Do you create company Christmas cards by yourself or simply buy stock cards? And have you had any Christmas card ideas yet?

Here it comes the most exciting, festive time of the year: Christmas. There is no doubt that November and December is the peak business time for businesses of various sections. For the retailing and e-commerce sector, Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is the year’s biggest shopping weekend. In Shopify alone, the e-commerce platform, over $1 billion was collectively sold on Shopify platform in 2017. According to research from RetailMeNot, over half of US shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping before BFCM.

Company Christmas Cards is the most common holiday marketing tactics in B2B

Yes, it is true. Actually, Christmas is the time for you, as a business owner, to utilize this holy season to strengthen your relationship with your clients, business partners, and investors. For startups and small businesses, the founders are so busy with gaining sales that they often forget to build the relationship with their shareholders and existing clients.

Christmas is the emotional time that everyone is open to reading greeting emails and cards because ‘why not?’. Whether you run a small company, a startup or a large corporation, business holiday card is the simplest marketing activity that you need to do (and can do) to retain your business your relationship. Therefore, it is time you should roll up your sleeves and create your Christmas cards that impress your clients, partners, and prospects with your creativity and your company’s personality.

Don’t Sweat. The process of crafting your Christmas cards is easier than it sounds

The progress of crafting an outstanding Christmas card that can help you create a strong impression on the audience can be from easy to very challenging depending on your approach and your teamwork. From our team’s experience, the process of creating a company Christma card could turn to be the most fun time to teamwork disaster. After defining your card ideas and messages, the next step is choosing the delivery of your idea. For a perfectionist, this step is not easy at all.

We want to save you from the trouble of team disaster, and we know that this month is the busiest time for you as a business owner. That’s why we’ve handpicked here the list of the top Christmas card ideas that you can use in this year’s holiday cards. These are the results of what we have curated, tested by ourselves, and seen results.

PLUS POINT:

To save you more time and give your cards more aesthetics points, we provide you our FREE Christmas card templates that are crafted by our talented designers. We know that the best gifts from us are the gift you can use and reproduce ;

1. Be personal and humane with images of your team

Christmas cards are about sending wishes to the audience with the pure goal of paying care and attention towards the recipients. For companies, Christmas company cards are the best placement for you to bring your team to the front. Clients love to see the humane side behind your products or services. No matter how sophisticated or academic your product/ service is, the people behind the products make lasting, emotional impressions on clients and investors.

For startups, this is the best time for you to impress your investors and potential stakeholders with images of your team. Show them the culture you are building for your company: how close you guys are, how fun it is working in the company. Don’t be shy. Dare to be quirky, be crazy. Show your crazy sides to the clients and investors. Make them laugh and make them remember you.

For example, one time, I saw my colleague laughed so hard. She showed me an e-card that showed a bunch of dwarfs with placeholders of human faces. On the e-card, the dwarfs were singing the Christmas parody “All I Want For Christmas is Cash". This is the e-card from her external supplier. She laughed so hard and said, “OMG, I can never imagine Steven, my service engineer guy with this costume!”. “All I Want For Christmas is Cash", BOLD move! And did my colleague get annoyed with that song? NO! She loved it. So, don’t be too shy away from being crazy or funny. (Don’t be offensive though. And know the audience you’re sending too.)

Source: Minted

Illustration of your team is one of the most popular trends of this year as it’s lovely and cute. However, this style requires more time and effort in designing. The use of actual images of your team is more common and utilized at so many levels.

For example, this is a fun twist for your team that features your actual images and humor. Simple and easy to do and clients love it!

Here is for the craziest, funny examples of Christmas company cards using your team/ family/ and pets. But be careful, humor is tricky for the business context.

How's about a little bit more effort on your card by having a theme for it!

Lovely!

Your clients will absolutely love it if he/she is a fan of Game of Thrones.

It looks like family teamwork. But it still works for your company!

This is one of the most common templates for companies to use. But it's never out of fashion. Besides, add songs that your team record can make your Christmas e-cards even more creative and impressive.

This has been going on for too long, lol!

If you love this funny style above, you can download these free apps to easily customize and create your company Christmas cars (ecards and paper cards).

On our side note, we create our own version of Christmas card that you can feature your team. Download our template HERE that you can combine your team images and the illustration.

Conclusion: The best way to do is that you and your team choose a bunch of reference and template. Then, get to the brainstorm session to get crazy and fun.

2. Humor again. But show your work pain

Clients don’t like to hear your complaints about your work, or how you serve them. No excuse uh huh. But at Christmas, everyone is more open and easy. So, let’s your clients know more about your daily pain with the work in a tongue-in-cheek tone.

For creative agencies, they are not shy away from letting it out at all. There’s a whole range of agency holiday cards devoted to showing how difficult it is to get their agency holiday card approved and produced internally.

One of my favorite holiday promos is the short clip of Viewpoint Creative. It is an excellent example of how much work spent into creating one artwork, here it is the Christmas card. After spending hours of making “improvements” based on the team’s opinions, in the end, all the improvements are made just for naught. The clip sends a humorous message about the pain that all creative people have to experience in creating artwork that can satisfy both client's internal members and the market.

Viewpoint Creative - Holiday Card 2011 from Viewpoint Creative on Vimeo.

You’re not a creative agency, but for startups, game studios and small business, it is certain that you have your own work pain in your production or providing service. Have an honest brainstorm with your team and let it all out!

3. Customize your brand characters/mascots

This idea works best for startups with their brand characters (mascots), or indie game studios. For indie game studios, the game characters are what you’re most proud of. Fans love seeing their favorite characters appear in the Christmas theme. Investors love seeing how talented your game artists are because it reminds them that they’re investing in true talents.

Fans are excited to see the artwork for the Christmas theme, and they love to buy the cards to send to their friends and families. This is also a great chance for your studio to run a Giveaway contest on social media in order to grow your social presence. For game studios, there is a whole range of artworks dedicated to Christmas cards.

Minecraft fans were surely excited about this festive artwork.

It doesn’t need to include Santa Claus, reindeers. For example, this Xmas and New Year’s card from the guys at NanaOn-Sha, Japan already made their fans get thrilled.

For us at Aurabear, our bear is our most beloved character. Therefore, we couldn't skip creating a Christmas card from our bear. Do you like it? Feel free download it HERE

4. Bring your company/products to the front of your company Christmas card

For startups and small business, Christmas is the time for you to celebrate your company’s achievements, your milestones or simple your great products. Celebrate small to big achievements of your company with your clients, prospects, and investors. The card is a subtle way to retain the trust that your clients, customers, and investors have for your team and your products/services.  For many companies, it’s the occasion to educate consumers/clients about their company and their product ranges.

Celebrate your achievement is the best way to Merry marketing way. Infographic rocks!

Or, create the card message and design that is resonated with your product and brand like this one:

Besides, you can educate your customers and stakeholders about your company by incorporating this type of design into your cards.

You know who we are, and what we celebrate, right?​

5. LESS is MORE. But, be humane and personal

Sometimes, there’s no need to try to be so creative or be out of the box. Just create a Christmas card that you feel it close to your heart and your style. Be You. Think about what you really mean for your clients: health and wealth. Therefore, using your words to retain the relationship is classic and always the best, safe idea.

Be sincere and grateful. This is the best time for you to show how much you appreciate the business relationship that you and your clients are having. Use words to show how much you appreciate them for trusting your products/services.

I have seen several Christmas company cards with flashy, fancy design, and printed on the most expensive paper. However, the content of the cards is a huge turn-off for me. The cards make me feel like it comes from thousands of printed cards and is sent straight to me from the printing house. As a result, cards like that make me feel like the senders even have no idea how the cards look. In meanwhile, I have seen cards with simple designs, but the content and the delivery of the cards make me feel very personal and appreciated.

In order to add your personal touch to the Christmas company cards, you can try one of the following tips:

• Use handwriting. With the domination of emails, e-cards, and videos, handwritten cards stand out most. It shows how special the sendees are for the senders.
• Use something personal that you and your clients share. For example shared memories, talks, wishes for clients' families, wishes (wish to travel to Japan comes true, for example), some fun memories that awe your clients etc.
• Send some small gifts with your Christmas cards!

6. Showcase your culture, your local unique points in your Christmas cards

If you work with international clients, why not sending your Christmas company card with a little bit of authenticity by showcasing your country, and your culture. Clients love to know more about the trivia or facts about your country. In additions, they love to see how you represent your countries.

If your clients are from other continents, they would be so excited to receive your paper Christmas company cards - cards flying from the other side of the world.

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