Christmas is just around the corner, and that means it's time to start planning your festive marketing strategy. The holiday season offers an array of opportunities for brands right from sales to seasonal campaigns, events and promotions. But with thousands of brands bombarding their festive messages and promotional offers at this time of the year, it’s essential to have a solid festive marketing strategy in place.
While the clock is ticking on this year's festivities, it can be difficult to know which are the effective marketing strategies and how best to capitalise on them. So, here are the top 10 ready-to-execute digital marketing ideas to get you started:
- Design unique holiday-themed marketing assets
Christmas is the time when your target audience will be bombarded with thousands of festive messages and promotional offers. One thing that most of them will have in common is a splash of red and green across communication channels. Using a similar approach might lead to your brand communication getting lost in all those ads. But you can stand out from the crowd by giving a twist to your marketing assets.
You can design holiday-themed marketing assets in such a way that they are Christmassy but also have your brand colours, mascots, logo, etc., integrated. That way, your communication will be a breath of fresh air for your customers and will definitely attract and engage them.
Pro tip: Consistency is the key. Once you finalise your Christmas-special colour scheme and communication approach, stick to it throughout the holiday season! Making changes to this might confuse your audience and impact your engagement rate.
- Christmas special gift cards and discounts
Gift cards and discounts are excellent ways to promote your brand, especially during Christmas and holiday seasons. You can offer gift cards for your products or services, which will make them more attractive to potential customers.
You can also use gift cards as part of a loyalty program. This is a great way to attract new customers who will buy from you in the future. It also gives you an opportunity to collect valuable data about these customers' preferences.
If you're not able to offer gift cards, consider offering limited-period discounts instead! This will create urgency and encourage customers to keep shopping from you in the future.
Pro tip: Try including Christmas-special bundles, as everyone loves enjoying products and services that come in specially curated packages.
- Run a Christmas email marketing campaign
Email campaigns are a great way to reach and engage your customers during the festive season. It is one of the most effective ways to engage with customers, as they will receive your messages directly in their inboxes. You must ensure that your content is relevant and timely and every email has a clear call to action (e.g., sign up for our newsletter). Moreover, your email communication needs to be extremely personalised.
Pro tip: Don't spam! You might be tempted to keep highlighting your offers and other brand-related information. But avoid sending too many messages to your audience so you don’t end up in their spam folder.
- Focus on social media promotions
Social media marketing should be a part of your Christmas marketing campaigns. During the holiday season, most of your customers will be in a relaxed mood and might be more receptive to your brand activities. This is also the time when people are expected to be more active on social media. You should make the most of this opportunity by having a very engaging social media strategy. You can include contests and other promotional activities on social media to entice your customers to engage with your brand more often.
Pro tip: While you are leveraging social media to promote your brand, don’t forget to add a human touch to it, as spreading the festive spirit is equally important during this time.
- Include user-generated content
User-generated content is a welcome break from the constant bombardment of Christmas promotions and salesy campaigns. It's the content that your customers create with respect to your brand. UGC is the best way to subtly promote your brand, build credibility and also increase your engagement rate. It’s a type of marketing where your customers become your brand advocates and act as influencers. Also, in an age where people greatly rely on reviews and ratings, including user-generated content can be your best foot forward.
Pro tip: Once you have your user-generated content in place, ensure that you use it in the best way possible. You can integrate it into your email marketing campaigns, website, as well as social media.
- Customer loyalty programs
Customer loyalty programs are a great way to keep your customers coming back to your brand. But it’s also important to ensure that the program benefits both the customer and your business. If you don’t already have a loyalty program in place, here’s a tip to give you a headstart:
Decide on the type of reward program you want – e.g., does it involve discounts or points? You can also consider offering other options, such as gift vouchers or days out, rather than straight discounts on products/services, so your customers can pick what works best for them.
Pro tip: To earn customer loyalty, you must also provide enriching customer service. You need to respond promptly to their queries and resolve them at the earliest.
You Might Like: - Host a festive contest
Hosting a festive contest is a great way to engage your audience, especially if it's an exclusive reward that they’ll get in the end. Make sure the reward is relevant to what you do or sell. Offer them something they can't get anywhere else, like a discount or a freebie. Moreover, keep your communication short, sweet, and engaging.
Pro tip: To promote your contest and make it more interesting, try having an innovative hashtag that’ll grab attention and encourage people to participate.
- Invite influencers to engage with your brand
Influencer marketing is gaining extreme popularity in recent times and can be a great way to advance your Christmas marketing campaign. You can invite influencers who fall into your niche. In exchange for this, you can send them free goodies or other rewards.
Pro tip: Before involving an influencer, consider your brand’s budget. You also need to consider how popular the influencer is and the kind of reach that he/she will help you achieve.
- Make your content informative, unique and shareable
While running your Christmas marketing campaign, don't just try to be salesy. Your content can be designed in such a way as to direct consumers to certain product pages or regions of your website by dropping subtle hints. You can also increase customer engagement by writing blog posts on the most widely-searched subjects that are related to your products or services.
However, your creative material is not limited to your blogs; you can also include white papers, checklists, how-to guides, infographics or videos.
Pro tip: You can make your content more interactive by including quizzes, branded games, polls, surveys, etc.
- Remember to include the last-minute shoppers
The holiday season can be quite overwhelming for customers, with too many things happening at once. There are also a lot of last-minute shoppers who shouldn't be missed. These, in fact, have extremely high intent and less time to make a decision. Hence, you need to have a communication strategy that appeals to them and encourages them to buy your product or service. You can include some exciting offers or discounts to entice these customers.
Pro tip: While your communication needs to create urgency, it must also be empathetic in nature and convey that you don’t want your customers to be left out in the whole holiday shopping experience.
- Bonus Idea:
Plan your post-Christmas marketing strategy in advance
While you’re busy planning and executing your festive campaigns, you need to keep the momentum going. Once the festive season is over, you must have a solid post-Christmas marketing plan in place to keep your audience engaged. The key is to plan this in advance and execute it in time.
Final thoughts
By implementing the ideas mentioned above, you can devise a solid Christmas digital marketing plan. One thing you need to remember is to be experimental and focus on what works best for your business and your customers. And if you wish to make the most of your festive marketing efforts, you can collaborate with a team of experts who understand the ins and outs of digital marketing.
Amura Marketing Technologies is a leading performance marketing agency with over 15 years of experience, an on-time delivery record, extensive market understanding, agile processes, and a team of 150+ digital experts. Through our effective growth marketing strategies, data-driven MarTech solutions and full-funnel marketing approach, we ensure that your brand gets a digital edge. So, are you ready to take your festive marketing to the next level? Get in touch with us today!
Leave a comment
Comments (0)
Be the first one to comment.