Enthusem – Greeting Cards Reinvented
On the front page of the Enthusem site is the claim “greeting cards reinvented.” That’s a tall claim, especially with so many e-card sites available on the web. But Enthusem is not a traditional web-based greeting card site, where you send a greeting card to someone’s email address. Instead, Enthusem is a web-based app that sends physical greeting cards to a person’s postal mail address.
We have reviewed Zumbox before – a site that delivers web-based mail to someone’s virtual snail mail address. Zumbox may be more environmentally conscious as there is no extra paper involved, but Enthusem distinguishes itself with a folded card inside a translucent envelope, so you can see the cover image through the envelope. Enthusiam helps add value to a suffering postal mail service and enhances the experience with a unique hybrid email/postal mail system.
Enthusem may use more paper than an all-electronic greeting card service, but sometimes it’s necessary to send a physical note – perhaps as a thank you, or to contact former customers with new offers, or simply to tell someone you love them. Although postal mail has gotten a bad wrap in recent years due to increasing junk mail, people generally appreciate a personalized note from friends and loved ones. Enthusiam cards can be linked to a web address as well, so the greeting card can reference a video or other more-extensive, graphical messages. All told, it’s a good and useful idea and one of those things that makes you think: why didn’t someone think of this sooner?
Practical Uses:
Send business thank-you cards to your best customers without spending the time to hand write every note
Follow up on a job interview and make a lasting impression with the interviewer
Send a personalized “Happy Birthday” card to your mom with your own image and message
Create a unique anniversary card for your spouse
Insider Tips:
Send yourself a card in the mail to get a feel for the print quality and time to receive a mailing
Connect an Enthusem card to your online marketing efforts – it’s another way to get people involved in your business
Check out the demos – helpful information about making and cropping images for use in Enthusem, rather than solely relying on their built-in templates
Use the service to mail entire documents – such as PDFs
Use shared credits so that everyone in the office can access Enthusem from one account
What we liked:
It’s a unique service, we only know of one other similar site
Professional templates and easy to use uploading
Cards are printed on high-quality paper stock
It’s relatively inexpensive – with a free trial for one free card
Delivery is fast – cards are typically mailed the same business day
What we didn’t like:
It creates more paper waste with information that could generally be handled by email
The directions on the site are video-only, which is not very helpful if you’re on dialup or work in a situation where you can’t play videos