‘Tis the season to get marketing! Every year we feel like marketing for Christmas is earlier and earlier, and there’s good reason for that! Christmas marketing works.
As you may have already seen, John Lewis has already released their themes and ideas for their Christmas marketing campaign, and as soon as they do, all small businesses should begin preparing for their marketing strategies. At Britweb, we begin talking about Christmas in July!
Top tips for your Christmas marketing strategy
Prepare early
As soon as your Christmas campaign finishes in January, it’s crucial to look over your reports from:
- Google Analytics
- Search Console
- Social media reports
- and any other data sources
This will show you what worked best for you and your competitors. If you work with an agency, you should have a report which outlines this for you. Consider what you want to improve and draw up a rough outline of your plan for this year as part of your 12-month marketing strategy.
If you didn’t start that early this year, don’t worry! You can look back on historical data, look at what your competitors are doing and begin your Christmas marketing strategy now.
By the end of October, you should be finalising your deadlines and your plan to ensure that the festive season goes as smoothly as possible and you’re receiving lots of orders and enquiries.
Factor in the current climate
The holiday season is a very exciting time of year, but you still have to consider what is happening in the lives of your customers. It’s important to set the right tone and to be understanding of what your customers may be feeling. This year is going to be an especially difficult Christmas with the cost of living crisis and many typical customers will be looking to host a budget-friendly Christmas.
Consider creating an email marketing campaign with discounts, or use social media platforms to host a Christmas giveaway which could be a great way to direct potential customers to your online store.
If you cannot afford to do discounts – don’t panic! Instead, to celebrate the festive season, you could push your customers towards your most cost-effective or useful goods and services. If you sell lighting for instance, do you have solar options instead? This could be sold as a cost-effective solution.
Shipping
Everybody loves free shipping and many people will spend more money than planned just to get that free shipping! Consider if you could offer free shipping on your e-commerce store, or if you have a physical shop, perhaps you could offer longer hours in the evenings and at weekends to allow people to buy their Christmas gifts.
Search Engine Optimisation
We love SEO and know just how important it can be, especially for seasonal events. During every holiday season, there are many Christmas marketing campaigns and the whole market will be saturated. This is why if you have a small e-commerce store, it’s important to really optimise your site.
- Create a Christmas landing page
Create a beautiful landing page covered in the holiday spirit and Christmas cheer. Put your best offers on there, promote your gift-wrapping service, promote gift cards, add a Christmas gift guide and offer free shipping. Make it so easy for your potential customers to buy all their gifts in one place.
- Update your meta titles and descriptions
Be sure to update your metadata and any long-running google ads to ensure you target specific keywords that are relevant to your business, like ‘Christmas gifts for men’ or ‘Christmas trees’. We work closely with our clients to ensure they have all their SEO in place so they can concentrate on serving their customers!
- Update your Google My Business
Will your hours change? When is the last date you can order in time for Christmas? Do you have any bundles or special offers? Add these to your Google My Business and on your website to make sure you don’t have any disappointed customers.
- Change your ads
Review your current ads and update them with seasonal key terms to encourage holiday shopping. Direct your ads to your Christmas landing page and incorporate it into your holiday strategy.
Consider if you could remarket to previous customers or clicks and reignite the initial interest and make those Christmas sales!
Marketing campaign ideas for small businesses
SMEs often have to compete with large businesses for the same products and services, and at Christmas, it’s especially important to ensure your Christmas marketing ideas attract sales.
Email campaigns
Email campaigns, if timed right and written well, can be very successful, whether B2B or B2C. Create an email which adds Christmas flair and pushes your personalised gifts, and invites customer loyalty.
Make it clear that you’re a small business and allow your customers to support local initiatives by choosing to shop with you. Many people enjoy telling people that their gift was from a local artisan shop or a small business which sources their materials locally.
Enjoy yourself with your emails, get excited by Christmas and let it shine through!
Push notifications
If you have an app, you can use your push notifications to promote your online sales. Maybe create little gift bundles or add a gift for the purchaser during the Christmas period.
Be sure to wish your customers a Merry Christmas and link to your dedicated landing page to really push your holiday sales.
Social media
Social media is huge around Christmas, especially for finding new customers and creating a wide variety of Christmas campaigns.
Did you know?
On average, a person sees an ad 7 times (on various platforms) before they choose to purchase something.
Christmas marketing ideas need to stand out, especially on social media. Review what your competitors did the previous year and see what worked and what didn’t. Ensure that your branding strategy is comprehensive and you know how you’re going to reach your audience.
Is your brand funny? Serious? Relatable? Reliable? Are you already a source of inspiration for gift ideas? Have you consistently posted throughout the year and built up your audience? Consider these while creating your marketing strategy and make the most of social media.
Depending on your branding and service or product offering, it’s worth considering how social media can be used to market your Christmas sales. For social media platforms like TikTok, it can feel overwhelming to consider content creation – do you have enough ideas to create a following who will be interested in your holiday sales?
Make sure that your posts engage with your audience, try creating quizzes or guessing games or jump on current or rising trends. On many social media platforms, you can see what’s trending by searching your relevant hashtags and key terms and you can quickly see which trends are becoming popular. You can use free design websites to create quality images and graphics and can create posts, reels and stories to help elevate your holiday marketing campaigns.
Your Christmas marketing campaign
If you’ve sent your push notifications, and email campaigns, updated your landing page and have Google ads and social media ads, you should be in with a good chance of converting more people this festive season.
Ensure you keep an eye on what your competitors are doing and let your business speak for itself.
If you have a physical shop, decorate it for the holiday season and add Christmas flair to your products and services. Make your brand online and in-store consistent and be inspired by other Christmas marketing ideas.
Post-Christmas marketing
After the frenzy and preparation leading up to Christmas, you may think you can relax, however for many industries, the January sales and post-holiday season rush is where they have an influx of new business.
Be sure to organise the January sales and any promotional campaigns as part of your marketing strategy – some companies plan their marketing from February to February to make it easier to manage the more hectic seasons.
Gyms, for example, see a huge influx of new sign-ups in January, so it’s important in the run-up to Christmas, to begin your campaigns so that by the time January comes around and people are actively thinking about returning to the gym, your brand name will be at the forefront of their minds.
Try not to clutter an already saturated inbox with your email marketing campaign and hold off on a Christmas promotion if you know that you have a post-Christmas audience. Utilise previous data, such as footfall, sign-ups, site visitors, and bookings to time when you should offer your after-Christmas sales.
How Britweb can support you
We are so excited for the holiday season and can support you with your Christmas marketing by creating WordPress landing pages for your site, email marketing campaigns, social media posts, PPC, SEO and general campaign strategies.
Contact us today to find out more or explore our services.