What are you going to send out this Christmas, a Christmas Card, or an E-Card?Fewer Christmas Cards are sent from businesses to businesses, stand out from the crowd and send a Christmas Card this year. It may have a bigger impact than you realise.
What are the figures? A study*, commissioned by the Royal Mail and conducted by One Poll, found that 72% of people prefer to receive a traditional card to an electronic version. This figure has gone up from 63% in 2008. 27% ignore or delete E-cards immediately whilst another 28% think they are “silly” or “too generic”. In 2012, the total sales of Christmas Cards increased from 97.5m in 2011, to 101.4m.
What are the advantages of sending a Christmas Card? Christmas can be handled and are more personable, thus the recipient will feel special because the sender has taken more time and effort to choose the card and send it. The Christmas Card can also be viewed again and again, up to and beyond Christmas.
What are the advantages of sending an E-Card? It reaches all your recipients immediately, without costing you any additional time, effort or money. You can send an E-Card as close to Christmas as you like, even on the day.
What are the disadvantages? With Christmas Cards, it does cost you time to write, stuff into an envelope and send. It will also cost you value of the card and the postage. The disadvantages to E-Cards are assuming they made it past the recipients junk folder in the first place, they are often trashed immediately and may not even be opened if the recipient is concerned it may contain a virus.
Whatever you send this Christmas, according to the survey, remember the most important person to send a Christmas Card too… your Mother!
*Total sample of 2000 online adults on 15.11.13 – article published by Royal Mail http://www.royalmailgroup.com/sending-traditional-christmas-cards-still-more-popular-e-cards-reveals-royal-mail-research#sthash.Z5wmfWTl.dpuf #christmas #christmascards #charity