A Christmas Recipe!
Date published: 3rd November 2005
It may only be November but, if you're in business, it always pays to think ahead.
Celebrations like Christmas, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and Diwali provide great opportunities to connect to your audience and show them your web site's kept current year round. And so do national and global events like the Olympics, Remembrance Day and Guy Fawkes' Night.
There are plenty of things that you can do to mark such events, but what you do will largely depend on what your website is about and who uses it. The most important thing, though, is to keep whatever you do in perspective. If you swamp the home page with seasonal graphics and messages, you could make it harder for people to find what they want on your site, increasing the chance they'll move on quickly.
Google is a good example of a company that gets it right. They place a Santa's cap on their company logo or add a layer of snow on top of the letters. It clearly demonstrates to visitors that Google updates its site regularly and suggests that other parts are likely to be up to date too!
They keep it simple and tasteful and that's why it works so well. (It stands to reason that if you paid a graphic designer to create your logo and design your web pages, you shouldn't compromise your standards with tacky clipart!)
If you can't afford to bring in your designer for help, then it's probably best to leave your logo alone and think of something else. Many home pages include areas that are designed like advertisements - spaces you can use to get particular messages across. You could 'borrow' one of these for your greeting. Or if your home page includes the date, how about adding a message to it? November 5th, 2005 - Happy Bonfire night!
Ideas such as these will show your site is more than an online brochure - it's a place where things are happening all the time. But you could go further. For instance, if you have an online shop, you can create a themed area that pulls relevant merchandise together in a single location. Hopefully, a lot of shoppers will be visiting your site with Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day in mind. They'll be looking to buy gifts, so why not make it easy?
Or if you are running an intranet site for your employees, what about using events throughout the year to emphasise your equal opportunities policies, highlighting how different ethnic, religious and other groups contribute to your success? It's another way to improve your communications and get people more involved in your web site.
Whatever you decide to do, though, it's important not to start your celebration to early or finish it too late. We all know that Christmas decorations look tired once the big day is over, and frankly irritate if there too early, and in the same way getting the timing right for your website is important. (Although, of course, if you have products to sell for Christmas, you'll need to promote them much earlier and your message will be more 'salesy'.)
If you drag it out, you risk giving people the wrong impression - that you don't keep your site up to date. Fortunately, though, your E-KIS content management system can make the update for you automatically while you carry on enjoying the holiday!
If you'd like to find out more about how your website can be designed to make it easy to celebrate events and mark occasions, A Recipe For Success can help. To see an example of last years e-Chritmas card, please click on the following link:- Christmas e-Card Example. Alternatively contact us by E-mail or give Jeff Hume a call on 01473 409933.
Celebrations like Christmas, Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year and Diwali provide great opportunities to connect to your audience and show them your web site's kept current year round. And so do national and global events like the Olympics, Remembrance Day and Guy Fawkes' Night.
There are plenty of things that you can do to mark such events, but what you do will largely depend on what your website is about and who uses it. The most important thing, though, is to keep whatever you do in perspective. If you swamp the home page with seasonal graphics and messages, you could make it harder for people to find what they want on your site, increasing the chance they'll move on quickly.
Google is a good example of a company that gets it right. They place a Santa's cap on their company logo or add a layer of snow on top of the letters. It clearly demonstrates to visitors that Google updates its site regularly and suggests that other parts are likely to be up to date too!
They keep it simple and tasteful and that's why it works so well. (It stands to reason that if you paid a graphic designer to create your logo and design your web pages, you shouldn't compromise your standards with tacky clipart!)
If you can't afford to bring in your designer for help, then it's probably best to leave your logo alone and think of something else. Many home pages include areas that are designed like advertisements - spaces you can use to get particular messages across. You could 'borrow' one of these for your greeting. Or if your home page includes the date, how about adding a message to it? November 5th, 2005 - Happy Bonfire night!
Ideas such as these will show your site is more than an online brochure - it's a place where things are happening all the time. But you could go further. For instance, if you have an online shop, you can create a themed area that pulls relevant merchandise together in a single location. Hopefully, a lot of shoppers will be visiting your site with Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day in mind. They'll be looking to buy gifts, so why not make it easy?
Or if you are running an intranet site for your employees, what about using events throughout the year to emphasise your equal opportunities policies, highlighting how different ethnic, religious and other groups contribute to your success? It's another way to improve your communications and get people more involved in your web site.
Whatever you decide to do, though, it's important not to start your celebration to early or finish it too late. We all know that Christmas decorations look tired once the big day is over, and frankly irritate if there too early, and in the same way getting the timing right for your website is important. (Although, of course, if you have products to sell for Christmas, you'll need to promote them much earlier and your message will be more 'salesy'.)
If you drag it out, you risk giving people the wrong impression - that you don't keep your site up to date. Fortunately, though, your E-KIS content management system can make the update for you automatically while you carry on enjoying the holiday!
If you'd like to find out more about how your website can be designed to make it easy to celebrate events and mark occasions, A Recipe For Success can help. To see an example of last years e-Chritmas card, please click on the following link:- Christmas e-Card Example. Alternatively contact us by E-mail or give Jeff Hume a call on 01473 409933.
Tel: 0845 8 409933