I’m a big believer in sending out thank you cards to anyone who places an order with me. Not only is it common courtesy, but it makes good business sense. In this age of e-mails, receiving an old fashion thank you card will really make you stand out with your clients. You don’t have to be Shakespeare to write a note – keep it short and sweet. I always include my business cards when sending out a card for my clients to keep or give to their business associates.

Besides sending out thank you cards for orders, you may want to send them for other occasions too. That would include thanking a prospect for meeting you, offering you a referral, or a one year anniversary of being a customer. Some people go a little overboard by sending thank you cards for almost every occasion. Those occasions would include talking to you over the phone, analyzing your product or even taking the time to talk to you even after they refuse to buy from you. While you should use your own judgment about when and who you send out cards to, I would only use them for unique occasions. If you start sending out too many cards to the same client or prospect, the uniqueness will begin to wear off.

If you are lucky, you may be working for a company that already provides thank you cards monogrammed with the company’s logo and address. However, if you are in the habit of sending out more than one thank you card to the same person, I would buy some other types of cards. I personally prefer sending out funny cards because they brighten up everyone’s day. The more unusual and interesting the card, the more likely it’s going to be on someone’s desk for a while. And nothing would make your competitor more anxious than seeing your thank you card on the desk of the prospect that he’s trying to win over.

Below is a shortlist of places you can order funny thank you cards online –

Zazzle.com
Cafepress.com
Americangreetings.com
Bluemountain.com
Greetingcarduniverse.com

In Part 2 of this post, I will outline some tips for preparing Thank you cards.