‘Tis the Season.

I just had a fantastic networking/brainstorming meeting last week with an excellent group of AEC marketing folks in DC. Interestingly enough, the topic of holiday cards came up and I was surprised how many firms were not doing anything at all, and even more surprised with how many were taking the path of the electronic holiday greeting.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to touch on the e-version of this annual project…after all, most folks are probably in the middle of it right now.

My personal opinion of the electronic holiday card is that it’s a no-no, and in some cases may actually do more harm than doing nothing at all. In my experience, many firms try it once to save money, but feel it was a mistake the next year. While technology is dominating communications on so many levels right now, the tradition of holiday cards is still just that…a tradition. And although the concept of a personalized card coming from a firm is a step away from the typical family to family greetings over the season, it is very much about opening a warm wish in the mail. (I promise that the USPS is not paying me for this post).

So, what to do instead? Here are a few tips to save a little money if you decide to spread holiday cheer in hard copy.

• Pare down your list…significantly. Top 100 people (or maybe top 1,000 if you’re with a larger firm) and that’s it. Regardless of your bottom line you should be able to afford a nice card to the top 10% of your contacts.
• Send the cards out with bulk rate stamps instead of first class. It saves a lot when you have a large mailing list.
• Allow each department or program area to take responsibility for their own holiday card expenses (not their own messaging or cards, just the size of their list).
• Scale down your project. If you usually send gifts, send a custom designed card. If you usually send a custom designed card, order some this year.
• Cut down on labor costs with tight project management. Set deadlines with principal buy-in, broadcast them to all stakeholders (in this case people signing the cards) and then stick to the schedule.

There are several ways to cut marketing expenses, but cutting holiday greetings shouldn’t be one of them. If your firm is considering an electronic option this year, be sure to track all expenses accurately for comparison to the print option and consider pitching the idea of moving the holiday card to an Operations budget, since there really shouldn’t be much of a sales/marketing slant to the piece anyways.