Winning Moves: What's on Your Holiday Card?

December 2008 • www.visionsmc.com • 410-849-8095

Editor's Note

There was a hullabaloo on NPR recently about Christmas cards. Jesuit priest James Martin objects to family photos on Christmas cards. As he is quoted in the article, "...even devout Christians have been replacing Jesus, Mary and Joseph with themselves. Doesn't it strike you as weird to set aside the Holy Family in favor of your family? Does a photo of Cabo San Lucas trump the story told by the original San Lucas? Is Christmas really about you?" Needless to say, the mail back to NPR was quite interesting, especially from non-Christians.

I can understand Father Martin's point. Since we've had children, my husband wants to send out pictures of our children. And I've struggled with it.

This year, I actually tried to get my guitar-playing 3-year-old to dress up as shepherd and strum his guitar, and have the one-year-old beside him as a sheep or shepherd. The caption was going to read, "Shepherds why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the gladsome tidings be Which inspire your heav'nly song? Gloria in excelsis Deo!" Note the "was".

The older one, who loves to entertain, was only too happy to comply, but the little one really wanted nothing to do with it. My husband was relieved. He thought it was too contrived. So, while we started to review pictures already taken (and I stalled), we started receiving friends' holiday cards.

Every card we have received this year has had a family photo. Last year, all but two did. Now they are arriving daily and I love getting them and seeing the smiling faces, dressed up or goofing off. We look forward to opening them—we wait (impatiently) until everyone is home in the evening, and we open them together. So for one more year at least, I've conceded. Ours will barely hit mailboxes before Christmas.

While 99% of our cards from friends will have photos, none of the business ones will have photos.

Whatever holiday you celebrate, I hope it is lovely. And I also hope you'll find a way to put more of yourself and your employees into your business next year.

Molly Hughes Wilmer

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Feature

What's On Your Holiday Card?

People buy from people. Yet, despite the overwhelming trend to personalize holiday cards to friends and families with photos, business cards continue to be formal mass-printed affairs.

The worst business cards are the ones that have the company name printed or engraved inside (or, even worse, on the front), and aren't even signed. The greeting and graphics are generic and culturally neutral, ensuring that the cards is bland and forgettable, even if it's on heavy card stock, embossed, and uses metallic ink. Often, you get the same card from several different companies, with the only difference being the corporate name imprint.

The best holiday greetings are often, not surprisingly, from marketing agencies. They aren't usually just a card. Creative types take advantage of the opportunity to display their abilities, and the results are provocative and memorable. Mintz & Hoke usually produces my personal favorite.

Holiday cards aren't the only way that companies can personalize themselves. Whether your organization is large, medium or small, your customer is always a person who wants to buy from people. Different approaches work for different types and sizes of companies, but your customer is always a person.

Personalizing a company is different from branding a company. Brands can be more universal. Personalizing a company is allowing your customers and your employees to have a more intimate connection within the brand. Personalities have edges—you know where they begin and where they end. They are not all things to all people, nor do they pretend to be.

Think of a diner. The brand is defined by the location, the name, the logo, the neon sign, the shiny chrome trim, the wait staff uniforms, the menu, the food on the menu and in the dessert case.

Now imagine the stereotypical diner interaction—an older male who visits on a regular basis, is harassed by the female wait staff, and returns the insults. They have a well-choreographed and very colorful routine, which is rarely politically correct. That is the personalization within the brand.

The diner management sets boundaries and standards both for the behavior of the wait staff and the customers. Within the boundaries of behavior and the brand environment, the sparring partners develop their own highly personal routine (which keeps the customer coming back).

Personalizing your company is becoming increasingly more important for several reasons. As the economy continues to tighten, personal connections will play a larger role. Also, the decline of the one-employer-career coupled with the developments of the Internet have created an increasingly individuated society. We expect and demand personalization—just look at our personal holiday cards!

No matter how you are currently personalizing your company, I can guarantee you that there are more ways you could be doing it today, and technology is creating even more ways for you to do it next year. The companies that personalize well will be the ones that succeed.

What Can You Do?

Audit how your customers personally interact with your company—both in terms of technology and people.

Are they given relevant choices, but not too many?

Are they made to feel welcome?

Are they recognized as a repeat or regular customer?

Assess how much leeway your employees have and should have in personalizing the company during their interactions. A well-established brand can give its employees more leeway—a rogue employee isn't as likely to harm a strong brand. To keep the holiday card analogy, let them choose their own holiday cards.

A newer or less well-established brand needs to provide its employees more structure. Take staff photos of all your internal people and let them add the pictures to their email signatures. Take pictures of your clients at a corporate event, and let your employees send them out with the company holiday card.

Ask the Expert

Question
Aren't there times when customers want to feel anonymous?

Answer
If they want to feel anonymous because they have bad credit, are planning to shoplift, return an item illegally or are a secret shopper, do you really want them as a customer?

If they want to feel anonymous because they don't want someone to know they are doing business with you, does that mean they don't want to have a personalized interaction? If they don't want their spouse to know they bought the spouse or themselves an expensive diamond, that doesn't mean they don't want to be valued as a customer. If they are embarrassed to be doing business with you because of their or their boss's relationship with a competitor, they still want to have a positive relationship with your company.

And if they want to be anonymous because they are uncomfortable about having a personalized interaction within your brand environment, then something is wrong with your brand environment or they are not your target customer.

Submit your questions to the editor: molly@visionsmc.com

Want to Know More?

Let's talk about what you are doing, and what you could be doing. Call me at 410-849-8095 or email me at molly@visionsmc.com.

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