A Really Inexpensive, and Personal, Marketing Method: Custom Cards

My buddy Jason was asking me the other day about some of the systems I have put into place to make my business work. “You know, all of this heart stuff is great, but you have some smart systems that are really dialed-in, and I want to know more about them.”

It’s true. I’ve been a technogeek since a young age, programming long lines of code on my Apple ][+. I’ve never been afraid to dive in. And yet, I’m not a professional with any of the technologies or systems I use, and so I know that they aren’t hard for you to use either.

This may surprise you, but one of the most effective is also one of the most low-tech and inexpensive: the handwritten note.

Sure, sure, you say. Everyone knows about handwritten thank you notes. Of course you do. But when was the last time you wrote one? Or three?

You should get yourself in the habit of sending out handwritten cards, even if you aren’t terribly consistent with it at first. Why?

Cards stick around.

They make an impression. Taking the time to pick up a pen and personally write a note, and hand-address the card (no labels!) really reaches someone’s heart. The rare Thank You cards I receive go up on a bulletin board in front of my desk and stay there until the next round comes in- sometimes months!

Current ones on my board: A thank you from my parents who visited us almost a year ago! Two thank you’s from folks at a title company where I gave a presentation recently. A card from my wife. A thank you from our realtors for a referral. And, get this, a birthday card from Southwest Airlines.

How would you like your sincere message from the heart sitting in front of your customers and potential customers for months at a time?

Something physical in front of them that completely trumps the never-ending electronic stream of email and web links?

I have to admit that I’m not always the most consistent with them myself, but I know I’ve written at least a couple of dozen in the past couple of weeks. Some thank you’s for buying my book, thank you’s for having participated in Heart of Money™, a couple of “OOPS, I’m sorry we goofed,” cards where customers were kind enough to let me know about mistakes.

It seems like there is a steady flow of cards going out of my mailbox, and a steady flow of appreciation, referrals, and good will generated from those cards coming in.

As much as you want to, there may be a few things stopping you from writing cards regularly:

• They can be expensive. At US$1.50 – US$2.50 a pop, if you get on a roll and send out 10 a week, that’s $114.80/month, including domestic postage. Not a mortgage payment, but not cheap.

• It’s hard to find cards the reflect what you want to say. Too schmalzy, or too corporate, or too intimate, or somehow not quite -right.- And, when you do find them, can you easily get them in quantity?

• They take time to write. To fill in a whole blank card takes a lot of time and thought, and yet just to write a line or two with all of that blank space around, doesn’t feel quite right either.

My solution is to make custom cards.

They are inexpensive (less than US$0.15 each, including envelope), easy, high-quality, and you never have to run out.

Plus, with custom cards, you can print a semi-personal note on the inside, so you can write a sentence or two of sincere thoughts, and still have the card filled-out on the inside.

To create them, any simple desktop publishing program, even Word, will work. And nearly any inkjet printer bought in the last few years is going to deliver extremely high-quality printing.

I suggest buying a few books of stamps, creating and printing out a couple dozen cards and envelopes to keep within easy reach on your desk, and then challenging yourself to use them up before July is over.

Below, I’m going to give you specific details about how to create custom cards, so you don’t have to guess. And, you can download a pdf of one of mine for an example.

Keys to Creating Your Own Marketing/Thank You Cards

There are three elements you’ll need:

1. Really good paper. Rather than spending money on fancy printing, if you spend your money on really top-quality paper, it will go farther. Even if you spend US$30 on a ream, with another US$20 or so on matching envelopes, you’ll have supplies for 500 cards, where the US$50 would have only bought you 25 store-bought cards.

Make sure: Your printer prints smoothly on the paper. Go get individual sheet samples for test printing before buying a whole ream.

Also make sure: That the paper is thick enough to print both sides without bleeding through. Get samples and test.

Also: Invest in a good paper cutter, about US$30. Make sure it has a ruler along it’s edges so you can easily measure to cut evenly. Nothing can ruin a good impression more than a jagged or uneven cut.

2. A good template. If you measure carefully and set up a template file, you’ll be able to create many different cards quickly and easily. Here’s the boundaries:

The template is two pages. Set up a horizontally-oriented letter-size page (or A4 if you are outside the US) with 0.5 inch (A4: 1.25 cm) margin all around.

Then set vertical guidelines at 5″ (A4: 13.6 cm) and 6″ (A4: 16.2 cm). You will be cutting each page in half on the horizontal.

3. Content!
The first page of your template will have the front and back cover. The front cover is right-side-up against the bottom margin, and the back cover is rotated 180 degrees (upside down), set against the top margin. Use your name, company name, address, phone number and website on the back cover. For the front grab a quote, a poem, something inspiring.

If you want inexpensive stock photography and illustrations, you can find them at istockphoto.com.

Now, here’s where it might get a little tricky. Put the inside content on the second page, rotated 180-degrees (upside down) against the top margin- in the same position you put the back cover.

When you print them, first you’ll print multiple copies of page one, and then re-insert the pages into your printer to print the second side. You may need to print out a few copies and practice re-inserting them into your printer until you are sure that the inside content ends up in the right place.