Name of your website?Official Santa Mail
Your name?
Dianna Kersey
Your Location (city, etc)
Tampa
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Official Santa mail is the Official VOLUNTEER Pro Bono email handler for the NORAD Tracks Santa program for writing to and from letters from Santa Claus. Official santa Mail has launched a global platform for educators in teaching children about Random Acts of Kindness and how to have love and joy and respect in your heart. We sell Belief in Santa type products to enablle us to continue our volunteer efforts to help answer hundreds of thousands of emails from children all over the world every year.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
Before my father passed away, he encouraged me to begin my own compnay so I could truly be happy in sharing the joy from my heart. I couldn't think of a better opportunity than to help keep innocense and joy in children's hearts as long as possible in today's world.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I first launched the site in 2005 and it was a easy template kind of thing. We had great success that year and have expanded every year to meet the demands of the children. We now answer Santa letters in six languages and offer mailed Santa letters in eight languages. english, Spanish, Itlaian, french, German, Japanese, greek and Dutch languages.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We wanted to sound "Official" - so that is what we got:)
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
First of all we are a Surf Safe Certified Site with ICCS iWatchdog Internet Safety program. We are internationally certified as child safe site. We offer so much more than just selling Letters from santa claus. We have written several Christmas Stories for Santa hospitality elves, Chuckles and Buckley. We encourage family reading time together, so we write stories for them. We also offer free holiday games, puzzles and video games. We encourage children to use their imagination and play on our site. The largest difference is our Global Campiagn for Random Acts of Kindness. It is a free program, it does not cost a cent and we aren't accepting donations either. We have written a parenting holiday survival resource with informative and useful articles, not just the same old stuff. We are encouraging teachers, who are so overworked, to have a positive lesson plan for their students inteaching them how to be kind. We are going to be featuring the classes and there work this year showing them as world leaders by setting the example for Kindness!
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Our goal is having our Official Santa Mail site as a leading authority for resources for parents and teachers.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
We haven't quite turned a profit yet, if that is what you are asking. Our volunteering time is incredibly important to us,but we do need the continued patronage of our Santa products to ensure we can continue on giving the way we do.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would have so many more resources avaialbale to us. We could have a great moderated forum for children to discuss their Acts of Kindness. We could have the entire site translated properly into languages all over the globe. Parents and teachers are everywhere and in every language. We would love to be able to give this gift in the own language.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Absolutely! We have partnered with some incredible companies that are BBB Internet Certified and we couldn't ask for a better team of folks who share in our mission to bring Joy to the World through Santa Claus. Majr Stacy Reddish of NORAD Tracks Santa has been an amazing inspiration in getting this incredible program established and successful.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Servers and I had a baby. Not that she's a headache, at all - it was just a lot more time constraint that we what we had before. She is the Love of my Life and I can't wait to tell her that Mommy works for Santa claus!
What has been your biggest challenge?
Learning to become a webmaster. I had been teaching myself as best I could, then I finally decided tomake it legit and I went for my CIW Certified Internet Web Master certificate. it has helped me tremendously in learnign search engine optimization and marketing. I am convinced that this is the job of the future. I love it!
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
word of Mouth! People come to our site nad love what they see. They fill out our Tell-a- Friend or Ttell-A-parent forms and it spreads like wildfire. To me you can't buy that kind of publicity. Of course, volunteering for NORAD doesn't hurt either.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
It is a lot of work! No doubt about that. You are needing to stay current and follow up with your partners and make sure they are doing their jobs correctly too.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
This is our third year going into Official Santa Mail, and we intend to keep on going until our children take over for us! We are here to stay!
What was one of your favorite Letters to Santa Claus?
Inour first year, we quickly found out how greedy children in the US are. But we found amazingly how kind and generous children were overseas. One letter that truly stands out in my mind was from a little boy. All he wanted for christmas was a basket for his mother. Something she could attached to her bike when they went to market so she wouldn't have to carry so much becuase she was pregnant with another child. This brought tears to my eyes and still t othis day encourages me to teach kindness, love and joy to children around the world.
What is your website address?
Official Santa Mail
No trackbacks.
Comments