Here?s what you?ve been waiting for! The 2011 Appletree Christmas Card Awards! I made a number of awards last year, for the best, worst, cleverest and most pointless Christmas card ? click here to read that blog.

Now I?m delighted to announce the winners of the competition for Christmas 2011.

The winner of Best and Most Time Spent On It Christmas card goes to Hannah, a student at Reading University, who worked with us for a number of months last summer. She was a temporary Account Manager at Appletree, while we looked for a permanent member of staff. In her spare time, Hannah is a budding artist and she created a wonderful card especially for us. It was hand painted in oils, and shows a blue apple (from our Appletree logo) wearing a Santa hat. It?s beautiful and totally unique. I don?t know how long it took Hannah to paint (and I?m not suggesting that you should paint an individual card for every person or business to whom you want to send a card) but we were really touched by the thought and effort that Hannah put into the card. This card is so special that I?ll be keeping it and definitely offering
Hannah a summer job next year!

At the risk of upsetting a lot of people, I?d also like to award a mass prize to everyone who sent us an impersonal email ?card?. We received a lot that had no personalisation on them. No ?Dear Name? and no mention of who it was from, apart from in the subject line. It?s very easy to find free email cards on the internet these days. One of the problems with this is that some other people might send the same card and it gets a bit boring to see the same card again and again. So the Sorry But I Deleted Your Email award goes to all those people who thought they?d save some money while missing out on a good relationship building opportunity.

The I?m Not Sure Why You Even Bothered award goes to the people who sent out a plain text email telling me that instead of sending cards, they were donating money to charity. When you don?t tell me how much you?re donating or where the money is going ? and you don?t even bother to make the email interesting to read or look at ? why bother? Am I supposed to be impressed by your charitable or environmental attitude? Next time, why not do something useful to your business like picking up the phone to say Hello and Merry Christmas to a few people?

On a much more positive note, I?d like to give the Creatively Branded Card award to Madeleine To at Blueberry Financial Services, for the card she had designed by her sister and printed by www.Moo.com. Madeleine uses a cute blueberry character as part of her marketing and branding and he appeared on her card too. It?s very unique and Moo.com provides a cost effective and reliable service.

Did you send Christmas cards? Do you think it?s worth it? Let me know if you an alternative marketing tactic that you use in December ? you never know, you might win an award for it!