JOYEUX MONTRÉAL - MERCHANT E-CARDS FOR ALL OCCASIONS

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LETTER TO JOYEUX MONTRÉAL MERCHANTS

Bienvenue!

First of all, on behalf of JOYEUX MONTRÉAL, let me wish a very warm welcome to all of our Merchants of Christmas 2007 and New Year's 2008. May this wonderful new season bring every one of you health, joy and prosperity!

This is the big launch of JOYEUX MONTRÉAL, Merchant e-Cards for All Occasions. Twenty Montreal businesses with outstanding Christmas decorations in the 2006-2007 season have been chosen to receive this new service free. Now, what does "free" mean? What's the catch?

Free means this: that the Merchant page developed by JOYEUX MONTRÉAL, to promote your business, and the e-cards designed by JOYEUX MONTRÉAL featuring your Christmas decorations, are absolutely free for you to use to promote your own business through this holiday season. We are grateful for this year's unlimited bandwidth, provided by www.webng.com, a free hosting service who have refused to take a penny this year.

If you do like the service, and would like to help cover the costs of development and design this year, you can always forward a contribution to us via PayPal, however, this would be a voluntary donation, and JOYEUX MONTRÉAL, is not in a position to issue receipts, although we will certainly appreciate your support.

Who owns the JOYEUX MONTREAL site and concept?
The JOYEUX MONTRÉAL site, e-cards, software, name, domain, concept and all copyrights, and all other rights are owned by JOYEUX MONTRÉAL. Merchants who use the service participate on the basis of a co-promotion for the duration of that promotion. In the case of this Christmas and New Year campaign, the official launch date is 10 December 2007, and the access page will be closed on 15 January 2008, so be sure to get all your e-card mailing done before then!

Goals for the 2007-2008 Holiday Season:
Our first goal is to help you spread happiness and good cheer to your existing customers, so that through this unique co-marketing campaign, they may in turn bring you many more happy customers to brighten the coming year.

The JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards have been designed to highlight your business, but also to be so attractive that most people will just want to send them.

They have also been designed to enhance the pride that all these wonderful Merchants with their beautiful stores naturally take in their businesses.

JOYEUX MONTRÉAL wants to help create for you an online community of Montreal businesses who contribute in a positive way to each other's potential by working together to raise visibility. This just means more market for everyone.

Goals of JOYEUX MONTRÉAL for the 2008-2009 season:
Christmas 2007 is just the beginning of this unique online co-promotional campaign. Our first objective is to build the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL online business community by attracting other Merchant participants for Christmas and New Year's next year. All the photographs used for next year will have to be taken this year.

So, if you want to become a JOYEUX MONTRÉAL participating Merchant with your own page and e-cards for Christmas NEXT year, get in touch with us NOW, while all your Christmas lights are up, and hopefully, we'll have a little snow, too!

That's our first goal for the expansion of our JOYEUX MONTRÉAL service.

Our second objective is to add events and "seasons" to JOYEUX MONTRÉAL and therefore begin to add new categories of Merchant e-cards. For example: Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, Hallow'een, or perhaps a season like Harvest.

Your business might have special events all its own that you would like to promote through a private set of e-cards under your own private category. For this, JOYEUX MONTRÉAL will develop password-protected areas of our web site allowing Merchants to go in and use e-cards we design for them just for their own campaigns.

Of course, this year, the use of all our beautiful e-cards is free. However, next year, Merchants who participated for free this year may be invited to contribute a fixed fee to maintain their page and cards online, as all of these things do take space in hosting, bandwidth, graphics and server maintenance, and will require JOYEUX MONTRÉAL to make an outlay. In fact, we have already reserved paid server space at www.sibername.com in order to better develop our back-end.

New Merchants who would like to participate may contact JOYEUX MONTRÉAL by taking the short survey of their needs on our main page. JOYEUX MONTRÉAL will contact new Merchants to discuss their needs and the type of fees that would be incurred for their unique requirements.

How do the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards work?
When people send the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards, their recipient is brought directly to the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL web site to pick up their card, and that's when they, too, have the opportunity to send an e-card, and to visit each of the special Merchant pages designed by JOYEUX MONTRÉAL for all our Merchants.

JOYEUX MONTRÉAL has a privacy policy which precludes our collecting the email addresses used to send and receive cards. However, our visitors will be able to OPT-IN to receive a JOYEUX MONTRÉAL Newsletter highlighting the products, events and services of our participating Merchants. Merchants will also opt-in as the Newsletter will be a fee-based service.

A little survey to our e-card senders will allow them to tell us what products and services they are interested in hearing about, and we will collect those emails in order to target the information that will be contained in our Newsletter.

The JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards should therefore (i) increase brand awareness for your business, (ii) attract new customers to your business, (iii) and create a buzz around town that will excite the curious to come and visit, and send a few e-cards themselves.

How can I use JOYEUX MONTRÉAL Merchant e-cards for my business?
Here are a few ways that you can begin to make JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards work for you:

JOYEUX MONTRÉAL provides our participating Merchants with a CD containing a 4-color printable postcard designed to be given out in-store to your customers.

The current postcard features the names of all participating Merchants, and the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL web-address.

It's designed to be printed several ways: (a) in small or large quantities by your local photo-developer, (b) or in small quantities by you, using the in-store equipment provided by many pharmacies and shopping centers, (c) or you can simply e-mail a copy of the postcard to your own printer to have it produced for you in any serviceable quantities for one or more of your stores.

We only ask that you not alter the postcard in any way, such as by changing the graphics or the text that it contains.
When you print your postcards, put them out in your store in visible locations, where customers can reach out and take one.
Put them in your window, together with your Christmas lights, so passing trade can see them;
Bring a good supply of them home with you, and invite your friends and family to give them to their friends at school and at work.
Keep them at the cash, and be sure to pop one into each bag or package of a paying customer, for them to take along with their purchase.
Include one in each delivery of a product such as flowers, a gift, or a meal.
Keep a few in your briefcase, purse, glove compartment or pocket during the Holiday season, and pass them along to people you meet at events and celebrations.
If you send out mailings or invoices, print the postcard on lightweight paper and include it in your envelopes.
As an alternative to the 4-color postcard, JOYEUX MONTRÉAL has also prepared a black and white flyer that you can print directly from the PDF-file online (or on your CD!). Each printed page creates two 5.5x8.5 black and white flyers, so for a fraction of a penny you can distribute your JOYEUX MONTRÉAL e-cards to your friends and clients.
Set up a gift-wrapped Christmas box in your store near the cash, with a slot in the top, and put out a pen and small tear-off notepad to let your customers leave THEIR email address to receive news of your products. This will allow you to build your own e-mail list for your private mailings.
Add the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL web address: www.joyeuxmontreal.com to your Christmas and New Year's print advertisements.
Get your DJ to mention the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL web address in your radio spots: www.joyeuxmontreal.com.

The more postcards you give out, and the more places you use the JOYEUX MONTRÉAL web address in your Christmas and New Year's promotions, the more potential visitors you generate for your JOYEUX MONTRÉAL Merchant page, and therefore for your own products and services. You also help to build community, and that helps all the Merchants, including you.

In closing, thank you for your time, have a wonderful and successful JOYEUX MONTRÉAL launch, and keep in touch! Let's hear how you're doing, what you're doing, and how your customers and friends are reacting to your very own e-cards!

Joyeux Montréal!