‘Happy B’day 2 U!’

Does that bring about any warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart? You must have received 30 plus similar one-liner phone messages on your most recent birthday. And, if you’re like me, you probably deleted them soon after reading – like 60% of us would. But let’s be honest, more than likely you must have sent more than a hundred similar messages throughout the year. The funny bit is that most of us wouldn’t remember any of those wishes after a month! After all, it was simply a SMS – nothing personalized.

On the other hand, if someone had sent us a greeting card on some special occasion, we would definitely save it. We would put it up on our dressing tables or fix them on the mirrors. Many of us would even place them on our desks at work! It’s a very nice feeling when people notice/read one of our cards.

So, we all agree the greeting cards work 100% times better than the half-hearted SMS’s do.

Then what happened to the personalized greeting card trend?

Why Don’t We Send Greeting Cards Anymore?

  1. Time! Who has the time to first of all, remember a birthday, then visit a store to buy a card and then make sure the person whose birthday it is receives it! Most of us don’t even reply to the e-cards we receive on holiday occasions.
  2. Convenient Alternatives: All the emotions of a college graduation can apparently be summarized in one tiny e-mail. I can even put animated graphics in e-mails now! So wouldn’t it be the same thing to send you bouncy clip art in your e-mail than have to send you a congratulations card on your graduation?
  3. Costly: Most importantly, these greeting cards come at a cost! If you’re actually going out and buying one, you have to consider the fuel cost as well as the unjustified price-tag on the small card which looks more like a name tag! There are plenty of free e-cards online, but who wants to go through the trouble of picking one and then filling in all those details and e-mailing it. It’s obviously not as interesting as registering for the latest movie updates online newsletter! And it’s most probably going to go in the junk folder of the recipient anyway. So why bother?!

Why Give Cards?

Alternatives to greeting cards such as SMS’s, e-mails and phone-calls are super criminal in my opinion! It’s ridiculous to think that they could have the same impact as a good old fashioned greeting card. But since they fit into our daily routines more conveniently, we prefer them anyway. Don’t we realize that our wish is probably going to drown amongst the 50 other SMS’s that the person will be receiving… and probably won’t even be remembered?

Greeting cards make the recipient feel special. It’s that simple! In our hearts, we all know that we are flattered by a card, no matter how tiny, knowing that the sender picked it out especially for us. This could be an e-card or a physical one. Physical cards are definitely a notch above the online ones, but not thinking of sending either is silly! Three reasons for this are:

  1. Not sending a card means losing out on an opportunity to tell the person how much they mean to you.
  2. Not sending a card means losing out an opportunity to build relationships.
  3. Not sending a card means not giving the recipient a chance to remember you!

So…Try it today! It doesn’t even have to be ‘Eid or some other ‘special’ occasion… just send someone a card to let them know how much they mean to you… and see the impact it has! They will definitely love it!