Seeking Advice on Birth Announcements

I am an older mom who, in the last five years, has decreased the number of Christmas cards, due to the cost of postage, etc. I think that this service would be a nice replacement. Cost could be a fee for sending the e-announcement (for 25 e-mails, 50 e-mails, etc.) and an option would be for a few printed keepsake announcements. It would be nice to have baby update announcements, as the child grows up. Best wishes!

I just recently sent out regular birth announcements. I bought my birth announcements on shutterfly and I paid a like $1.50 for each announcements, so id I bought e-announcements I would expect to pay a little less for each announcement since there is no hard copy. I personally don't think I'd like e-birth announcements simply because my family likes having a hard copy to store in a photo album (and I have family members that do not have email) and you can't do that with an e-announcement. What I do like about the e-announcements though was being able to view other pictures. I would maybe do e-announcements for friends and family who aren't as close and wouldn't want to save the announcement as a keepsake. But overall, I prefer having the hard copy.

Hi K.!

Beautiful announcement! I like the idea and actually hadn't ever thought about doing an e-announcement. Like others have said - you can find this stuff for free on the internet but it usually comes wrapped in the companies frame or border. I like how yours does not (I don't like that extra stuff). I would probably pay around $30 for the e-announcement with the option to buy paper ones since a lot of my older relatives don't have email. You could try it the other way around to start with. When you get an order for paper announcements - offer the e-announcement for and extra $15 or so and see how it goes.

Great job!

Great idea! I also think it's a great idea for holiday cards. I've been trying to talk my husband into e-cards for the holidays to be a little more green, but he's not there yet. I like the idea for birth announcements because I never know what to do with birth announcements - feel kind of guilty recycling them and really only keep the announcements from family. I think showing a thumbnail of the pics with the option for a slide show is a good idea. As the recipient, you don't know if there will be 5 or 25 photos to view.

Hi!

Love the announcement!!! Great work!

I agree with Kirby, there are lots of ways to do this now for free. And, several people just send out the info on Facebook these days.

I love actual announcements and was lucky to send mine out with Christmas cards the year my daughter was born. Will need to send out announcements in just a few weeks though for baby#2. :)

I would suggest that you charge a small fee like $20 to do the e-announcement layout and then charge an additional fee for printed copies (esp. if you have great photo paper).

I am a scrapbooker, so having the ability to have a quality print is important to me. I think that there are so many pictures out there these days with digital cameras that everyone gets overloaded with physical pictures of other people's kids (let alone their own!). I think my kid's pictures get pitched by the extended family after a short while. And with it being electronic, people may save the picture on their computer.

Love the idea, but it has to be very inexpensive or included with a purchase of X amount of printed copies.

Good luck with your business!

I love the idea and am not aware where one can go and do it for free (call me clueless).
My sister never sent out announcements, I'll send this to her and see how much she would think she would be willing to spend.

1. How much do you think you'd be willing to pay for something the e-announcement and gallery? ($50 - $65 sound reasonable)

2. Would you use a service like that? (YES)

3. Would you pay a little bit more to a have a few printed keepsake announcements that match? (sure, but no more than $5.00)

4. Would you ever use it for Holiday cards? (yes, but if $50.00 or less)

5. Do you have any feedback on the announcement itself, or anything for that matter? Can you limit how many people the buyer can send them to? If so, you can charge fees according to how many people they plan on sending them to.

I love this idea. I never did baby announcements because I could never pull it together right after my girls were born and by the time I finally got my head above water, so to speak, everyone who would want to know about them, had already met them! So yes, I love this idea and would have used it. In fact, I love this idea for holiday cards. This year I designed and printed cards from Shutterfly, and guess what? They're still sitting on my desk. Never even sent them out. I have email addresses for all of my family and friends, but current mailing addresses? Not so much. I think it's brilliant to do an electronic card like this, that is customized and where you can see more photos. This year I paid around $40 for holiday cards and probably $15 for postage (that I never used), so I'd say if you could come in around $50 or less, you'd be in good shape.

sounds good i hate paying postage
you could advertise on etsy.com too

To be honest, you can find things like this for free on the internet. Good idea, but it would be hard to make money off doing it if you can already do it for free. Maybe you could personalize it a little differently........

Awesome! I would do that. I think you should include a way for out-of town relatives to order prints for themselves.

I would say that you should charge for the announcement, just a small fee and more for adding video or the ability to allow family to get prints.

Great Idea!

I think it is a wonderful idea. I would pay anywhere from $50-75, and would pay a bit more for printed versions, especially since I have some older family who do not check email regularly. Beautiful idea!

First of all, adorable announcement! I had to really think about this. I designed my own announcements (no formal training - just a good picture and Picasa photo editor) and I like the fact that people have the physical card to hang on the refrigerator. That being said, the cost of my time and the cost of getting them printed and sent is another matter. I think I paid $35 on postage alone. So if you can come in somewhere below how much it costs to have them designed and printed, people would appreciate saving the postage. BUT, you may run into people that will always want to send the physical card. Would there be an option for the end user to print? I'm thinking maybe a grandma that wants to hang it or show it to people. Of course it woudln't be as high-quality but just an option. If I used the service, I would definately want a hard copy keepsake. I would probably pay like $5 extra for that. I don't think I would use it for holiday cards because I love to send and receive cards to hang on my holiday card wall. I have noticed though, that the volume of cards over the years dwindles. I think the ever-escalating cost of postage is to blame, so you may be on track with offering a service to send via email. Good luck!