Birthday card automation business! Need your help answering some questions, though

[abigal13]

Hi, friends!

I have a business idea that I’m excited about and ready to pursue, though I could use your advice on some questions I’m currently trying to answer.

The basic idea: customer tells us the important birthdays/anniversaries/occasions they need to remember to send cards to their loved ones/coworkers for, and we’ll send a card to them on that day on their behalf, plus we’ll send them text reminders ahead of time and the day-of so they remember.

The questions I need help answering:

1. Billing/bundling/payment. I wonder if selling bundles and billing them monthly ($X/month gets them Y number of cards sent per year) would be better than individual purchases ($X/cards per year, paid upfront)? I like the bundling idea since it might make the price seem more palatable (“Only $5 bucks a month to make sure all my family members get cards this year? Not bad!” versus “I have to pay $75 right now?? No thanks…”). Although, I wonder if it the packages would make the billing unnecessarily complicated.
2. What target market should I go after first and foremost? I was thinking young professionals who appreciate automating their life would be a good target, but should I get more specific?
3. Should the notes be handwritten or computer printed? Printing would be easier to scale up, especially if I wanted to hire someone else to do it for me somewhere down the line, but I like the personal touch of having them handwritten. I have nice handwriting and do calligraphy and would enjoy writing them (until it becomes too much work, if I ever get that many purchases) and I could even offer different “fonts.” What if I started with them as handwritten, and then plan to introduce computer-printed versions down the line if that becomes necessary?
4. The reminder texts will be fairly easy and inexpensive to automate, so I’m wondering if we should also offer a package with just reminders where we don’t send cards. Should that be something we offer from the start, or should that be introduced later? Since it’s so cheap it seems like it would be a good thing to offer, but maybe we should just focus on the cards. Or perhaps mixed packages? Example: $X/month gets you Y number of cards per year, plus Z number of occasion reminders per year.

Thoughts and advice are welcomed and appreciated! Thanks in advance.

 

[timothythe2nd]

@abigal13 Maybe you can expand to all types of celebrations...

 

[abigal13]

@timothythe2nd Good idea!

 

[steff13]

@abigal13 Give the reminders away for free as lead generation, then upsell to cards or affiliate links to gifts.

 

[sandi217]

@abigal13 This is a good idea. You could do something as simple as giving them X cards per month. They can go in and customize any of them. Regardless of how many they use they pay X per month. Give loyal subscribers a discount on Christmas cards and other events.