The Christmas period is known to be one of the most popular times for consumers to spend money. We now know that 46% of holiday spending is done online, therefore online marketing is an important strategy to implement into your business. Here is a list of things you can do to entice customers and boost your sales around the Christmas period.
Add a Festive Flair to your Branding
By adding Christmas-themed elements into your logo or social media profile photos, this can help keep your brand fresh and updated. However, insure the changes do not negatively impact your brand. The cost of these small adjustments can be justified by the fact these images can be reused each year. Also, feel free to alter any promotional offers or other social media imagery to have a more festive theme.
Holiday themed content
There is no shortage of light topics to write about over Christmas, this can be across your website, social Medias and in your email marketing campaigns. The general rule for content marketing is that only 20% of your content should promote your brand whereas the other 80% should be adding value to your customers lives. There is more leeway in this over the Christmas month, your regular postings can still be valuable however they can have more seasonal appeal. For example, a restaurant could share their chefs favourite holiday dish or a beauty salon could provide discounts for festive treatments.
One way you can share content without being overly promotional is through short, helpful videos. You can also use email marketing to share Christmas-specific offers and information, this could even be styled in an advent calendar format. Whatever form of content you decide to use, just make sure the festive themes aren’t too overwhelming and are nicely balanced between promotional and valuable.
Targeting the right audience
Although your advertising budget should be spent mainly on Christmas-themed ads, these should not replace your regular advertising. The best way to control this is by allocating a specific budget to your Christmas advertising for an assigned period. Planning your Christmas advertisements should be in unison will your regular ads, so when the festivities stop, your regular ad scheduling continues. By having both regular and festive advertising happening at the same time, you can target specific keywords and adjust your audience so everyone sees the ad that is most relevant to them.
Gifts
Whether you provide products or a service, you can always talk about gifting in the festive period. It could be a list of gift ideas, the selling of gift cards or promoting your own gift sets, any can be done online or in-store. If you know your audience then make sure your gifting is tailored towards them however if your looking to expand your consumer base, then your gifting should cover a broad range of interests and ages.
Holiday decor
Finally, you don’t want to neglect creating the right atmosphere for this time of year. While our first point was adding the festive flare into your branding, don’t forget to add it into your business as a whole. This can be done by decorating in-store, presenting festive refreshments to customers or simply offering a gift-wrapping service online. However, it depends on your budget and what would be appropriate to your target audience.
Most of these points can be adapted for different business types and can work on many different marketing channels. There are so many marketing opportunities out there now but it’s all about what is suited to your brand and its customers. If you’re looking for marketing help over the festive period, then please let us know here at Brighter Directions. We offer outsourced services covering PR, Social Media, Content and more. Call our office today on 01246 586 330 to discuss your requirements.
