Business Letters - How to Write a Thank You Letter

In a competitive market, every little edge you can give yourself is important. One of the least used techniques is the thank-you letter, and yet it is one of the most powerful.

Think about it for a moment. Your business receives a lovely letter from a customer thanking you and your team for wonderful service. How do you feel? What do you do with the letter?

Chances are, if you are like most managers, the letter makes you feel great, you get energised and feel happy. You may go and share the letter with your admin staff members or read it out to your team. Sometimes you put the letters into a folder to show prospective customers, pin them up on the staff noticeboard or even use them as a testimonial... all from a simple letter that someone took the time to write.

Now consider, how many people have seen the name of the person writing the letter? How many employees now feel positively towards the letter writer? What is the chance that the person who wrote the letter will get much warmer service from your team the next time they visit? When they do, will the letter writer feel even better about your business?

Now imagine you were the letter writer. Writing a thank you letter has three great benefits - it makes you, as a writer, feel fantastic. It makes the person receiving it feel great and it has positive flow-on effects for your business and your team in your business.

Psychologists have studied this virtuous circle, and have found that the positives keep increasing provided nothing enters into the loop to stop it.

Are you convinced that saying thank you is a good thing for your business? If you want to start a Thank You campaign, where do you start?

Thank you letters can be sent to suppliers who give great service, loyal customers, team members who go above and beyond the call of duty, candidates who applied for vacancies with your team - there is always someone who has done something nice for your business, or touched your business in a positive way.

So what are the three main rules for how to write a thank you letter?

Keep it:

Fresh - Write it within 48 hours of the event

Specific - Include details of why specifically what the person did that was brilliant. We have all had the "You've done well" sort of notes and they are not as motivating as notes that say "I truly appreciate that you took the time to learn more about our company and to spend time with us in an interview. I know interviews can be nerve racking, yet you presented confidently and warmly. I particularly liked your response to xyz question - it was well thought out."

Sincere - If you don't mean it - don't say it. Be honest and sincere in your thanks.

A few other tips:


Always proof your letter before you send it. Typos or spelling errors can detract from your message.
There is also some debate about handwritten vs typed letters. If you are writing to a specific person, then handwritten is a nice touch. Typed letters are better for businesses (or if your handwriting resembled hieroglyphics).
Remember to match the medium to the message. By that, I mean a tasteful card is perfect for individuals, but for businesses, then corporate printed post-cards or letterhead works well.
Email your thanks as a last resort. For some reason, email thanks don't seem to generate the same emotional response within people, so the more traditional ink and paper versions will give you the best results.
Yes, I know in our busy lives that writing thank you cards may seem hard to do. The trick is to keep a stack of cards close to hand, and make 15 minutes in your diary once a week to write some thank you cards. Do this, and you will be amazed at the difference those 15 minutes will make to your business.

Ingrid Cliff is a Brisbane copywriter and the Chief Word Wizard of Heart Harmony - her writing services studio that helps put your business into words. Visit her website for a free copy of " Copywriting Secrets: Seven Secrets of Compelling Copy and Powerful Words".

Guide to Using Promotional Rush Items For Business

The time element is usually the biggest problem in promoting a brand to customers. There may have been instances in your business where you needed to advertise at an event for example, and you were pressed with time. There is an easy way to solve this problem. Create promotional rush products for your business marketing and you can surely make your brand popular in any upcoming event that you will have.

Using rush items for business marketing comes with a lot of advantages. Most important of all, these products can easily be produced. Only for a couple of days, you will definitely have a promotional product that has your business name or logo imprinted on it. Aside from that, these items come in the widest range of options. This will give you enough elbow room in picking the item that you think would be best to represent your brand.

In choosing to promote your business with personalized rush items, it is important that you place a stylish imprint of your business name or logo. The printing spaces available on these items vary from limited to expansive. Regardless of the spaces available, however, you should place a design that will grab the attention of your customers. Here are more tips on choosing rush products for business advertising:

1. Choose quality - worrying on your advertising work for an upcoming event does not mean that you should compromise the durability of your promotional product. With customized rush items, you should pick those which are made of quality materials. This will bring you years of promotion and countless advertisements.

2. Minimize the costs - rush items generally come in cheap. Despite this affordability, you should still try ways that will lessen the costs that your business has to pay. Buying these items in bulk is a good way to cut the costs.

3. No hassle - Marketing a brand and making it popular to clients is hard in itself. As such, you should find the supplier of these promotional rush items that can make you advertise your brand without additional troubles. Make sure that the supplier can have your promotional products delivered on time, and with more perks, if possible.

Beth Loggins is a promotional items expert on rush promotional products & top promotional products. Read articles by Beth Loggins on how you can market your products.

Unique Business Card Ideas

There are so many ways the business card can be turned into a unique piece of art. It still remains a puzzle why most of us tend to stick with the regular plain versions. In as much as the card is set out to be unique this does not mean it should confuse the client with all the creative genius behind it.

To begin with, there is the character and cartoon based cards. These are excellent for event planners and for those dealing with children's items from clothes, toys and even restaurants. For this category, the more colorful the card is then the better for the business. The second type of creative business card is the pouched card. This is better for the corporate types and the fact that it comes with its own casing makes it all the better.

The third type of unique business card that can be used for all the above ventures is the clear card. The lettering on this card can be done in any color so long as the base paper is either clear or transparent. A combination of opaque and transparent or translucent sections can also be used on the card. This has a very dramatic visual effect and almost guarantees that the client will pay your company a visit if only to look around and know what you are all about. Being the main function of the card this would be a great place to begin.

When it comes to housing the card, this could be done in several ways and one of the most interesting is using a fortune cookie. This is better suited for businesses in the creative sector be it an art or media based company.

A creative or unique card should still pass on the message on the business as effectively as possible. The shape of the card should fit into any wallet easily and not pop out every time the person needs to take out some cash.

Looking for affordable business cards? Look no further. PrintOx offers business card printing for insane prices - 1,000 for $50, 2,500 for $95, and 5,000 for $125. All orders receive Free shipping! PrintOx offers free perks including 16pt cardstock, free full color printing (front and back), and free UV Coating. That's hard to beat. Check out the site today through one of the links above.