It’s that time of year again. The time of year I hate. I mean it. You aren’t likely to find a bigger grinch than this guy right here. But still, I can appreciate that other people love it. What I question, however, is why people love… e-greetings. E-cards. Call them what you will. This is an extension of an earlier conversation about some of the ridiculous extents some of us (are forced to) go through in higher ed to meet the call of the e-greeting, and I suspect we can do something about it.

HYPOTHESIS: E-greetings are effectively a feel good measure with little to no ROI, monetary or otherwise, that reflect a dated view of the web and should be disposed of to make way for more effective goals.

I know that’s a bold statement. I also know some people are going to step into the comments and prove me wrong. But deep down, grinch or not, I’m pretty sure that as a rule of thumb this will hold true. I’m also aware that there are some different uses of this concept: development tool to send to alumni/donors, internal usage, visitor created cards, and message from the president. I’m just kind of dumping these all into a Blend-Tec blender and going crazy from this point forward. Forgive me.

First, let’s consider some arguments.

1. They are a great development resource – No, they aren’t. Are you actually tracking how much money they generate, especially up against other campaigns, or compared to the cost of developing them to begin with? And are those gifts ones that could still be pulled in through other means? I know that last part can be particularly hard to measure, but if people are making this argument to you, ask them about the actual numbers. If you happen to have found the magic sauce that makes people fork over the cash to your school thanks to a holiday e-card, care to share the secret?
2. People appreciate knowing we care – Sure they do, but that’s not what this does. Sending an e-greeting blast to your 100,000 person alumni list doesn’t show caring. It shows that you can hit the send button on a mailing list and swap their name into the first line of text. It’s not personal, it’s personalized, it’s generic, and many times it has a hidden agenda (Merry Christmas! Please give us your money.). And in reality, e-cards actually show how little you care, when compared to sending a personal note. Even my bank and insurance company take the time to send me a personal, hand written card or note this time of year. Sure, they probably send the same message to all their customers, but at least it showed some effort on their part, and that means something. Having someone pick a beauty shot of campus and slap a name and message on it just feels cheaper by comparison.
3. We’re trying to save money/be green – Okay, this one isn’t the worst point they can make. BUT, what I will say is that if the money they are saving not mailing physical cards is going to be that significant to their budget, they must be doing something wrong to begin with. Sure, you don’t want to mail 100,000 greeting cards, but a few dozen to the campus offices and your favorite vendors? Is that really a significant budget issue? Are you really killing so many more trees with the cards than with the normal day-to-day usage of your office printer? Want to be green, buy cards made from recycled paper.
4. We’ve done it in the past, people will miss it if we stop – Really? So, you’re gonna sit there and tell me that Christmas Eve, you’re sitting around the tree with your Brother-in-law Jeb, and Jeb turns to you and says: “Jeepers golly Billy, you know State U didn’t even take the time to send me an e-greeting to my e-mail box this year?” No, you’ve never heard that. And neither has anyone else, because as a rule of thumb, people. Just. Don’t. Care. They care if their grandma doesn’t send them a card, they care when they don’t get their bonus check card from their boss. They don’t care if their inbox is mysteriously missing a poorly crafted video of your president sitting behind a cheese log holding a gingerbread man cookie.

In another situation, you might be asked if you can come up with reasons for or against doing an e-card. I have what I believe is a reasonably good justification for not wanting to do holiday e-greetings (besides the whole molten hatred of Christmas) – most of us can’t do them well enough for it to be really worthwhile. Do you have Flash developers that can rival the staff at Jib-Jab? Do you have on camera talent and writers that would make CoCo jealous? Is your programming staff just sitting idle looking to outdo Hallmark? The line between cheesy and genius is dangerous. Genius gets you all that good stuff that makes my position sound stupid. Cheesy gets you a place on YouTube and a temporary standing as meme of the month. The only really good option is to hire an actual marketing/design firm to do the card for you; can you afford that?

Natasha Lomas wrote a good article on this subject. It’s a little more corporate targeted, but still fairly fitting. I was particularly fond of a couple points she made:

“…make sure it’s seriously good or seriously funny. If you can’t get angelic singing, talking reindeers and tinsel that explodes in festive fireballs don’t bother.

Sending an e-card is the digital equivalent of scraping a barrel and sticking the result in the post. Don’t go there. Seriously. They look terrible, they sound hideous and they smell like malware.”

Think for just a moment how many email scams have been connected with getting people to open e-cards. People have been warned off of them so much, that you have to question even the most legitimate sounding cards, meaning you can expect overall open and clickthrough rates to be substantially lower than your typical email based campaigns.

Here’s the deal, in a way, university holiday e-greetings (especially the video style) are sort of like those letters people send you at the end of the year that tell you how their root canal went and that little Susie is no longer wetting the bed. If we were really your friend, if we were close with you, we’d already know and care about such things. But the plain simple fact is that we avoid you because we don’t want to hear those details. It’s similar for schools. If we haven’t cared about the new buildings, awards, or advancements you’ve made throughout the year, what makes you think we suddenly care because you put it in a cute video with some snow and illustrated Christmas lights around it?

So, here’s my challenge to you. Let’s take a hard look at our e-greeting efforts. As you all get back from breaks, take a look at things like open rates, views, donations, and other meaningful metrics (you are measuring this stuff, right?). Even consider if you just hear positive feedback from recipients. Figure up the base “cost” for the project. Let’s pool our knowledge down in the comments. If you think yours is especially good or creative, or you’ve seen one that made you pause (good or bad) – share it. I figure there are enough variables here that a real survey might not be too fitting, so anecdotal information will go a long way by itself. Let’s see over our campaigns just how good these things really are, see if my hypothesis holds true, and hopefully prepare ourselves for next year to say: “Sure, that’s a neat idea, but…”

(edit: I might be sharing some… special examples… add yours with #heecards)

Photo Credit:  Some rights reserved by pareeerica

This post was written by Michael Fienen