Should we send a card?

There was a conversation in the office the other day discussing if we should be sending birthday cards to friends, clients, potential clients, etc. The concern was if it would be a worthwhile effort that would be understood as a sincere thought and congratulations?

My question is what is “sincere” today?

When I get a birthday card from my friendly Allstate agent I know it’s an automated act of marketing. They have a system that knows my birthday and my agent’s name, it has a nice hand written font and 10 days before my birthday it shoots out a print, sends it into a folding machine, into an envelope stuffing machine and into the outgoing mail system. Pretty sincere right?

In our case we’re a little smaller. We would have cards printed, fill them out when needed and send a few days before, and probably sometimes after, an individual’s birthday. We probably wouldn’t do it for everyone, but when we did it would be on purpose.

I say that we, without a doubt, should be doing little things like cards to say thanks and congrats to those that make our business what it is. There is to much disconnect and reliance on automation and un-personalized experiences in the world today. A little thing like a hand written card goes along way to remind someone that someone is thinking about you.