15 Ideas to make your Christmas and New Year marketing a success
In this article I share some guidelines and ideas for marketing a business and selling more products over the Christmas and New Year period.
This list is by no means exhaustive and not all of these ideas will apply to your particular business or industry, that said, I would hope that you walk away with at least a couple of new ideas to have a go at.
Before I share the ideas, it’s important to keep in mind a few simple guidelines.
Christmas Marketing - Guidelines
Create a realistic plan: Pick one or two main ideas for each month and do them properly. Don’t make it difficult or impossible to achieve - keep it simple and involve as many people as possible.
Own one thing - stand out: You can’t be all things to all people – focus your efforts and focus your message accordingly. Remember, it’s not always about offering cheaper products/services - there’s more than one way to deliver value and attract interest.
Get ready now: With October merely a few days away, we’re well and truly into the festive shopping period…like it or not! Sort your strategy now - get prospects excited and capture their interest.
Get your website ready – create specific landing pages: If you’re doing something special, for Christmas or any time, create a specific landing page on your website and make it feel special. Don’t just lump the promotion/offer in with the rest of the site.
Optimise: Optimise the page/website for Christmas terms and phrases.
Is your website mobile friendly? With more and more people connecting via mobile, a poorly optimised mobile site will lose them…quickly. If you can , optimise your website for mobiles or, at the very least, optimise the landing page for mobiles.
Allocate a small budget for social media advertising: People are more likely to flick through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn over Christmas/New Year than simply surf the web – consider small targeted advertising campaigns during the Christmas/New Year break. I read in a report recently that Britons are likely to spend an average of 86 minutes on social media on Christmas Day alone – don’t miss out!
Email marketing: This may be the best way to communicate directly with prospects over the festive and New Year period – build your list now.
Blogs: If you are using blogs, write original content and include Christmas and holiday keywords and phrases - optimise the landing page accordingly.
Incentivise your sales staff…properly: If you’re trying to create a bit of excitement around the business, then create a bit of excitement! A bottle of wine won’t cut it – put in place realistic but attractive incentives and reward the sales effort appropriately.
Make it eye catching: Step away from boring, mundane and dull and try interesting, intriguing and compelling headlines. Make your communications stand out – but don’t shout at them!
Make it easy: Don’t make people ‘jump through hoops’ to get involved, buy, download, subscribe etc. Make it as easy as possible with as few steps as possible. People lose interest easily – keep it simple. Remember – one key message and objective.
Avoid the generic: If you’re sending greetings cards or emails, make them interesting and personalise them – otherwise what’s the point?Data capture for 2014: Think ahead – use your strategy to capture data which you can use in 2014.
Stick to your strategy: Create a manageable strategy which you/your team have every chance of delivering. If it doesn’t go as planned, change it, adapt it and try again - or get someone who can help.
Christmas Marketing - Ideas
Whatever you choose, your ideas need to drive interest and ultimately, drive revenues. Keep them as simple as possible and do them well.The broad choices for you to hang your products/services on are;
- Promotions – A unique offer, event, service, product / offering a reduced price / packaging products or services together / adding value to existing products and services.
- Competitions – Giving people a chance to win something.
- Charity/Community – Doing something which benefits a charity or community initiative, project or group.
In no particular order, here’s a list of ideas that can be adapted and tailored to suit;
Money off next purchase: Include a money-off voucher/coupon for their next purchase – this could be used to drive more repeat business before Christmas or encourage them back in the quiet months of January and February.
2-4-1: A tried and tested offer but make sure you limit the times that you offer it – try and theme it, for example; Two for One Tuesdays.
Business to Business (B2B): These are the types of offers that will generate the most amounts of interest from your prospects;
- E-Books/ How-To Guides
- Presentations and Templates
- Research / Statistics (reports)
- Whitepapers
- Product/Service Bundles
- Webinars
- Videos
- Blogs
Christmas/New Year week promotion: Run a social media promotion between Christmas and New Year. A large number of people will be taking time off – social media usage over this time will increase so you may have a captive audience.
Bring a Friend: Similar to the 2-4-1 - offer a reduced rate or free product/service when someone brings a friend along.
Saturday before Christmas - last minute deals: If you’re in retail this will be one of the busiest shopping days before Christmas – entice them in with added value or promotions on the day. You could also offer a free gift-wrapping service.
Target men on Christmas Eve: If you sell products and services appealing to ladies, create a compelling offer and target those last minute male shoppers.....I'll probably be one of them!
Christmas gift for email: Offer a Christmas gift or a free ‘something’ in exchange for their email. If you work in B2B this could be a free download, whitepaper, webinar place, report etc. Use their email and send them an exclusive offer to redeem before Christmas or in the New Year.
Exclusive offers for your 2012 customers: If you have access to their information, send an exclusive 'Thank-You for shopping with us in December 2012' offer. We use this very successfully for one of my clients - Lido Spa & Restaurant.
Theme popular / historic / notable dates: Create a bit of excitement around key dates and run unique/bespoke promotions on those days, for example; hold a special 1-hour sale after closing the day the clocks change (UK) and brand it something like, "Come and get that hour back at Joe Blogss Inc - we're staying open an extar hour just for you".
Bundle products and services: Create packages (B2B) or Christmas hampers (Retail) and bundle products/services together which complement each other - offer them at a reduced rate for a limited time only or while stocks last. Big them up!
1 Month free: Offer a free month subscription/services if they sign up before a specific date. This can be adapted for products – buy two, get one free etc.
‘How to Guide’: For B2B, offer a free ‘How-To’ guide - you could offer this in exchange for their email address or simply offer it for free and cross-promote your other services/products around it.
Referral campaign: Tap into your members, clients, followers and customers - incentivise them to refer a friend or run a promotion to encourage people to like and share your information. As an example, see my current promotion.
Community or charity campaign: Run a promotion to encourage support for a local charity or community group. As an example, here’s a campaign we have recently introduced at Lido.
Complimentary seminar/webinar: Host a free-to-attend seminar or webinar– invite your top clients and ask them to bring a friend. See a recent example from one of my clients.
Ok so that's 16 if you were eagle-eyed enough to spot it!
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If you would like a brain-storming session which we could combine to form your strategy, you can work with me in a number of ways – see them here.
Whatever your ideas and whatever means you choose to promote them, do it properly and give it the time and the energy it deserves – otherwise what’s the point of even starting it?
I would welcome any questions or comments you may have so please do share them via the comments section below.
If you have a particular challenge you are trying to overcome, you can also email me for a bit of advice.
I do hope this has helped in some way – best of luck!
Paul Kurnyta
The Local Marketing Business
www.thelocalmarketingbusiness.co.uk
paul@thelocalmarketingbusiness.co.uk
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