The Snail-Mail Card is Taking on More Significance in the Age of Social Media

In the age of social media, the snail-mail holiday photo card is taking on more significance. Permanent, physical photos stand out, and families are realizing they can be used to convey important life changes -- without having to put them into words. People are using the images on cards to signal major transitions, including divorce, illness and adoption. From a report: "The holiday card gives you a chance to put out the one version that you feel good about. It gives you editorial control," says Allen Adamson, co-founder of Metaforce, a branding and marketing consultancy. "And it has permanence. People hold on to them. They post them on refrigerators." The average person takes about 1,000 digital images per year, driven largely by cellphones, according to Keypoint Intelligence-InfoTrends. Sharing pictures with family and friends is the top reason people say they use social networks, according to an Adobe survey of about 4,000 people conducted in July. "Social media is this constant rolling letter," says Brad Kopitz, chief executive of Artifact Uprising, a Denver maker of custom photo gifts including cards. Sometimes, digital photos get lost in the shuffle, he says. The holiday card is a "pattern interrupt," he says. "It's like when you get a handwritten note in the mail. It's saying, 'You're part of my life and not just part of the digital noise.'" Fewer people are sending physical cards, making the ones that do go out more noticeable. Seventy percent of consumers said they planned to send greeting cards this year, down from 77% five years earlier, according to a National Retail Federation survey of nearly 8,000 adults conducted in October. That can give a printed card greater significance.

I tried snail mail

[jfdavis668]

But the snails didn't get anywhere after I taped the card to their shell. We need better snails here.

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[Baby Yoda's Daddy]

We ate all the ponies. Enjoy the snails!

This thread provided by Hallmark

[mschuyler]

and their made-up holidays to promote more card sales.

Re:This thread provided by Hallmark

[jfdavis668]

That's why I only send cards for Arbor Day.

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[drinkypoo]

All the cards I've sent for decades now have either been homemade or picked up at a thrift store. If you buy premade cards at full price, that's on you.

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[drinkypoo]

Ok coward

Re: This thread provided by Hallmark

[MrNaz]

Contribution of anecdotal experience isn't virtue signalling, you twat.

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[cusco]

My wife picks them up at 70% off after the holidays.

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[Baleet]

The story talks about people sending personalized cards with their own photos on them, so a bit more personal than mass produced cards. Also, the greeting card industry is not any worse than any other company selling a product, so there's that. The points raised about tangible products that can be saved and put away as mementos still stand.

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[arglebargle_xiv]

I realise the story could well have been planted by Hallmark, but there are instances where nothing comes close to a snail-mailed card. Friend of mine had a friend who had terminal cancer, and she and another friend took it in turns to write the person with cancer a postcard every single day for the six or so months they had left to live. Nothing electronic, no email or text or IM, can come close to what those physical mailed cards did.

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[cusco]

I take the bus to work, so have half an hour or so every morning where I'm not doing anything useful. I write letters. I used to write them to my grandfather when he was in a nursing home, he used to take them around to his friends and show them off. He saved them all and kept them in order, there were some which were his favorites that he had read to him repeatedly. Since he passed away I still write to my teenage nieces and nephew, they may be the only dead-tree letters they'll ever receive.

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[arglebargle_xiv]

Yup. And that's something no text message will ever be able to replace.

Yes, yep, yeah.

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Anecdote: I was hired several Christmas' running to design & distribute (emailing list) animated Christmas cards for a company who thought they'd be better than physical cards. I thought physical cards, signed by the all executives themselves, would've been much better received. They disagreed & went ahead with e-cards. For the three years that I did it, I saw the number of hits on the e-cards drop off dramatically & some of the recipients of the emails marked the company's emails as spam. Just a really bad idea.

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[hey!]

Back in the 90s, most people who were thinking about where the Internet would take us thought that narrow-cast advertising would make things like Superbowl ads obsolete. In fact, they did the opposite: made big purchase ad campaigns even more valuable as a way of separating prestige brands with the resources to talk to everyone from the small-time operators narrowcasting to a small audience.

We also thought that reducing the cost of communication would empower individuals by democratizing communication. An

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[tlhIngan]

Makes perfect sense actually.

A mailed physical item shows the sender took time to select a photo, get it printed out at a service or on their printer at home (not cheap), put it in an envelope, stick on a stamp and mail it out. It shows someone put in time, effort and money into producing and sending you the card. It may not be a LOT of money individually, but depending on how big the mailing list is, it can be a significant investment by the person involved.

Things that show someone took significant time, e

Research funded by....

[LordWabbit2]

says Allen Adamson, co-founder of Metaforce a branding and marketing consultancy.

So who paid for this? Card company? Post Office? Or just trying to drum up some exposure?

I have been sending them for years

[ruddk]

I used touchnote which send my pictures to people as a actual card. I stopped using them For a number of reasons
1)they started to take over a month to arrive.
2) they added a monthly subscription model on top
3) they put a expiration date on my credits so I lost $30 which hadn’t a expiration date when I purchased them.
So tldr, don’t use touchnote

Data Point

[ElizabethGreene]

I get Christmas cards from my Real Estate broker, insurance agent, and mortgage broker. My sweetheart still sends cards to family, but it doesn't feel like it's really a thing anymore.

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[WallyL]

I send Christmas cards out to my friends and family. I even get a few. But yeah, it's definitely much less of a thing nowadays.