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Santa’s Friend again brings a little happiness for Christmas!
Added: (Wed Oct 10 2001)
This time last year, a lull in orders at Dan Stanzl’s web design business in South London coincided with a serious illness in the family. Wanting something to take his mind off the gloom, his thought turned to Christmas, only a couple of months away. Why not use his internet skills to bring Santa into the 21st century? As a child he had like thousands of other youngsters written to Santa, and was thrilled one year when Santa wrote back. He had heard of letters from Santa available online, but thought his business could do a better job for less. And so Santa’s Friend was born. A user friendly web site was born, and traffic was driven to it using links from other sites run by his group or those of friends.
Getting the right wording and style for the letters took a lot of thought, says Dan “It was important to get the right tone for children of all ages, and to ensure the whole thing was professionally done – I am young enough to remember believing in Santa myself and I can imagine how distressing it would be for kids to get something that would undermine the image of Santa that kids carry in their minds” he said.
The orders started pouring in, and the three-person business was temporarily diverted into producing and despatching several thousand letters to children all over Britian, wishing them a Merry Christmas from Santa. A few technical problems occurred, mainly because Dan’s business could not take online payments, and had to rely on cheques sent by post following an online order; but by the big day, all but one of the letters had arrived safely, invoking the money back guarantee for failed deliveries. Dan was particularly proud of the sizeable collection of letters and e-mails from satisfied customers, who he hopes will use the service again.
This year Santa’s friend is back with a more professional operation, with the website able to handle online payments by credit and debit card as well as orders; discounts for four letters or more; and something for the grown-ups too- a mouth watering collection of traditional British recipes, many of them rare, in an attractive ready to print format, put together by foodies in the office during the year.
Log onto Santa’s friend at http://www.santasfriend.co.uk , or order by post with a cheque for £3.50 payable to Outdoornet UK, PO Box 950, Wallington SM6 2GY.
Don’t forget to give your child’s name, address and sex!
Contact: Dan Stanzl, P2 web media, PO Box 950 Wallington SM6 2GY
e-mail dan@power2.co.uk,
Fax: 0870 160 6393