It’s that time of the year when we start to get phone calls from clients looking to create a unique Holiday card to send out in December. In years past clients have always wanted to do the traditional printed greeting card/envelope and send out via bulk mail. But this year, the first thing clients have brought up is that they want to do something digital. With the business world so connected online and with the huge spike in social media involvement over the past couple years I think online Holiday greetings are going to become the norm sooner rather than later. I could be wrong, but I think this year we are going to see more digital cards from your average B to B company and not just from the Ad Agencies like years past. With printing and postage costs always increasing it makes a lot of sense for businesses to make this change to save money, which is bad news for printers and the postal service.
The whole point of a Holiday greeting card is to show your appreciation and thanks to a client and so if you do that in a traditional printed greeting card or in digital format I believe you have done your job. If your point is to make a viral eCard like Elf Yourself for the whole world to see then I think you have your work cut out for you and most likely you will miss giving a sincere message to your clients this year.
Plenty of debate could go on with what you would prefer to receive from your clients or vendors and the perception that online holiday cards aren’t as personal but with digital you have more ways to express your message. With Adobe Flash, Video, Animation, Dynamic Web content you really can do some neat and fun things for your Holiday eCard.
Here are some examples of past Holiday eCards:
http://www.onedegree.ca/2008/12/holiday-ecards-and-microsite-roundup-2008.html
http://www.onedegree.ca/2008/12/more-2008-holiday-ecards.html
http://www.onedegree.ca/2007/12/roundup-holiday.html
http://www.onedegree.ca/2007/12/part-2-of-holid.html
http://www.vml.com/handbellhero/
http://sendables.jibjab.com/personalize/203443/monster_mash
What is your take on digital vs print holiday greetings and what you or your company is planning to do this year, leave a comment below.
