Get Involved: Publishers
It’s the publishers who make this week possible!
It’s the creativity of our talented and diverse greeting card publishers that bring meaning to the occasion.
We know that greeting cards have huge emotional benefits, and when people receive a card they’re more likely to send one!
The links below give ideas on how you can get involved with Thinking of You Week and encourage card sending; together we can create a wave of love, caring and happiness and remind consumers of the joy of sending and receiving cards.
Ideas and inspiration for Publishers
Promotion at trade fairs
Talk to others – what are they doing? Is there an opportunity to collaborate to encourage card sending?
Send flyers with deliveries
Our ToYW Toolkit can be printed and sent with your card deliveries to retailers throughout July, August and September. Speak to your printer or fulfilment team about working with you on this.
Look at making the Toolkit personal to your brand like Carte Blanche.
Create a display at your trade fair stand
Create a Thinking of You Week display on your trade fair stand – the ToYW banner is free for you to use!
Promote your Thinking of You, blank and other suitable cards
Plan ahead to sell cards into retailers ahead of September, so that cards are in store ready to take advantage of PR activity.
Feature in our ToYW Gallery and on our ToYW News feed: This is a consumer-facing website that receives 1,000’s of visitors in the run up to and during ToYW, and where we direct people in all our activity, see link above for details.
Make sure your Members’ Directory entry is up to date; we direct buyers and press here Plan support promotional activity to engage retailers and consumers with ToYW like Cherry Orchard and Dandelion Stationery!
Promote the joy of sending and receiving cards, see our Psychology of sending cards blog to learn about the benefits of card sending.
Collaborate with a retailer
Engage the local community
Organise a card-sending event with a school, local home for the elderly, charity, hospital or community centre, or scatter joy around your town like Dandelion Stationery. Click links to see what The Art File, Lottie Smith, Paper Salad, Huxley Jones Designs did to engage with their communities or charities.
Maybe collaborate with another local GCA member like UKG & Royal Mail or perhaps link up a local school with a care home to exchange cards, see GCA’s schools project for ideas.
Practice what you preach
Give cards and time to your staff to write them during the week, like Wrendale and Redback Cards, Take lots of pictures and videos of team members signing cards, visiting your local community [don’t forget to get the organisations permission] and then share!
Don't forget your website
Plan a promotion to support online sales in September. Use the Thinking of You Week logo on your website or allocate a dedicated area like Cards for Good Causes have done.
Tell us and the local press!
Contact us with what you’re planning and we’ll feature your story on our ToYW Newsfeed , for more details see Feature in our ToYW Gallery and News. Then you will benefit from the GCA’s consumer media activity, we regularly receive coverage and in 2020 ToYW made it onto the ITV news!
Tell your community what you’re planning, send details to your customers, the trade press and the local radio/press with some photos, and let people know how to contact you to get involved!
Get social - sharing is caring!
Get social – post like crazy in the lead up to and during the week! We received huge engagement on social media in the run to and during ToYW click to see social media engagement from previous years. Get imaginative and engage your community like Paper Yam
And tag us!
#sendacarddeliverasmile
#thinkingofyouweek
#cardtokeep
and connect with us here:
@gca_UK
@GreetingCardAssociation