Pelham Moms Personalize Email with Stationery Touch

Though Sharon Gaffney loved working as a graphic designer, she didn’t enjoy emailing her clients—the layout was just too drab. But, instead of continuing to stare at the generic screen, Gaffney decided to introduce some color into the world of virtual communication.

Gaffney, along with her husband and her business partner, Shana Clarke, launched MeebleMail.com this week, an online service that allows users to personalize their email with designer stationery. For $4.99 a year, users get access to about 500 design options, ranging from well-known talent like Trina Turk, to local designers such as, Nina Dunhill. But the site doesn’t just brighten up boring emails, it’s also offering those in the paper industry a much-needed business outlet.

“We don’t want paper to go away,” Gaffney shared. “The idea came because I’ve loved stationery and everything monogrammed for as long as I can remember. We provide another avenue for them to get their designs out there.”

In addition to scouring the market for top designs, Gaffney and Clarke were equally as concerned with making sure that the website was easy to navigate and integrate into a hectic lifestyle. Users fly through the five-step process that involves choosing a theme, personalizing it with a font, their name, address and monogram. They then move on to purchasing and inserting the stationery into their Gmail, Yahoo! Or Hotmail missive.

“It came down to the usability and if consumers found it easy to use,” said Clarke, director of business development. She recently left her marketing job in Manhattan behind to pursue MeebleMail full time.

To test just how user friendly the site was, the founders held focus groups in Clarke’s Pelham home before the website launched.

“People in Pelham were just amazing,” Clarke said of the feedback she and Gaffney got from participating locals.

While Gaffney and Clarke are working to merge paper letters with electronic exchanges, they’re also bringing volunteerism into their message. The company is donating 50 percent of the stationery purchase price to a number of causes including, AmeriCares, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, The Wildlife Conservation Society, The National Foundation for Celiac Disease Awareness and Arts Grow.

“That piece is really important to both of us who have been long-standing volunteers,” Gaffney said.