Saturday, December 15, 2012

Holiday Greeting Card Tips-Personalizing


SendOutCards Campaigns
Using the SendOutCards Campaign feature for sending Holiday Greeting Cards
Insert Name Feature for fun personalization

TIP #4-Remember to have fun with photos, text boxes, thought bubbles and personalizing your card on both the front and inside with the insert name features.   When you use the INSERT NAME feature, do not cut and paste it.  You MUST click on the INSERT NAME feature on the EDIT-PERSONALIZE IT page for it to work as a live mail merge feature.  

I used the FIRST NAME-INSERT NAME feature on this card.  When printed, whatever I have in the first name cell in my Contact Manager, will be auto-filled onto the front of my card.  Watch the tutorial about using Campaigns from your HELP drop down menu on your Main Menu Page red line for more explanations.  Call me at 503-524-1111 if you still have questions.

Holiday Greeting Card Tips-Signatures


SendOutCards Campaigns
Using the Campaign Feature in SendOutCards for Holiday Greeting Cards

Signatures and Personal Font


TIP #3-If you purchased the $25.00 handwriting/ 4 signature font option, it takes about 10 days to 2 weeks for it to get into your system.  For those of you who may have procrastinated mailing in that font page, a remedy to still using a signature is to scan an image of the signature that you use on your holiday cards and adding it as an image (photo) to your system.  Write it in a fun holiday color since you will not be able to change the color in an image of course, like you may change font colors.  When using a scanned image as your signature, remember the background of that part of the card should be white.  One of the fun features of purchasing a $5.00 signature, is that your background may be any color and there is much more flexibility.  Call me at 503-524-111 for further explanation.

Holiday Greeting Card Tips



SendOutCards Campaigns
A campaign is a card or set of cards that you wish to send over and over again or to a group of people in your Contact Manager. Watch the informative Tutorial on Campaigns in the HELP section and call me if you have more questions. Here are some tips and tricks:

1-Because there will be some days that the company will print almost three quarters of a million  cards in December, SendOutCards pulls cards from your account more than one time a day (we cannot depend on the midnight Mountain Standard Time deadline).  If you are planning to do some individual editing to some cards in a large campaign, post date the send campaign option on the last page of your campaign so you have time to do that. When you edit a card, you MUST click the continue button until you click SEND CARD button again so SOC knows you are serious about that change.  You will NOT be charged again.

2-When I create a detailed card, I ALWAYS hit the Print Preview button to make sure my computer screen is showing how SendOutCards will print it.  If there is a difference between the two displays, always believe Print Preview and be careful of your margins.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Spiders really BUG me



I mentioned in an earlier post that spiders give me the creeps.  I know that they have a good purpose on earth; I read that spiders and bats eat tons of insects.  In fact, bats can eat 600-1000 mosquitoes in an hour; that is one busy bat!  Yuck, but yeah!

This hatred I have for spiders is more of a fear.  But why, considering their size to mine???  I don’t know, but a spider of most any size can immobilize me.  That is why I was CRAZY this year to put spiders on my Halloween greeting card to my customers.  I received one back in the mail from someone who moved their offices.  Yikes; I couldn’t even touch the part of the greeting card that had the spider while putting it in a new envelope to re-address it!

                             It would be frightening not to have you as a customer!

But I had fun lots of fun with my Halloween greeting card this year.  I normally send cute greeting cards but this one was a bit edgy and it made lots of friends laugh.  Was that really you?” they asked.  Yes, me, ratted hair and a lot of hairspray!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
And yes . . .
SendOutCards is so cool it is scary!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Halloween is around the corner; yikes!



I used to enjoy picking out funny or cute Halloween greeting cards for the family but I would spend quite some time in the card isles doing so.  Now, I easily find the ones I like from my SendOutCards account from the comfort of my computer.  Since Halloween is such a playful holiday, have fun choosing greeting cards that will make people smile.
There are entire subcategories devoted to family, humorous and of course, children!  The choices are endless with spooky, bright or bloody colors to create the tone you wish.  Choose from monsters, mummies, spiders, bats or black cats or on the lighter side, candy corn, pumpkins, or cute costumes.  Just have fun . . . knowing you will add a happy moment to the person receiving the card.
 
Are you old enough to remember the spider pages in the Golden Book Encyclopedias?  Well, truth be known, I couldn’t even bring myself to touch those pages.  Turning the page gave me the creeps.  As I started thinking about a fun Halloween card creation this year, I choose a template that had spiders since my previous Halloween cards have been on the cute side.  As I started working with the template, that old feeling came back to me and I am certainly glad that I do not have to handle the cards with spiders on them.  Ha Ha . . . just my family and friends have to touch them.  Eeck!
 Vishing you a vonderfully vicked and vild Halloveen! 
Happy Halloween Card Sending!

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Thanking Fathers


Has Father’s Day snuck up on you like it did me?  My goodness, the weeks and months are passing by at light speed!  So, if you didn’t get a Father’s day greeting card in the mail yet, it is NOT too late.  Just give your dad a call on Father’s Day but put a nice message into a greeting card over the weekend.  It could start by saying, “Dad, as I think about you on Father’s Day,  . . .  Why put it into a greeting card?  He will pick up that card over and over again to read your words and bring a smile to his face.
  Dads love feeling appreciated.  Father's Day is a perfect time to express your appreciation. If you need help thinking of what to say, try to be more specific than general.  You may think of a special outing you shared that brings fond memories to the two of you, think of some advice he gave you that helped you, or a funny saying that you can remember him saying repeatedly.
 "Any man can be a Father but it takes someone special to be a Dad."
Anne Geddes

Happy Father’s Day Card Sending!

Monday, June 4, 2012

Showing Appreciation

 “Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more . . . 
It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” 
Melody Beattie
When May Kay Ash, founder of the billion dollar Mary Kay business, started her business, she had a goal to write three thank you notes a night. This practice not only expressed her gratitude to the people with whom she met and with whom she did business, but also allowed her to maintain a positive attitude all day long as she sought out people to whom she would send these thank you notes.
There is a magic in the attitude of gratitude.
Think about it, having the attitude of gratitude can shape your thinking and experiences.  As you are looking for someone or something for which to be grateful, THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO NOTICE, people doing good and the good things happening in your life daily!
How do I know this to be true?  I have always been a letter writer.  I was pretty good at writing greeting cards to thank people for things they did but I was also very good at writing letters to complain about something if I felt I had been served unjustly by a business or some situation.  After using SendOutCards and following the goal to write a heartfelt greeting card a day this is what happened to me:

 First, as I wrote a greeting card expressing how I appreciated someone, I had good feelings as I thought about the ability to brighten the day of the person getting the greeting card.  It didn’t take much time before I realized that I was the one benefiting from this simple process.  Of course, the person getting the greeting card feels good also and I have had some many amazing responses to the greeting cards.  I also realized that the energy to write a letter of complaint was draining, re-living negative, angry emotions all over again as I wrote.  So, sometimes when I have not received good service and am tempted to write a letter of complaint now, I stop and think of what business has served me exceptionally and write a note of gratitude instead.  It feels so much better!

Second, the best part of my goal is that I am looking for the positive or to notice someone doing something nice.  It has changed my outlook.  I LOVE the feeling.  And all this from a greeting card company who, when I first heard of how SendOutCards worked I said, “A greeting card written from your computer?  It won’t have the same impact.”  NOT TRUE!  Even as strong of a greeting card writer as I had been, I would have not had the experiences I have enjoyed if I faced the many obstacles and cost of sending greeting cards the traditional way.  I LOVE sending a REAL greeting card in the mail with the ease of doing it from my computer and being able to personalize it even more with my own photos!!!

I invite you to join with me and take a 30 Days of Gratitude Challenge. Send out at least one heartfelt greeting card a day expressing appreciation to someone you would like to thank.  It could be something you observed that day or to someone for whom you wish to express gratitude for the part they have played in your life.  This costs about a $1.00 a day.  If you send out at least one greeting card a day expressing appreciation for 30 days and you don't see a positive impact in your life I will refund your $30!

Let me know if you accept this challenge!  You will be glad you did!  It is a nice way to live.
Gracias, danke, merci . . .whatever language is spoken, “thank you” frequently expressed will cheer your spirit, broaden your friendships, and lift your lives to a higher pathway as you journey towards perfection.  There is a simplicity, even a sincerity, when “thank you” is spoken.  Thomas S. Monson
Happy Card Sending!