2 Minute Tuesday: Christmas Cards Done Right

It’s no big surprise that Christmas comes early in the retail world. This year it was out with Halloween and in with Santa Claus – forget about Thanksgiving and the entire Fall season, we all know that Christmas is what brings in the dough (I’m not talking about the cookie kind of dough). It’s understandable, really, but at least there is a financial reason for their extension of the holiday.

What isn’t acceptable to me, is receiving a Christmas card in the mail ONE-WEEK prior to Thanksgiving. This set a new record in our book and I seriously considered sending the card ‘Back to Sender’. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to save my holiday joy until after Thanksgiving. Ba Humbug!

All that said, the card I received did generate this new blog idea. It was creatively designed and likely printed at a local copy shop. The card looked professional; however, the fold was awful. It was printed on letter-size cardstock, then either folded by hand or in a low-end paper folder.

The problem: the fold wasn’t pre-creased, which caused the spine to crack. The edge was jagged and the colored toner was peeling right off. What should have looked like a professionally-designed holiday card suddenly looked obviously homemade and poorly at that.

Holiday cards can big business for local copy shops. Though the season might not generate enough business to invest in an automatic scoring machine, like the Graphic Whizard FM100, no copy shop should be without at least a manual creasing machine to handle low-volume runs like Christmas cards.

A JBI ProCrease-M, which is a manual one-sheet-at-a-time creaser is ideal for Christmas cards at a very minimal investment. Or upgrade slightly to the HS-100 Handi-Scor or the GW-MCP, both of which include creasing AND perforating capabilities. Whatever machine you choose, it’s a wise investment to ensure that your customers (and those on their Christmas lists) are happy this holiday season.

So now let me break tradition and wish you all pre-Thanksgiving Merry Christmas! And PLEASE, use caution when sending a Christmas card to someone in the printing industry.

Got some tips on creating or sending out holiday cards? We’d love for you to share them in the comments below.