The best Christmas card messages for clients & busi­nesses

Per­son­al­ised company Christmas cards are a nice way of paying in­di­vidu­al attention to your clients, and the perfect way to say thanks for all the hard work you’ve put in together through­out the year. Whether you’re running a small or large company, whether you’re a SMB owner or en­tre­pren­eur, business Christmas cards for partners, followers, fans, and friends are a great way to promote yourself. But this shift from business to sort-of personal com­mu­nic­a­tion requires a skilful hand. The content, concept, and form must be right. Otherwise, well-in­ten­tioned Christmas greetings could be a source of trouble. Here’s our guide for the perfect client Christmas cards.

It’s that time of year again! The end of the calendar year brings with it fest­iv­it­ies and seasonal cheer, but there’s also a lot of business to finish up. Questions you might be asking yourself include: Do I send out Christmas cards to clients? And if so, to which ones? How do I formulate my Christmas wishes in such a way that clients remember my company? And do I send corporate Christmas cards digitally or as a classic Christmas letter to my customers? Are charity Christmas cards for busi­nesses the best way forward?

All these questions are com­pletely valid, and we will get to them in a moment. However, we will first address why it’s important to send business Christmas cards out in the first place.

Not every company sends out a corporate Christmas card to its customers every year as a regular tradition. Often due to their customer database being outdated – smaller companies can sometimes lack a clear overview, and rather than for­get­ting some customers and causing insult, it seems easier to avoid the whole thing al­to­geth­er.

However, customer loyalty is very important and can be sig­ni­fic­antly strengthened by a small, thought­ful gesture like an annual Christmas greeting.

A business Christmas card is really an example of business com­mu­nic­a­tion done well. It shows which company has done its homework. A well-kept email list is of vital im­port­ance. If your customers are used to getting regular emails from you, your greeting won’t come as a surprise, but will be ap­pre­ci­ated all the same.

Christmas cards for clients should be a serious gesture that in­cor­por­ates a bit of seasonal cheer and ap­pre­ci­ates your working partners. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, it might be a nice gesture to others to show them that you’re thinking of them and your working re­la­tion­ship as the year draws to a close.

Even today, most companies still opt for a classic Christmas greeting by snail mail. It’s nice to get something you can hold in your hands, and it means your clients can use a physical card to decorate their space – another great ad­vert­ising op­por­tun­ity for you!

That’s why most business Christmas cards aren’t in the form of a letter or ordinary card. Usually, corporate Christmas cards are a bit more per­son­al­ised and will be a bit creative and more dec­or­at­ive to stand out from the usual mail. A tra­di­tion­al way of doing this is a company photo – but some companies splash out and get sea­son­ally scented sta­tion­ary (cinnamon, tangerine…) – that’s a little daring though.

However, digital business Christmas cards are on the rise. A company may opt for a digital card because it saves on postage, and it’s a more sus­tain­able option. As the world becomes more eco-minded, lots of paper cards might not be the best PR-move, after all. Digital company Christmas cards allow you to be just as creative as snail-mail ones – video re­cord­ings, company Christmas jingles… it’s just a question of how creative you want to be!

What the right form is boils down to two factors, namely your own company and the customer. Creative, digital Christmas greetings are ideal for customers who have a strong digital presence, whereas a snail-mail version may go down a treat for en­ter­prises that are focused on an offline service.

In order for your own Christmas greetings to be suc­cess­ful, you have to think about what you want to achieve with them. What is the business re­la­tion­ship with your client like, and do you want it to become anything else than it already is?

A great start is simply saying thank you for working together over the past year. This might not extend your current working re­la­tion­ship, though, and Christmas greetings can also be used to deepen the con­nec­tion you have with customers, to expand business contacts, and to strengthen brand image. Creative Christmas wishes can even breathe new life into old business contacts as they are reminded of your business.

For a suc­cess­ful business Christmas card, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. What you want to achieve is the real­isa­tion on your customer’s behalf that you’ve thought of them at this time, that you’re grateful that they choose to do business with you, and that you truly wish them well.

In order for your corporate Christmas card to really have an effect, you’ve got to get off to the right start. The way you address your client is of high im­port­ance and depends on your re­la­tion­ship to them. You can split your customer base between long-standing and new customers:

1. The formal form of address: If your company Christmas card is to go to potential or new customers, a formal form of address such as ‘Dear Mr / Ms + last name’ is a good choice. This shows that you’re being re­spect­ful and not pre­sump­tu­ous.
2. The familiar form of address: If you’ve been working with a client for a long time, you could still consider using their title (Mr/Ms/Dr.) to address them. However, this might be ali­en­at­ing to them if you’re normally on a first name basis. Take the form of how you normally com­mu­nic­ate with your long-term clients as your guidance here.

Using your own text isn’t ab­so­lutely necessary, but it’s a nice touch. Lots of other companies will use templates with stand­ard­ised for­mu­la­tions, so your company business card will seem more genuine if you compose something yourself (we’ve got some examples below).

Quo­ta­tions from books, films, songs with Christmas ref­er­ences are a good idea, as long as you reference the original work. These are also a great help when writing in­di­vidu­al Christmas greetings for customers. For example, if you have a friendly re­la­tion­ship with your customer, you can rewrite a verse from a Christmas carol to refer to your business re­la­tion­ship. In the case of a formal re­la­tion­ship, you may want to simply wish the customer and their family a cheerful festive period.

The con­clud­ing greeting should cor­res­pond to the re­la­tion­ship you have with your customers:

Formal:

• With best regards
• Best regards

Christmas casual:

• With a Christ­massy greeting
• Christmas puns
• Wishes for a nice Advent time

If you opt for a physical card, you should put some thought into where you source it from. After the 2019 Christmas card scandal, it would be wise to consider using charity Christmas cards for your business. In 2019, pleas for help were dis­covered inside Tesco Christmas cards, alleged to have come from forced-labour workers in China. The events of the last year also drew public attention to how Christmas goods are produced, and made it clear that sup­port­ing charities during the festive period is all the more important.

At the time of year where much of the Western world aims to focus on gen­er­os­ity, com­pas­sion, and grate­ful­ness, sending charity Christmas cards from your business shows that you are switched on to the sen­ti­ments of the season. Not only will it benefit your public relations, but you’ll be able to enjoy indulging during the Christmas season more yourself, knowing that you’ve supported others in need by sending charity Christmas cards from your business.

As we’ve seen, Christmas cards are not immune to scandal. Even if well-in­ten­tioned, corporate Christmas cards can also backfire – if you misjudge your re­la­tion­ship to a customer, spell their names in­cor­rectly, or simply send something that is a bit ‘too much’. The following mistakes are classic examples, and don’t just apply to Christmas cards, but are good business etiquette in general.

Re­gard­less of how suc­cess­ful your business is on social media, Christmas greetings as DMs are not ap­pro­pri­ate. Snail mail or email are the best (and only) ways to send a company Christmas card. Everything else is a little too personal.

An email should not have multiple re­cip­i­ents, and if possible, it should not contain any links. Clients should all get the same message – the simpler your company Christmas card or­gan­isa­tion, the better!

Business Christmas cards can be sent on card and/or sta­tion­ery paper. A certain level of quality is important here. A greeting on cheap paper, printed with a black and white laser ink won’t go down very well.

If the letter contains a Christ­massy motif, it should be neither obscene nor silly, as this could be em­bar­rass­ing. In addition, avoid using your standard sta­tion­ery, as it will seem like you’ve thought of this last-minute.

The message should contain Christmas wishes and no mention of daily business. If business con­di­tions between the two parties is likely to change next year, this should be addressed in a separate letter. The same applies to ap­point­ments or in­form­a­tion about current projects.

A business Christmas card should also not look like an ob­lig­a­tion. Pre-for­mu­lated, standard texts might give off this im­pres­sion. If you use the same message each year, it’ll start to seem insincere.

As a rule of thumb, the 50th week of the year is con­sidered a good time to send Christmas greetings by mail to national customers. For in­ter­na­tion­al customers, week 49 is a good target. If you did not manage to send your company Christmas cards in time, you should consider carefully whether you should still do so. Late Christmas wishes leave a dis­or­gan­ised impression with customers. You could opt for a digital greeting instead.

If your corporate Christmas cards have been sent out, only for you to realise that they contain errors, there’s not much you can do. Stay calm because you can't change them now, anyway. Ex­cess­ively apo­lo­gising to customers for ill-managed Christmas greetings would only make things worse and draw attention to the problem. Instead, this is a very good moment to plan exactly what you can do better next time:

• Annual analysis: Which customers returned? Which ones have gone away?
• Further training in CRM: Customer re­la­tion­ship man­age­ment is fun­da­ment­al for all customer retention.
• Com­mu­nic­a­tion planning: Are your in­ten­tions clear and authentic in every customer com­mu­nic­a­tion?
• Customer recovery: Lost customers can be won back through pro­mo­tions and offers.

Suc­cess­ful business Christmas cards will have been written in­di­vidu­ally for customers – but you don’t need to start from scratch. The following ten examples can serve as in­spir­a­tion:

1. Formal greetings: ‘We wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and a great start into the New Year. We’re delighted to having worked together, and look forward to working with you in the future.’
2. Formal thanks: ‘I would like to thank you for our suc­cess­ful work together this year and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.’
3. Short and sweet: ‘Merry Christmas and thank you for a great year. We look forward to working with you again next year.’
4. Per­son­al­ised company Christmas cards: Write a poem or a joke per­son­al­ised for your customers.

It’s not only what you write, but what you send that counts. A digital card might be in the form of a video, but snail mail can offer exciting ideas, too:

5. A funny Christmas photo: Instead of using a template, you can take a company photo in Christmas gear. Simply put on a Santa hat or form a Christmas tree with your col­leagues, and you have a very in­di­vidu­al, personal Christmas motif – if a little silly!
6. Biscuits! If you have a man­age­able customer base or want to give your most important customers a very special treat, you can surprise them with something homemade. Bake a few Christmas biscuits, or order some for each customer. This will make you popular!
7. DIY card: Do it yourself is in vogue and can be put into action in making creative Christmas greetings for customers.
8. Christmas presents for the new year: No matter how unique, creative or quirky company Christmas cards are, in January they’re often thrown away. An idea to make a lasting im­pres­sion is to send something a little different – seed bombs are great and eco-friendly, and look ahead to the next season.