Clever ways to use cards

I think that you know by now we are big, big into automating everything but the kitchen sink (hey, maybe we can automate that too… hmmm). Anyway, one thing that you can easily automate is sending out holiday cards, for any holiday or occasion you want.

There are two major companies that you can use to automatically send out your greeting cards, ZenDirect and SendOutCards (SOC). Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but the key is how to integrate them with your marketing automation platform.

I assume that you use some marketing automation system like Infusionsoft (the one we use) where you can program it to send out cards at a specified time. Once you do that, all you need to do is to integrate with the card provider.

ZenDirect has a direct integration with several marketing automation systems including Infusionsoft. It even has a Zapier integration to handle apps for which there is no direct integration. Having a direct integration is a big advantage for ZenDirect and for really large volumes, they can be cheaper.

The other advantage for ZenDirect is that it can use merge fields so you can personalize your cards. The current SOC integration cannot.

However, the big disadvantage of ZenDirect and the biggest advantage of SendOutCards is the sheer number of cards available to choose from in SOC. Far more than 10,000!

So if SendOutCards is cost effective in sending the cards, has many more to choose from and is only missing merge fields which may not be all that important, why would you even consider ZenDirect? The reason is that there is no direct integration of SendOutCards to any marketing automation system that I know of. You must use a 3rd party integration. Fix Your Funnel has a great one but it is an extra cost.

Oh, one other thing — SOC has better gifts and gift cards than ZenDirect. That is another reason why we tend to use SOC for our cards. Another SOC advantage is they allow you to design the back of the card (where the Hallmark logo would go) to have your logo and message. You can even have more than one ‘back of card’.

Pro Tip #1: People really enjoy getting greeting cards so send them “Just Because”.

Pro Tip #2: Because people know the greeting card envelope size, they tend to open them rather than send them immediately to the circular file.

Pro Tip #3: Using greeting cards with gift cards attached is a great way to say thanks. When someone buys our JoomFuse product, built right into the Infusionsoft post-purchase campaign is a step to automatically send the new customer a Thank You card with a Starbucks gift card inside. A nice surprise for them.

Pro Tip #4: Send your fall/winter holiday cards at a less high volume time….like Thanksgiving, or New Years, or even Halloween. Your card and your message will get more attention.

Pro Tip #5: There are “holidays” for everything, everyday. Some less observed days like Flag Day, or Pearl Harbor day, and some light-hearted ones like Peanut Butter Day, Onion Rings Day, Flip-Flop Day, Martini Day, Go Skateboarding Day. Check out daysoftheyear.com and others. Get creative and send out cards on one of these days.

Whatever you use, sending out automated holiday cards will go a long way in cementing your relationship with your customer/client/patient.