Blue Eyed Sun

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Card Industry News

  • Special Willie's Cacao Offer for Blue Eyed Sun Customers

    Willies Cacao

    At Blue Eyed Sun we love chocolate and our customers so much that, as a special treat, we have included a gift of Willie's Cacao truffles with every Valentine's greeting card order shipping in January. Click here to login and order.

    We've also persuaded our friends at Willie's Cacao to create two special intro offers for you:

    1. A Free case of Praline Truffles worth £26.52 for gift orders over £170.
    2. A free wooden display stand with 8 cases of 50g bars

    Discover the wonderfully tactile, artist sculpted golden cacao pod tins and astonishingly delicious praline truffles. For details contact Anna on mail@williescacao.com or call 01884 840 650. No minimum order. Free delivery over £170 + VAT.

    Willie Harcourt-Cooze, from Channel 4's Willies Chocolate Revolution, makes some of the best chocolate in the world. His aim is to introduce everyone to real chocolate with the pure, beautiful flavours of the world's great single estate cacaos.

    Willie's dream of making the world's best chocolate was born in Hacienda El Tesoro, his cacao farm high in the cloud first in Venezuela. With beans bought direct from farmers, he makes them into chocolate in small batches in his factory in England, using neither vanilla nor soya lecithin, so preserving the highly individual flavours of the beans. One batch may take up to 18 days, which is a hundred times longer then industrial chocolate.

    Don't miss out on this wonderful offer. We hope you enjoy the chocolates!

    Click here to find out more about Willies Cacao 

    See Blue Eyed Sun at Top Drawer - Stand T42

    See Willie's Cacao at Top Drawer on Stand FE443

  • The Power of Groups

    Group PowerIt’s easy to think that we are alone in this world; trapped inside a bag of skin and doing our best to survive. The truth is far more beautiful than that, for we are all profoundly connected with each other and with our environment.

    Self Made Myth

    We love the idea of the self made man or woman. The idea of the leader or visionary that saw the future and led us all to it. Such people are lauded as heroes in magazines, films and books despite it not being the whole truth.

    In his commencement speech at the University of Houston, Arnold Schwarzenegger believes that the idea of the self made man is a myth. None of us can get anywhere on our own. Every person who put him up on their sofa in the early days when he had nothing, everyone who helped him with his training or English or who gave him a break at a different points all contributed to his finding success later in life.

    There’s a wonderful image from the movie The Straight Story by David Lynch which really sums this up. The central character, Alvin, recounts how, as a game, he used to give his kids a stick and tell them to break it, which they did easily. He’d then ask them to tie a bundle of sticks together and try and break them. They couldn’t. “That bundle… that’s family” he’d say. To illustrate my point, that’s the power of the group.

    As soon as you understand that you got where you are with a lot of help from your groups, you realise that it’s time to help others. Time to work together to build something greater than all of us.

    Family Power

    Group Power

    I got this a long time ago, which is why I agreed to help the late Lynn Tait with The Ladder Club seminars back in 2004 and have been speaking there for free every year since.

    I’ve also been an active member of both the Greeting Card Association (GCA) where I am currently Treasurer and the Giftware Association (The GA) where I will become Chairman this year (I give away 10% of my time each year to helping various groups).

    We need groups like these to help our industries thrive, to help those who need to grow and to help those who are less fortunate (through benevolent funds and the like). More importantly, these groups need us. Yet, so often, many of us are pushed for time or strapped for cash and we hold back on getting involved, because we are looking out for our own interests.

    Speaking from experience, what’s most interesting is that the more you give, the more you receive. It’s like love, the more you love the more love appears around you in the world. Like the brightest star, loving beings light up the darkness around them. Groups which are full of generosity and giving are like the brightest of galaxies, like a milky way lighting up the sky at night.

    It’s the same with teaching: the more we teach, the more we learn (The Roman philosopher, Seneca, observed this almost 2,400 years ago). Every year, after returning from the Ladder Club seminars I say to my team, “OK. These are the words of advice I’ve given others, are we still practising this ourselves? If not, why not?” Every year we improve a little from doing this.

    The Protége Effect

    Researchers have found that students that tutor others work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. Scientists have called this the protége effect. Student teachers score higher in tests than those studying for their own sake.

    Similar studies have concluded that first-born children are brighter than their later born siblings due to time spent showing them the ropes. Cascading mentoring programs, where students teach others all the way down the education system, can help everyone in groups get smarter as they progress.

    These days we are always learning, but are we always teaching too? What are our contributions? Where do we sew what we have reaped?

    Online Groups

    Social media can feel like busy marketplaces full of noise and shouting, without much listening. For me, one of the most exciting areas of social media has been the groups that I’ve been involved with online: primarily with Facebook and WhatsApp (although I have also tested group tools on LinkedIn, Telegram, Slack and Allo).

    Good online groups can be very supportive environments for niche subject areas in order to learn and grow. One of the reasons Ladder Club publishers have been so successful in recent years is the Facebook group that alumni can join for year round support and encouragement. I’ve answered hundreds of questions in this group and it’s so lovely to see how other members (who were previously students) are now answering a lot of questions for others themselves. The group as a whole has grown in strength as a result.

    I’ve also been involved in several networking groups on WhatsApp and have developed and grown friendships that have opened all sorts of interesting opportunities, lessons and personal growth over time.

    Network Thinking

    I’ve written before on the importance of fully understanding Network thinking (which is open, random and supportive) over Institutional Thinking (which is closed, selective and controlling). You cannot be the latter and ignore the former online, especially not in groups. People can sniff out self interest a mile away. Most importantly, it erodes trust. They say of trust that it is won in inches and lost in miles. So take care when building it online.

    Building trust through being open, random and supportive takes time. You have to be open to all comers, it’s random so you cannot simply pick and choose who you respond to based on how it will benefit you personally and you have to be supportive of others instead of just looking out for yourself.

    It sounds easy when I say it like this, but it takes time to adjust. My friend, Thomas Power, who first articulated this distinction and who spoke on the subject at the GA Members’ Day  a couple of years ago reckons it can take up to ten years to make the change from CSC institutional thinking to ORS network thinking.

    Practicing Network Thinking

    When I first watched Thomas speak on the subject I understood what he meant as I have instinctively operated in a similar way for many years. Last year, I decided to test myself on this to see if I really had the stomach for fully adjusting to it.

    Buying and sending other publishers’ cards on The Greeting Card Project felt like madness at times (from the CSC perspective) and yet it was totally essential to encouraging more greeting card sending overall. It would not have worked had I promoted Blue Eyed Sun in the videos.

    The experience has completely changed me and how I see greeting cards. It’s opened my eyes to the life of retailers, publishers and card buying consumers.

    I want to invite you to join the next stage of this project’s journey so that you can experience all of this too.

    Join the Group

    The fact is that I can’t continue to do it alone. I’m like the twig on it’s own in the earlier analogy. I’m at breaking point with it and I need your help to grow this project. It was only meant to be for a year, but I feel at over 20,000 views on social media, that this project has some momentum and could help our industry as a whole if more people get involved this year.

    It’s too much to ask any one person to continue to make videos every week on card buying and to share them online. Collectively however we could do more as a group. Perhaps not just with videos, but with images and hashtags as well.

    So, if you have been at all inspired by The Greeting Card Project last year and want to get involved in sending more cards this year to make it even bigger and better, please join the group at www.Facebook.com/groups/TheGreetingCardProject

    Watch The Greeting Card Project Videos

  • Blue Eyed Sun meets the Small Business Saturday Bus

    Small Business Saturday 2017Blue Eyed Sun MD, Jeremy Corner, was recently invited for a Facebook Live interview with the Small Business Saturday bus in Brighton to discuss greeting cards, retail and small business.

    Small Business Saturday is held on the 2nd December 2017 in the UK. It's a grass roots, non-commercial campaign, which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to 'shop local' and support small businesses in their communities.

    Retailers and small businesses can get involved in a number of ways:

    1. You can register your business and advertise for free in the Small Business Finder.
    2. You can download and use the logo on your website and social media.
    3. Download the free marketing pack in English and Welsh.
    4. Have your social media amplified by sharing with the SBS team.

    As consumers, we can all get involved by shopping local on the day. Support your independent stores rather than just buying all of you Christmas presents with the big online companies.

    The Small Business Saturday bus tour took in 29 locations around the UK this year and offered free business mentoring to small businesses supported by ACCA accountants.

    The video has been viewed over 1,160 times already. You can watch the full interview below.

    Find out more about SBS

    Watch our interviews with the Startup Van

    Visiting Downing Street with the Startup Britain Bus

  • Festive Friday 2017 at Blue Eyed Sun

    Festive Friday 2017

    It's Festive Friday 2017 this week, the day that kick starts UK Christmas card sending and we take time to think of all those we care about and get busy writing and sending them Christmas cards.

    The UK Greeting Card Association launched the Festive Friday campaign four years ago to encourage card publishers and retailers to send their Christmas cards early to help remind everyone to remember to send theirs. There are around 100,000 people working directly and indirectly with the UK card industry. If each of us sends 10 Christmas cards to arrive in the first week of December it will have a fantastic ripple effect from those first million gestures. Last year had a fantastic effect on our industry and we hope that this fun initiative will continue for many years to come.

    At Blue Eyed Sun we've been getting into the Christmas spirit early and held a 'christmas card writing hour' for our team to write and send cards to their loved ones to support the Festive Friday 2017 campaign. We sponsored the cards, their time and the postage to support the GCA campaign. All our team had to do was to write as many cards as they wanted to in the hour. We managed over 200 Christmas cards between us, which will be making their way via Royal Mail over the weekend to their lucky recipients.

    Our team had a lot of fun on Festive Friday 2017 with Christmas jumpers and Santa and Elf hats to get us in the spirit. It's a wonderful feeling when we think about all of the love going out into the world from this short amount of time dedicated to card sending and we recommend it to anyone involved in the card industry.

    Even if you are not in the card industry, it is a special time of year to connect with your customers, friends and loved ones. Send them a nice Christmas card with a warm message in it expressing your gratitude and wishing them all the best for the New Year. We hope you enjoy spreading festive cheer around the world.

    Download a Free Toolkit for Festive Friday from the GCA website

    Cards can have valuable emotional impact in your loved ones' lives.

    There are only a few days left to get cards in the post though, so do get started this week. I've listed the Royal Mail's last posting dates below. Want to print this info out for your customers? Click here to download the dates in a PDF.

    Find out more about Blue Eyed Sun's Christmas cards for 2017 here. Available at all good card retailers.

    Festive Friday 2017

    Last Posting Dates 2017

  • Eight Changes in Retail Technology

    8 Changes Retail Technology

    There are some remarkable changes happening in retail technology at the moment - some of which have already made it into our everyday lives and some which might be on their way to mass adoption in the coming years.

    Here are eight interesting examples of changes in retail technology:

    Pepper Robot Retail Technology

    Robots and AI

    Softbank have been testing a humanoid robot called Pepper in thousands of retail sites. Pepper is fun, speaks 19 languages and is designed to recognise principle human emotions (by analysing facial expressions) and respond accordingly.

    Virtual Shopping Retail Technology

    Virtual Shopping

    Customers can scan a variety of products on a display wall at trains stations and airports and their order will be waiting for them when they return home. Early adopters include Home Plus in South Korea and Tesco, Ocado and John Lewis in the UK.

    Amazon Echo Retail Technology

    Voice

    Voice recognition software has been getting more and more powerful. Amazon Echo and its virtual assistant, Alexa, make it remarkably easy to order almost anything by voice from the comfort of your home.

    Self Service Checkout Retail Technology

    Self-Service Checkout

    Mostly used by Supermarket chains, we’ve all adapted to scanning and paying by ourselves at self service checkout tills. Customers are able to move at their own speed and retailers are able to reduce staff overhead.

    Amazon Go Retail Technology

    Amazon Go

    Amazon have been testing a bricks and mortar grocery store concept in the US. Using their app, you simply walk into the store, grab the items you need and just walk out. There are no tills and payment is taken from your account on exiting the store.

    Payment Tools Retail Technology

    Payment Devices

    Companies like Square, Paypal and iZettle now offer solutions for anyone to be able to retail from anywhere. You can attach a variety of devices to your mobile device and take credit card payments.

    Contactless Retail Technology

    Contactless

    There are now over 100 million contactless bank cards in the UK. We are using them, our watches and our phones to make faster payments for small purchases. Alibaba have recently started debuting payments by facial recognition with 'smile to pay' tech at KFC in China.

    Amazon Drone Retail Technology

    Drones

    Amazon have started making small deliveries by drone with their Prime Air service. Waiting times for certain products are reduced to as little as fifteen minutes from the time of ordering online in the comfort of your home.

    These changes in retail technology can seem daunting for small independent businesses and whilst we won't necessarily want robots manning all our stores in the future it is interesting to see which changes will be widely adopted and which won't. This is turn will give us insights into how consumers like to shop and how we independent retailers can adapt to meet key customer needs.

    Read more on the opportunities and obstacles on The Digital High Street

    How to get more customers to your retail business

    What do consumers want from retailers?

  • The Digital High Street: Opportunities and Obstacles

    The Digital High Street

    There’s no escaping it, we are living in an age of rapid technological growth and it’s having a dramatic effect on our high streets and retail businesses.

    The internet and online shopping are obvious examples. Payment technology like direct debits, standing orders and online banking have also reduced footfall to high street banks and post offices, which in turn has made it tougher for other retailers at these locations.

    Consumers are Changing

    Most of us are using our phones and mobile devices daily. We are sharing our experiences and thoughts and feelings about the world on a regular basis online. The way we consume products is also changing.

    Anything that can be commoditised is and the lowest price has become the dominant choice factor for these items. Only strong brand stories are able to survive the squeeze on pricing that the internet has brought with it. It’s never been more important to be clear on who you are, who your customers are and how you communicate your story to them.

    Consumers are savvier than ever. They often know exactly what they want when walking into stores after having spent hours online researching. They want authentic brands and experiences that they can share online. They want to buy from companies that share their values.

    This changing retail landscape brings with it a number of opportunities that retailers can take advantage of and obstacles that businesses must overcome.

    Opportunities

    Here are four opportunities that digital technology offers retailers:

    1. Clout

    The internet allows you to punch above your weight. Your retail business is no longer restricted by the physical size of your bricks and mortar store. You can project yourself as much bigger than you really are. The web also gives you reach by allowing your brand story to be shared beyond your physical locality.

    2. Amplification

    Social Media allows you to amplify your message by harnessing the power of your raving fans allowing them to shout about you from the rooftops. You can create reassurance through customer reviews and discover what people love and hate about your business. Using tools like Google my Business it’s a lot easier for people to find and talk about your business. It’s also easier to find journalists and PR opportunities to boost your profile.

    3. Global

    The internet is global, which means that you can now sell worldwide at any time for the day or night. Your story can travel to all four corners of the planet. You also have access to digital marketplaces like Amazon with over 20 million customers a month visiting their website. Never before has it been easier to get started selling online, even without a website.

    4. Fast and Fun

    This technological change has brought with it opportunities for personal growth and development on an unprecedented scale. We can train ourselves in almost any subject online. Social Media is allowing to create powerful networks and discover new friendships that can help us to grow. Social selling has become a thing.

    In some respects, it’s never been easier to retail goods or services. For example, my yoga instructor posts pictures of body butters she manufactures at home. The orders are placed in the comments below her posts on Instagram and Facebook and she collects the cash from them when she hands over the goods. She can also take payments by PayPal, where all her customers need to know is the amount and her email. Despite all this, most retailers often have some hurdles to navigate.

    Obstacles

    Here are four obstacles for retailers to overcome on the digital high street:

    1. Time

    We all know that spending time on our phones and digital devices can sometimes feel wasteful. There’s also so much choice that it can be difficult to know where to start. It’s useful to focus on customer needs to decide on your priorities. Then you can allocate sufficient amounts of time to your digital activities. The trick with all online marketing is to be consistent. If you start a weekly blog, make sure that you can keep it up every week.

    2. Finance

    Building websites and investing in digital marketing can be expensive. I always recommend that people test first. So, try selling on an online marketplace, like Amazon, before spending thousands on a website. Your website will never beat Amazon for SEO, efficiency and technological sophistication so test there first. Sort out your Google listing for free first. Buy your web domain and have a simple web page before spending on an ecommerce website.

    3. You’re Unknown

    Building a website is not like starting a shop on the high street, it’s like starting a shop in the desert with no roads to or from it. You need to be discoverable online, so start with something, even if it’s just a Facebook page or a one page website. Get clear on what your brand story is and what makes you unique, then start consistently sharing it online. Think of yourself as a road builder, building links to your digital presence on a daily basis.

    4. Technology

    Tech is changing all the time at a rapid rate. You are a retailer not a web designer, so outsource to experienced eperts to get the best results. Get training so that you make the most of your SEO, social media or ecommerce online. Finally, make sure you study your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) each week so that you can adjust quickly as you learn what works and doesn’t.

    Have you adopted aspects of the digital high street yet or do you still have your head in the sand? You must act now. You can begin by getting to know your best customers well, understanding your brand story and start connecting with them online. If you only do one thing though, work hard to reduce queues (e.g. with contactless) and improve customer experience in your shop. This is what most of the technological advances shown are focussed on.

    Eight Changes in Retail Technology

    How Retailers can start selling Online

    Nine Tips for Social Selling on Social Media

    See below for the slides from my recent talk on The Digital High Street at Autumn Fair, NEC:

  • 5 Great Card Sending Initiatives Worth Sharing on Social Media

    Greeting Card Sending Initiatives

    The world is changing so fast that it's easy to forget the small pleasures in life, like buying and sending a card to someone. It's such a lovely gift to receive a card too.

    Here are five wonderful card sending initiatives that support more greeting card sending:

    Just A Card Campaign1. Just a Card

    I'm a big fan of the Just a Card campaign to support independent retailers and designer makers. The campaign reminds us all that even small purchases with our independent retailers can make a big difference. As can buying a card by an small publisher. Follow #JustACard on social.

    Thinking Of You Week 2017

    2. Thinking of You Week

    Thinking of You Week inspires people to create a wave of love, caring and happiness by sending greeting cards to different people during the week. Thinking of You Week runs from 25th September - 1st October 2017. I like this reminder to focus on others for a week  by sending more cards. Be sure to involved this September.

    Postmark Feel Good Friday

    3. Feel Good Friday

    Feel Good Friday is a brilliant card sending initiative from London retailer Postmark. To encourage more people send cards, Postmark offer a free card from a special box on certain Fridays, as long as you write it in the store there and then. They’ll even post anywhere in the UK for you for FREE! Visit the stores to find out more.

    The Greeting Card Project Initiative

    4. The Greeting Card Project

    Last year I realised that I don't send that many cards personally. As a New Year's Resolution for 2017 I decided change this. Each week I visit a different shop, buy cards and send them whilst sharing my experiences on YouTube and social media. This card sending initiative aims to inspire others to send more cards too. Follow The Greeting Card Project.

    Festive Friday 2017

    Festive Friday

    Festive Friday is on Friday the 1st December 2017. The aim is encourage card lovers to send their Christmas cards early. The idea is that this wave of sparkly Christmas card sending will get everyone in the Christmas card sending mood. We have a lot of fun with Festive Friday each year in our offices. Why not join in this year?

    If you love cards as much as we do, be sure to spread the word about these great initiatives.

    Sharing is caring so get involved on social media and share your stories about card sending.

    Will the Greeting Card Industry be Vaporised?

    14 Lessons learned making The Greeting Card Project

    Five ways to improve your Retail Business

  • The Marketing Disenchanted Podcast meets Blue Eyed Sun

    Marketing Disenchanted Podcast

    I recently spoke to a group of small business owners at at Sage Summit in Atlanta. In the audience was author and podcaster, Temitayo Osinubi, from The Marketing Disenchanted Podcast. The podcast has featured several marketing greats including Scott Monty, Mark Schaeffer and Brian Fanzo.

    Temi invited me on his show and a few weeks we later I found myself being interviewed on my first ever podcast. We discussed all sorts of things ranging from greeting cards to digital marketing. Temi had some really great questions and I had a fun time answering them.

    We chatted about my Looking Back from Perfect exercise, the relevance of greeting cards today and being more open, random and supportive. We also discussed how this blog transformed Blue Eyed Sun, why I started The Greeting Card Project, my work at The Ladder Club as well as how to compete with larger corporations.

    Our discussion even covers fake news and the controversial ways influencers like PewDiePie, Kendall Jenner, Katie Hopkins and Donald Trump grab our attention. I also reference Louis CK, Justin Packshaw and The Start Up Van.

    You can listen to the hour long podcast now by clicking the triangular play button below:

    Read Marketing: Then vs Now

    How to market you retail business online

    See Jeremy speak about the Digital High Street at Autumn Fair

    Visit the Marketing Disenchanted website

  • Will the greeting card industry be Vaporized?

    Greeting Cards VaporisedI recently attended a masterful talk by Robert Tercek, author of Vaporized, on the subject of disruption in business. It was startling to hear example after example of industries being displaced by a new dematerialised world. Robert believes that every aspect of our economy and society is set to be reconfigured by technological forces that only a small number of companies have yet mastered.

    It often seems obvious in hindsight when companies disrupt markets and yet we seldom see it coming. The most recent examples in the greeting card business have been Card Factory and Moonpig. The former disrupting the wholesale space through a vertically integrated model that offers consumers rock bottom prices in well presented retail environments. The latter disrupting through the digital substitution of bricks and mortar retail space by offering extensive choice and customisation that cannot be matched by traditional retail. Both have been rewarded with incredible growth and financial success by offering value to consumers.

    Yet these companies haven't really revolutionised the greeting card market. They’ve brought business models from other industries into the card business and forever changed aspects of it. They haven't vaporized our industry. In fact, I believe that they’ve kept the wolf from the door. By offering low cost cards, Card Factory has helped people to continue sending cards when they might otherwise have abandoned them in order to save money during the recession. Similarly, Moonpig has allowed men and people who are short on time to use a more efficient process to stay connected with their loved ones through cards. The card industry has yet to be vaporized.

    Or will it?

    In sci-fi movies there are plenty of representations of futures where greeting cards don’t exist. It’s not hard to imagine a future without greeting cards. Having said that, there is one vision of the future that does incorporate the handwritten letter. It’s the delightful movie ‘Her’ by Spike Jonze. In it the protagonist works for a company called BeautifulHandWrittenLetters.com The sentiment is still created by humans and the letters are printed out in fonts that look handwritten.

    ‘Her’ is a clever re-imagining of the future that recognises our innate human need for nostalgia. Nostalgia is an idealised past. It relates to an emotional state that we place into a specific time frame. As long as we keep sending cards there will always be an element of this nostalgic element in our lives.

    That’s what my YouTube channel, The Greeting Card Project, is all about: Acknowledging the special importance of hand writing cards. Remembering to think of others and reminding them that they are in your thoughts. Although, I’m halfway through my project and I can tell you first hand that card sending is incredibly inefficient. As such, it is a target for being vaporized. I know because I’ve sent around 100 different cards to people in the last six months.

    This is because, to send a card...

    You have to remember the birthday or occasion required for card sending. This takes time and organisation. You often need to track down the recipient’s current address, then record it correctly for accurate delivery. You need to have postage stamps or be prepared to weigh and send at the post office, especially if the card is to go abroad. Stamps aren’t cheap either. Even if you are delivering it by hand you need to remember it and deliver on time.

    You then have to choose a card that’s suitable for the recipient. This can take time and you might not always be able to find the right card in the first shop you visit. Recently I went to one store to buy a fiftieth birthday card for a customer of mine. Despite six options, none were suitable. I had to compromise with a decent generic birthday card rather than a poor occasion specific design. Not ideal.

    Once you have the card, you have to think about what to write in it. For some people this can feel like hard work. Given how seldom we need to write these days, you might even have to remember how to write by hand! You need to write the card carefully so as to avoid mistakes. If you mess it up you might have to buy another card and start again in order to avoid looking like a child that can’t spell… or write.

    After this you have to get it to a post box that collects on time. A lot of post boxes are now emptied at 9am, so you can’t leave it too late. Frustratingly, Royal Mail don’t share post box information online so you have to visit the post box for up to date info. Royal Mail also don’t offer many later collections. In Brighton & Hove the whole town has to travel up to 3 miles into the centre to reach the single post box that collects at 7pm!

    Finally, you have to rely on Royal Mail to deliver the card on time. Out of the 100 cards I’ve sent this year so far, there are at least two, that I know of, that never arrived. Admittedly the postal service in the UK is superior to some other countries I’ve visited. Of the three cards I sent from Italy in my Milan episode, the first took a week to arrive within Italy, the next took 3-4 weeks to reach Wales and the last took 6 weeks to reach Los Angeles.

    And yet…

    It is the very inefficiency of the process that makes receiving a card so special. That and the fact that all we tend to receive through the letter box these days is junk mail, bills and bank statements. It is deeply personal receiving a handwritten letter. It’s a wonderful gift from a close friend and a delightful surprise from anyone else. For anyone that recognises the importance and value of close personal relationships for business or pleasure, it is still a powerful tool to send a card a or handwritten note.

    Stephen Kelly, the CEO of software company Sage, agreed with this when explaining to me why he uses Blue Eyed Sun cards to send to friends, family and colleagues:

    “It’s so powerful if one of our colleagues opens a card and I’ve personally written that card. It takes time, it shows love, it shows dedication. We love social media, but sometimes it’s really important to show that touch that is very personal and you can only get through a card.” - Stephen Kelly, CEO Sage

    Whether or not the card industry will be vaporized is still up for question. Time will tell. Let's not wait for it to happen and keep fighting to maintain and support this wonderful tradition that offers such a powerful way of connecting despite of, and perhaps because of, its inefficiency.

    So what can we do? Two things:

    1. Send more cards

    So many of us in our industry don’t do this enough. Send cards every week. Tweet about it, Instagram it. Most of us in the industry have access to excess stock in our warehouses and shops. Make these available to your staff and encourage them to send cards too. Share your card sending stories on social media. Most importantly, send cards to young people and kids. In years to come they will have that wonderful feeling of nostalgia for greeting cards and want to share it.

    2. Support card sending

    A great example of a retailer initiative is Feel Good Friday from the Postmark stores in London. They offer a free card from a special box of clearance stock on special Fridays. As long as you write it in the store there and then, they’ll even post it for you.

    Other great initiatives include:

    #JustACard campaign each week on social media

    #NatStatWeek in April

    #ThinkingOfYouWeek in September

    #FestiveFriday early December each year

    Involve your team by giving them an hour to write as many cards as they like and pay for the postage. Involve your card loving friends by giving them small gift packs of cards to send. Get others sending more cards. We are all helping to spread more love in the world by doing this and supporting our beloved card industry.

    Last, but not least, be sure to watch, like and share The Greeting Card Project videos - www.youtube.com/thegreetingcardproject

    Read more:

    Five ways to improve your retail business

    Ecommerce Tips for Retailers

    Seven habits of highly effective retailers

    Watch Robert's talk below:

    THE RISE OF DIGITAL SERVICES: Robert Tercek's keynote speech at Sage Summit 2017 from Robert Tercek on Vimeo.

  • The Greeting card Project - May Review

    #TGCP - May Review

    The Greeting Card Project is my year of sending more greeting cards and recording a video diary of my experiences, the shops I visit, the cards I send and my own personal journey.

    Hooray! Thanks to everyone's support, this month I finally reached 100 subscribers and claimed my custom URL, find it at https://www.youtube.com/TheGreetingCardProject. I'd love your feedback on the project so far. Please tell me what else you'd like to see in the comments beneath the videos on YouTube. Click on the images below to watch each of May's videos.

    I'm late, I'm late. This week I send some belated cards, which I purchased from a small independent shop called Box of Delights in Flitwick. In keeping with the theme this is the first video I've loaded up late too!

    This week I visit Waterstone's flagship store in London's Piccadilly Circus and buy congratulations and well done cards from some lovely American greeting card publishers.

    This week I visit the Tring branch of a small independent chain called House of Cards and shop for birthday milestone cards. Some lovely reactions to the cards from recipients at the end of this video.

    This week I visited the branch of a small chain of independent shops in Berkhamstead called Temptation Gifts and bought some funny birthday cards for old university friends.

    The fifth month of the channel had 750 views with viewers watching over 25 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 2:02 per video. The channel gained 11 more subscribers,  13 shares and accumulated 51 likes and 1 dislikes. The total lifetime channel views is now 5,000.

    If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to YouTube and subscribe. I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner and my new personal Instagram @JeremyCorner.

    Where possible there are hyperlinks to all of the featured companies beneath each YouTube video.

    April Review of #TGCP

    March Review of #TGCP

    February Review of #TGCP

    January review of #TGCP

    Learn why I started #TGCP

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