Tips in Sending a Holiday ECard

Once again, it is time to send Christmas ecards to our friends, buddies, customers, clients, relatives, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, future ex’s, classmates, or even professors. Every year, web agencies go out of their way and spend quite some time to send clever ecards and do fancy flash animations to highlight their skills. When we find one that’s interesting enough, we sometimes grab it for free and forward it to our webified buddies, even to those who are agnostics and atheists.

I used to send snail cards that get read by the recipient many days later, or even way past the holidays. Today, many of us still want to create the same effect with the ecards, yet we spend too little time preparing them (not to mention that they are practically free already). As anyone who has ever done something like this can attest to, it is difficult – if not downright impossible – to find time to produce a creative, thoughtful holiday greeting at this time of year. After the Lantern Parade at U.P., we have all become used to relaxing a bit and trying to beat the December 24th deadlines, year-end, last minute requests, and other potentially anti-festive realities. It’s never nice to greet with a belated Merry Christmas.

Despite all our attempts, the truth is that at the end of the day, the recipient gets a whole pile of generic or previously-forwarded ecards. And what does he/she do with it? Perhaps simply ignore or delete it. The reason is that in almost all instances, the recipient hardly feels the sincerity of the greeting. You know what I mean.

Here are 8 Tips that may be useful in sending an effective holiday ecard:

1. Make sure it is personalized. The recipient knows when you are greeting him as an individual and not merely a part of the general public.
2. Send it early. Who knows, the recipient might include you in his/her holiday shopping for gifts. And if you are really lucky, you could even avail of the free services during break from that ex of yours.
3. Do not forward someone else’s ecard. Nobody wants to see the names of previous recipients of the same greeting.
4. Do not forward someone else’s ecard to many recipients. This is even worse. It shows that the sender does not care much about many other people, including the recipient.
5. Send an SMS to the recipient informing him/her of the ecard. It would show that you did put some effort into making and sending it.
6. Ensure that the graphics are appropriate for the season. Visit sites such as 123greetings.com or bluemountain.com.
7. Show gratitude to the recipient. The best feeling during this season is when someone appreciates you. Be certain that your message has no signs of “ingratitude.”
8. Finally, if you really can’t do Nos. 1 to 7, you better buy a gift. Remember the song: “No greater gift is there than ____.” Just buy a gift. A gift usually lasts longer.