In an ever increasing digital world, many messages are being sent in various forms. We often wish each other Happy Birthday or Congratulations with a Facebook wall post, an email, or a tweet. Unfortunately, sometimes our message doesn’t convey the same heart-felt meaning when we expresses it using the convenience of the internet. Wouldn’t it be great if you could send a real paper card to someone online. enGreet thought so too.

enGreet was founded in January of 2009 by Adam Weinsten, a Purdue University – Krannert School of Management graduate of ‘05. Adam has had the opportunity to work for large consulting companies as well as mid-sized software providers. When he decided to pursue his direct delivery card service, he evaluated several different outsourcing and freelance services, ultimately choosing a firm recommended by a friend. To save costs, Adam put his technical background to use and completed the last 20% of the site which included much of the visual details and polish.

On enGreet, anyone can conveniently choose a card design, use the online editor to personalize it, then enter a mailing address of the recipient. The card is then printed on demand, mailed via USPS, and arrives in the hands of friends, loved ones, and significant others. While there are several different designs on the site, enGreet  focuses on providing cards for minorities since these cards often don’t make it into the limited shelf space at local stores. There are currently 125 independent artistes who create the artwork and witty sayings for the cards offered on the site. Adam used his industry’s directory, the Greeting Card Association, to connect with these initial artists. Industry directories and associations are always a great place to start and there is an association for everything! If you think you have what it takes to create greeting cards and want to earn royalties from your work, sign-up to be an artist.

Knowing its target audience, enGreet markets to minority females ages 25 – 55 that are tech savvy. This age group continues to join social networks such as Facebook which is why enGreet offers the ability to import your friends’ birthdays into so you can receive reminders to send them cards. If you know you will forget anyway, you can also schedule the delivery of your personalized greeting cards so they always arrive on time. Why not add a gift card while you’re at it. With this kind of convenience there’s  no reason to ever send a belated card again.

Continuing innovation is always key in the online space. This is why enGreet recently launched a loyalty program where users can earn points from the cards they buy. The site also stepped in to help make a difference with the oil spill in the Gulf Coast. They offered satirical cards about the BP oil spill and donated the profits to clean-up efforts. Founder, Adam Weinsten, says the next steps for the company are to venture into more product offerings than just folded greeting cards as well as empower artists to become viral marketers and promote the sale of their artwork.

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