At emdash, all business is referral business. We very rarely do any outbound marketing and have never done any advertising for our services. Every single penny I’ve made is a result of someone thinking our work was good enough to refer.
So, around Christmas / New Year every year, we send thank you gifts to everyone who has referred us in that year. We add a little note in the form of a card inside, but the item itself isn’t emdash branded. We’re very clear that the gift we send is simply a heartfelt expression of gratitude, not a means to put our brand name on something.
This year, we sent about 70 gifts, nothing much, a small notebook/journal. With the final batch in the postbox, I can’t help thinking how fortunate I’ve been. Not only for the 50+ people who referred emdash, but also for the kindness of guest writers and contributors to The Whole Works.
If you have had reasons to be grateful this year, make sure you send in your thanks. A message, an email, a phone call, whatever it might be — may be someone out there needs to hear it.