A thoughtful gesture like sending clients a holiday card should also adhere to a certain professional etiquette. Putting a bit of thought into your Business Holiday Card message will ensure that your client feels special, and can help them to remember your company once the New Year rolls around.

Here are 5 simple rules to consider when composing Holiday Card messages for clients, to make the biggest impact possible this holiday season:

1. Don’t mention a religious holiday. Since you don’t know which religious or seasonal holidays your clients celebrate, keep things neutral with a simple, general holiday message that doesn’t hone in on any one religion. This allows you to send a thoughtful message without excluding anyone — a simple “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” will do the trick.

2. Handwrite your personalized message. While you’ll likely choose a printed message for all your Holiday Greeting Cards (and here at Red Paper Plane, we offer lots of options for customizing this message), you’ll still want to hand write an individualized message on each of the Holiday Cards you send. For example: if the interior of your card says “Season’s Greetings from the team at [Your Company]”, you might also jot down a quick note saying, “I look forward to having coffee again in the New Year!” or something a bit more personal and directed toward that person. In this exceedingly digital age, a handwritten message will make your card stand out from the rest in the stack.

3. Don’t go overboard with advertising. Sending Holiday Cards is a great way to naturally keep up correspondence with your clients, but it is certainly not a time to ramp up your company’s advertising. If you mention too much about your business or try to include an advertisement, you’ll risk you clients becoming annoyed and thinking your card is in bad taste. Instead, simply stick to a general message of cheer — if your clients know you appreciate their business, this is what will keep them coming back.

4. Sign off with a thoughtful closing. This is the last thing your clients will see when reading your card, so you’ll want to make it stick. Instead of an impersonal “Sincerely”, try writing a heartfelt message of best wishes, or tell your client you hope to work with them again soon.

5. Get the address and postage right. This one may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s the most important part of sending your Holiday Cards: ensuring that they arrive to their final destination. After all the work you put into customizing your Holiday Cards for your clients, you want to make sure no one on your list feels as though you forgot about them. Check, and double-check, your addresses before heading to the post office and, once there, make sure that you include enough postage to get it there in time for the holidays.