Corporate humbug

Christmas comes but once a year, thankfully. It’s a wonderful time for family and friends but when it comes to corporate or business relationship marketing, it can also be a time when the most insincere, plain lazy and low quality stuff happens.

The tradition of a posted Christmas card from one company to its clients is still alive in some places, but not many. The card was either signed by the principals, or passed around the office for everyone to sign their name. It was addressed to the recipient. Often personally. This at least was some indication that the senders had actually thought about who they were sending it to.

Then along came email and with it the ability to send a mass email to all clients with some appropriately cheesy sentiment of the season. It was cheaper and quicker but much less personal than the postcard.

Less personal again was the online e-card, which asked you to follow a link to a site with some even cheesier sentiments, anonymously addressed to pretty much anyone.  It got even worse again, in my view, with the arrival of websites that could animate members of your team into some super cheesy rendition of a Christmas Carol or a nativity scene. Ok, they were funny at first but let’s face it, if anyone can do it, where’s the sentiment or sincerity in that? (Here’s one site http://www.jibjab.com/ which illustrates what you’ve missed out on if this doesn’t make sense to you).

Things took a another turn down when some bright sparks decided to advertise their charitable bona fides by sending out emails to clients promoting that, rather than spend money on Christmas cards, they were making a donation to a charity instead. They never tended to reveal how much was being donated. Often, they didn’t mention the charity. Pardon my cynicism, but if you want to donate to a charity at Christmas time (which is a good Christian thing to do anyway) do you really need to advertise the fact and try promote yourself this way?

So here I am, gripped by a fear of what’s about to come through the email channels in the name of Christmas and goodwill, but in every other respect lacking sincerity or the personal touch. As a piece of client communications, some of these border on the meaningless. There are so many of these that, with luck, yours might be deleted without being read and before your intended recipient can pause to think how little they obviously mean to you.

If you’re about to commit one of the mortal sins described above and might now be having second thoughts, what are your options?

If your clients actually do mean something to you, the option of the personally addressed and signed card, with best wishes for the season, ought in my view to make something of a comeback. If you don’t want to spend the $1 or $2 per client on the cost of the card and its postage, maybe you’re better off doing nothing.

Sending a gift is also a nice idea, probably better reserved for better clients. Bottles of wine have become a bit de rigeur – especially if you’ve wacked your own corporate logo on them – but the recipient with an office full of free bottles of wine probably won’t mind too much.  They also probably won’t remember you too much from the crowd who chose to do the same thing. If you’re going to give a gift, give it some thought and try be imaginative. Don’t just do what you did last year and the year before that – people might be forgiven for thinking you’re not making an effort.

The client Christmas function is another option but remember that everyone’s doing pretty much the same thing at this time of year. ‘Come and along and have some drinks on us and stand around for a couple of hours making chit chat… it’ll be fun’ seems to sum up the approach for many. If you are going to throw a function, try keeping it reasonably intimate and personal so that you’ve at least got the opportunity to meet and interact with your guests. And think hard about some angles to make yours stand out. Once again, use some imagination and dare to be just a little bit different. I’m not suggesting a game of charades but there are some things you can do to help break the ice for your guests (many of whom won’t be well networked) and which will leave them talking about you in a positive way for a while.

Whatever you choose to do, just make sure you do it well. The postcard, the party, the gift – they all require some thought and the personal touch is always best. Otherwise, it might be better to do nothing if the something you had in mind is one of those ghastly, insincere, cheap and nasty e-cards.

And you could always just quietly, and without fanfare, make a donation of time or money to a charitable cause that could do with some help. There’s no shortage of options there.