Get Involved: Retailers
An opportunity for retailers not to be missed!
As an industry we all know that sending and receiving cards has 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 grow 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
How to engage your customers with the joy of Thinking of You Week!
Make a Thinking of You Week card display instore, using the Toolkit branding and pulling together your best-selling blank and everyday occasions cards such as friendship, get well, thank you and of course thinking of you! Also, look at ideas to engage with customers to promote it – as Austin & Co did in Malvern.
How to promote Thinking Of You Week!
Use our lovely Thinking of You Week Toolkit branding and your most colourful cards to create a window display. Look at Earlybird’s fantastic display.
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.
Organise a competition
Organise a card designing competition with your local school, make a window display of the competition entries during the week, print the winning designs as a prize.
See our guidelines for running a social media competition
Speak to your suppliers and work together to promote card sending as Stationery Supplies did, 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 local businesses or charities
Collaborate with a local coffee shop on a card-writing event, if you have your own coffee shop instore – even better!
Or follow House of Cards and link up with a local football team
Encourage customers to write
Create a special card-writing place, or table where customers can write their cards.
Also, give cards and an allocated time to your staff to write 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!
Publicise and promote!
Use the Thinking of You Week Toolkit to help promote your event.
Link up with a publisher and spread some joy in your community like Dandelion Stationery did, maybe include a voucher for people to visit your shop?
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 out 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 receive 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
Don't forget our Toolkit!
Our Thinking Of You Week Toolkit contains a beautiful new banner, flyer and event poster, new retailer and consumer handouts, as well as social media cover images and email sign offs. We’ve also updated our list of local press contacts, and will be adding a new template press release soon to help you publicise your Thinking of You Week initiative that we’re very keen for you to organise!