Are you a business owner or marketing specialist looking for an easy way to build a relationship marketing campaign?

One great way to do a relationship marketing campaign is to use cards because your customers are more likely to keep a card than a lot of other types of mail. Sending out individual cards by hand gets very tedious if you have a large database, so there has to be an easy way.  Fortunately, there is.

Let me give you a good example. We found a great online service that allows us to send cards very inexpensively and schedule them in advance.  This is perfect for a relationship marketing campaign. We recommended it to a massage therapist friend who had 200 contacts in Outlook that he wanted to send cards to. He is also not at all technical, so this had to be easy. We were able to step him through exporting his contacts to an Excel spreadsheet and upload it to the card service. Once he mapped the fields in the spreadsheet to the fields in the online card services contact manager, all of his contacts were successfully imported.

Next he was able to select a card to send to his contacts and customize the text inside the card. The service even provided tags so that each card could address the recipient by their first name so that he didn’t have to create a new card for each person.

Once his card was created and his contacts had been uploaded, he went into his contact manager and selected the contacts that he wanted to send the card to. Very easy. The next step was to select a gift if he wanted to send one.  He skipped that and chose to just send the card and he was done. Less than a week later his contacts were receiving the card that he sent.

There were a few other options that he didn’t choose.  If he had wanted to, he could have picked a particular date to send the card out.  He could have also created more than one card for each person to received and set the number of days between sending each card.  Something like this is great for customers who just ordered something from you.  The first card can go out immediately to thank them for their order and the second card could be set up to go 1 week later after they received the order.

If you would like to know more about this service then enter your name and email address in the form to the right and I will immediately send you the link to the site. You will even be able to send a couple cards on me so that you can try it out.

Michelle Woodworth
Your Relationship Marketing Consultant

Do you like meeting new people from all over the world?  I just found a way to do that without having to leave home.  It’s called Postcrossing.

A friend told me about this great new service last week and I have just signed up with it.  To get started, you register on www.postcrossing.com to create your account.  Then you request an address to send a post card to.  The address could be anywhere in the world.  According to the website they have members in 196 countries.  They also give you a code to put on your postcard so that it can be tracked.  When you receive a postcard you enter the code on it into the website so that they know it has been received.

This is a great way to get a glimpse into other cultures and maybe even make a new friend from somewhere else in the world.  I only started a few days ago so I haven’t received a postcard  yet, but I have sent two.  One to Finland and another to Taiwan.

Now that I’m going to be sending a lot of postcards I’m glad that I have access to an online service where I can design my own postcards for a fraction of the cost of buying a postcard.  They also figure out the postage and mail it for me, so no standing in line at the Post Office.  What a great convenience.

If you want to meet people from all over the world then get involved with Postcrossing.  If want to save money doing it then enter your first name and email address in the form to the right and I will immediately email the link to you.  You will be able to send a couple postcards on me to try it out.

Michelle Woodworth
International postcard sender

Amicalola Falls

UPDATE: July 15, 2009

My first Postcrossing postcard was received yesterday in The Netherlands.  Very exciting.  The lady who received it called it a unique card.  I created it using the online card service I keep talking about and used a picture I took at Amicalola Falls in Dawsonville, GA.

To find out more about how I created the card, put your name and email address in the contact form or leave me a comment.  The contact form is quicker.

- Michelle

Would you send out more cards if it were more convenient?

I don’t know about you, I like to send cards.  A lot of cards.  Birthday cards,  anniversary cards, Christmas cards, Mother’s Day cards, Father’s Day cards, and even Just Thinking About You cards.  The problem is that it is very inconvenient to have to go to a card store every time I want to send one out, especially when you have small kids like I do.  Have you noticed too that the card selection in the card store is very limited?  You can’t find one that says just want you want to say, or if you do then it’s the same old card you sent last time.

Fortunately I found a solution and I’d like you to know about it.  There is a company that lets you send real cards online.  Just go to the website, choose your card from a huge selection (much bigger than the card store) and customize it with your own words and pictures  if you want.  When you are happy with the card, they will print it, put it in an envelope, stamp it, and put it in the mail for you.  On top of all that, it’s less expensive than buying a card at a store.  You get to save time, gas driving to the store, and money.  It’s a total win all the way around.

Check it out.   I’ve arranged for you to be able to try it out with 2 free cards.  I know you’ll like it.  Go to www.sendoutcards.com/meaningfulmail.  Don’t forget the “meaningfulmail” part, that’s how you get to try it out for free. Email me at michelle@meaningfulmail.com and I will even help you send out your first card.

Michelle Woodworth
Happy Online Card Sender