Articles: greetings

Greetings inside a business card have one job: to make the reader feel somebody thought about them. A universal formula copied off the internet does that badly, even when it is perfectly correct. One sentence about the work you have shared changes the whole tone.

Building a short message

Good greetings usually fit into three or four sentences and follow a simple shape.

• An opening - a name or company, written out rather than abbreviated.
• A nod to the year - one line about projects you worked on together.
• The wishes themselves - calm, without piling up adjectives.
• A signature - a person's name, not only the company, ideally added by hand.

What to leave out

The usual problem is excess. Sentences about success, challenges and prosperity stack up until none of them mean anything. The second is a tone borrowed from a sales letter - a card is not the place to mention an offer. It is worth checking who receives which text, because wording for a long-standing partner should not read like wording for someone you spoke to once.

If you are sending many cards, prepare two or three versions rather than one for everybody. Sorting recipients into groups takes minutes, and readers can tell at once whether a message was written for them or sent out in bulk.

One last practical point: leave room for a signature. Even a couple of words added by hand does more for the reader than the most carefully chosen wording printed inside the card.