Seasonal letters
New year client letters
A letter in the second week of January arrives into an empty letterbox and an empty inbox, which is the entire argument for sending one. It is also a different letter from a Christmas card: it looks forward rather than back, and it can carry something practical that a December card cannot.
Written by Autopen Australia · Updated
Where something changes this year
[FIRST NAME],
Two things worth knowing before [YEAR] gets going.
[CHANGE ONE] takes effect from [DATE]. It will not need anything from you, but it changes [IMPLICATION] and it is easier to think about now than in [MONTH].
[CHANGE TWO] is the other one, and that one we should talk through. I will ring in the week of [WEEK].
[NAME]
Where nothing has changed and the letter is the point
[FIRST NAME],
Nothing is changing at our end this year, which after [LAST YEAR] is the most useful sentence I can write to you.
Same team, same rates, same numbers. If anything at [BUSINESS NAME] is shifting and you want a second opinion on how it lands, ring me early rather than in [MONTH] when it is already happening.
[NAME]
To a client you want to see more of this year
The version worth writing by hand. One specific thing, and a date attached to it.
[FIRST NAME],
We did good work together on [PROJECT] and then the year got away from both of us.
I would like to do more of it in [YEAR]. No proposal attached and nothing to read. If you are free in the week of [WEEK], I will come to you.
[NAME], [DIRECT LINE]
Getting it right
- What to mention. What is changing this year at your end. One thing they might want to think about early. A date, because January letters that say "sometime soon" are read in March.
- What to leave out. New year cliches. Resolutions. A recap of your own year, which belongs in December if anywhere. Wishing them a prosperous new year and nothing else, which is a Christmas card arriving late.
- How long. 70 to 120 words.
- How personal. Brisk and useful. January is when people are deciding what the year looks like and a letter that helps with that is read properly.
- When not to send one. The first week of January, when nobody is back. The second or third week lands on a desk that is occupied but not yet buried.
Personalising more than a handful
The fields that earn their place here: [FIRST NAME], [BUSINESS NAME], [YEAR], [DATE], [WEEK], [PROJECT].
January letters are usually written in December and the dates in them are the first thing to go stale. Anything that says "next week" when the run slips by a fortnight makes the letter read as unattended, and January runs slip more than any other.
Before any run, read the piece with the longest value in your data, the shortest, and the empty one. If all three read as English the merge is sound. Personalising direct mail at scale covers the rest.
Sending these at volume
January is the quietest posting window of the year and the easiest to hit, provided the writing happens in December rather than in the week everybody comes back.
Autopen Australia writes each piece individually with a real ballpoint, personalises every piece from your list, written into the sentence rather than dropped into a gap, hand-addresses the envelopes and lodges the run with Australia Post, or sends it back to you to release in waves.
Want a January letter rather than another December card? Book a January run
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Writing more of these than you have evenings
Tell us roughly how many and what they say. We will come back with an exact price and a production window.