Seems a little crazy doesn’t it… Well if you are not thinking about it, you probably you should be!
Generalizing here, but so many times we have the greatest of intentions to:
- Send personalized gifts to key clients;
- Send personal greetings to key contacts;
- Do something unique in the community;
- Send a creative animated on-line greeting card; or
- <Fill in the blank with your great intention>
But, unfortunately exigencies of the day get in the way, time slips by and you are left running around at the last-minute settling for something that could have been done at a much higher-level of quality had the project been given proper focus and attention.
Raise your hand if this resonates…
OK, now put your hand down and read these tips to get you started on looking back on this year’s holiday messaging as a success.
Here you go:
- Set your goals:
- For the purpose of illustration, assume you want to do the following this holiday season:
- Send personalized gifts to certain contacts;
- Send personal greetings to a different set of contacts; and
- Send a blast email to all other contacts.
- For the purpose of illustration, assume you want to do the following this holiday season:
- Create your guidelines:
- Identify what characteristics each contact bucket has, for example:
- Gift recipients = Revenue greater than $X, or Practice area = emerging growth area
- Personal Message Contacts = Clients, referral sources, other lawyers, key vendors, etc.
- Other contacts = everybody else.
- Identify what characteristics each contact bucket has, for example:
- Fill your buckets:
- This is the time-consuming part, but an exercise that will continue to bear fruit in the future if you have the discipline to keep the information updated.
- A database is optimal, but there are many different options available to capture this data and keep it current.
- This is the time-consuming part, but an exercise that will continue to bear fruit in the future if you have the discipline to keep the information updated.
- Set your budget:
- You don’t need to break the bank here, but you also don’t want to have the recipient of your gift to wonder what a cheap (fill in the blank) you are either.
- Also, try to personalize each gift.
- If you do not have a clue how to personalize your gift for a particular contact, set a goal to get to know them better, and quickly!
- Set your timeline:
- When you see the associated tasks, you will understand why NOW is the time to start this project planning.
- If you get inspired, consider recognizing the multiple upcoming holidays in this process.
- Your contacts will take notice!
- If you get inspired, consider recognizing the multiple upcoming holidays in this process.
- When you see the associated tasks, you will understand why NOW is the time to start this project planning.
- Create your project task list:
- Allocate responsibility for each required task: a short list for example
- People need to review their contacts for bucket allocation
- Somebody must buy the gifts
- Somebody must pick out the cards
- Somebody must craft the email messaging
- Somebody must shepherd the entire process
- Allocate responsibility for each required task: a short list for example
- Manage the project to completion:
- You can expect what you inspect and this is definitely a project, so schedule regular project updates.
- And finally, reward those participants that made the project successful.
- A little recognition goes a long way!
So, what is the first step of this project journey, well you just did it by reading this email.
Now take the second and third steps:
- Schedule an internal meeting and have everyone read this blog post first and come prepared with ideas; and
- Call us for help if you need it!
Happy Planning!