Cards, Gifts, & Parties: Don’t assume
Nov 17th, 2009 by Vikram Rajan
You can click to read my latest marketing column for the AICPA newsletter, the CPA Insider:
‘Tis the season for greeting cards, thank you gifts and holiday party invitations. How to use these to market your practice to better client relationships and bring in better referrals. Unfortunately, the bounty of cards, gifts and parties can be overwhelming and exhausting. Thus, your impact can easily be diluted or lost. Here are a few marketing ideas to help make your cards, gifts and party participation more worthwhile.
I have received more positive response than negative, but I look forward to your questions & comments (post below). However, I did receive one nasty e-mail from a CPA (I've excluded her name). Here's a quote in context:
Christmas is not about buying gifts, attending or throwing parties, sending out Christmas cards, or trying to lubricate a client's ego or wallet to make a profit. The other religious celebrations during the month of December typically do not send cards to friends and loved ones to tell them they are thinking of them or wishing them a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season, they have their own traditions and practices they follow. As a result, I can only assume Mr. Rajan was speaking of Christmas when he mentioned the religious entanglement associated with cards in his article.
The religious entanglement of this response is rather ironic: That aside, SHE IS CORRECT on 2 points, 1) Christmas is a wonderful religious holiday and shouldn't be exploited for marketing/commercial purposes. 2) I was referring to our nation's religious diversity vs. only wishing a Merry Christmas. By all means, observers should send out Christmas cards for personal purposes... just not in marketing pursuit.
Of course, we know what happens when we assume. What do you think?
