Have Electronic Greeting Cards Reached It's Tipping Point?

It is an ongoing conversation in my head. Paper or Electronic.I have a subscription to an online card service - Jacquie Lawson  It's a boutique online card provider  offering just over a 100 different cards. But they are fabulous cards and people really seem to like them -- ( in this case people is code for baby boomers)

My dilemma was, " Would my client think that an electronic card was a lazy woman's version of saying Thank You? 

As recently as December I chatted with a business etiquette expert who advised never ever send a client an electronic thank you note. According to this expert, hand-written thank yous sealed with saliva and a 41 cent stamp(until May 12,2008 when they bumps up to 42 cents unless you purchased the forever stamps) are the appropriate way to demonstrate you really, really appreciate them.

But then again, she is a baby boomer.

According to a recent article in Fast Company called I Just IM'd 'To Say I Love You' my fears show I'm a product of my generation.

...the clientele is predominately "middle-age women." That is not just anecdotal evidence but acknowledged fact at American Greetings, which generated $1.7 billion in 2007 revenues. Its annual report reveals that women buy 80% of the cards in the United States, and their median age is 47. Not exactly the Facebook crowd. To gen-Yers, a snail- mail card is as antiquated as getting a $5 birthday check from grandma.

From a business perspective, an aging customer base and a renewed focus on using less paper could be the death knoll. But American Greetings isn't waiting for a new generation to discover that paper cards are wonderful. Instead, they are creating products to help this generation express their emotions in emails, chats and social media sites.

The product line is called KIWEE.

Last November, it launched a free toolbar that gives users instant access to a zoo's worth of smiling animals and that gives AGI a piece of search-advertising revenue. "The uptake for the toolbar has been amazing," says Todd Schwartz, product manager for Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger. In February, Kiwee attracted 12 million unique visitors. Young folks may not send paper anymore, but being remembered -- that's universal.

Earlier today I installed the Kiwee toolbar. If they ask any demographic information I'm likely to skew the average age by 40 years.  So now, I can add emoticons and winks  to my heart's delight to visually communicate my true feelings about a topic.

While there's definitely the possibility of having too much of a good thing here. I did spend part of Friday on a Webex meeting which offered lots of emoticons. The truth is, these little animated visuals do serve as an important communication aid.

Maybe the next step will be to create a line of emoticons targeted to babyboomers. In the meantime, it's time for me to go.

Comments

[Angela]

Great post. Thanks for sharing! Have you ever heard of SquidNote? It's a fun group greeting card site where you can have a bunch of people sign a card. You can even add a gift card for everybody to contribute to.

http://www.squidnote.com

Cheers!
Angela

[Elana]

Thanks for the heads up on squidnote.