gift-giving, and the colorful decorations – these make Christmas a special and irreplaceable time of year for everyone who celebrates it.  Christmas cards have been part and parcel of the season for over 150 years. Can you imagine a year where you saw not a single Christmas card all December?  Christmas cards for the Christmas holiday…of course!

When all or most of your clients celebrate Christmas, the choice to send business Christmas cards is easy.  However, a growing percentage of today’s workforce and clientele observe something other than Christmas in the fall and winter:  Diwali, Hanukkah, the New Year, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, and Eid al-Fitr, to name but a few.  The globalization of our world can be reflected in holiday cards.  While it would be difficult to identify every holiday in a single greeting card, it’s easy and thoughtful to leave the holiday open with a seasonal, non-religious sentiment inside of your greeting cards that lets your recipients know you wish them well, regardless of their religious or non-religious affiliations.

Holiday cards that refer to the “Holidays” or the “Season” give you greater latitude when winter greetings are appropriate and the holidays being celebrated by your recipients vary.  Nevertheless, whether you send Merry Christmas cards or greeting cards that wish Peace on Earth, Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings, any holiday cards you send will surely be appreciated.