The Christmas holiday season is approaching, and we are preparing for the annual Christmas greetings issue of The GOHBA (Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association) Impact! Along with lots of news and a special cover logo, many members purchase seasonal greeting advertisements.
These investments, along with greeting cards, small gifts and the like, along with Christmas parties and social events, have become annual traditions. During “hard times” there is a temptation to reduce or eliminate some of these expenses from the budget, and certainly values have changed from the days when (at some businesses) the annual Christmas party sometimes invited drunkenness and over-the-line behaviors. Sometimes, it may seem the money is going down the drain. But there is value in this stuff, and it is perhaps even more important in the era of email and Facebook and LinkedIn communications.
In essence, this is the time of year when you can reconnect with your clients, suppliers and sometimes show a little Christmas spirit to your employees. (Sometimes that “Christmas spirit” trends to entitlement — our business has never been overly generous with “Christmas bonuses” and we are careful to advise our employees of this fact, to avoid creating rising expectations, and then dashing them.)
In truth, at this time of year, one-on-one works much better than mass, a brief hand-written card will carry much more weight than something your PR department sends out in bulk; but I cannot quarrel with spending some money on advertising in association publications and the like because you become part of the collective seasonal spirit when you do.