Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely holiday season, and let’s hope that 2022 is a year where we make progress on the grander social scale.
My vision for this blog is that is runs every other week, instead of every week. While there’s plenty to say, there are also plenty of content sources (some of whom I will link to), and I hope you read a wide range of material.
Today, I’m talking about the flurry of mail, both virtual and tangible, that happens around the holiday season, and what I find works for me as a freelancer.
I am a big cards-and-letters-by-post person, especially around the winter holidays. To me, it’s important to let people know that they are thought of with good wishes during this time.
I send cards to clients and editors. I send cards to former clients for three years after we’ve stopped working together, provided we parted on positive terms, and they are someone with whom I’d like to work again. The cards are just that – holiday cards with good wishes. No pitch. No “if you need me in the new year” type of thing.
Simple good wishes.
No strings attached. No expectations.
And yes, a certain percentage either respond with a card of their own and say, “contact me in the new year about work” or email with pretty much the same message. But the purpose of the holiday card is NOT to pitch to them. It’s to send good wishes and acknowledge them as fellow humans on the journey.
Come January, I prep for the first of the quarterly post cards. Again, this is done via snail mail, because I generally have a 25% response rate on snail mail (and it’s much lower if it’s only sent via email).
I design a post card in a seasonal color with a quick reminder about the top services offered and the website address. I encourage getting in touch. I either print it on my laser printer (which does everything except cut my food up for me) or send it out to a place like Vistaprint for a quick turnaround. I usually send out cards in January, April, July, and October. I did not send them in 2020 and 2021, a combination of dealing with my own illness and the pandemic in 2020 and moving during a pandemic in 2021. This year, I may do January, May, and September, to see how that works (especially since I want to lighten my workload for August).
Who goes on the list?
–Companies with whom I’ve done business, to remind them I’m still interested in working with them.
–Companies to whom I’ve either pitched or sent an LOI and with whom I’ve had a positive exchange, even if I haven’t yet worked for them.
–Companies I’ve researched, but haven’t pitched or sent an LOI.
–People with whom I’ve interacted at networking events, and with whom I want to stay in touch.
Because it’s been two years since I sent out the postcards, I’m building quite a bit of a new list. So much has changed, including my location, and that I am fully remote, instead of a mix of remote an onsite work. Also, because I’m focusing my attention on different aspects of the work these next few months, that affects the list.
To whom do I send the cards (as individuals, not companies)?
–In the companies with whom I’ve done previous business, to my contact, or whomever has taken over in that role;
–In companies where I’ve pitched or sent and LOI and had a pleasant exchange, to the person with whom I interacted;
–In companies I want to pitch in the future, the person most likely to make the hiring decisions. Sometimes that’s a marketing director, sometimes a creative director, sometimes the head of the company. That’s where the research comes in.
–When it comes to networking, obviously it’s the person with whom I’ve networked, unless that individual suggested someone else in their company as a contact.
I don’t follow up a postcard the way I would a traditional pitch or LOI because the next postcard is the follow up. Some marketing people will be horrified by this; however, I find it works. The person to whom I send the mail does not feel badgered. A postcard is easy to keep handy, or to come across unexpectedly, just when you’re looking to hire someone. The follow up card, a few months later, is a gentle nudge without being aggressive.
In the next post, I’ll talk about pitches and LOIs, and what I consider the differences between them.
What are your favorite outreach tools?