Christmas…the most wonderful time of year…. It is if you’re completely organised, you have bought presents for everyone, and as a business, you’re maximising the feeling of joy and goodwill to your advantage.
Not quite there yet?
We hear you!
With reports showing that a whopping 38% of people (the uber organised) start their Christmas shopping in October, with this number increasing to 49% in November, it is never too early to get your Christmas marketing strategy ready for action.
And we’re here to help!
Christmas 2023 was the busiest for retailers since 2019, as Brits made 488 million trips to supermarkets over the four weeks to 24 December, spending a record £13.7bn – £477 per household
- To maximise your marketing ideas and strategy from now until 2025 and beyond.
- To stand out from the marketing noise during the hectic Christmas period, and
- To use the tools and marketing elements your target audience wants and engages with.
We’ve broken this post down into broad categories covering a range of marketing ideas and strategies you can implement and build into your planning.
Stuck for ideas? Try our 30 FREE Social Media Ideas, we’ll drop them straight into your inbox.
Christmas Marketing Ideas
However, before you get started….
….know your goals
Before you jump headfirst into redesigning your website for Christmas or pulling together your festive gift guide, make sure you know what your goals are and communicate these to the rest of the business.
Do you want to:
- Increase online conversions
- Boost your social media activity and engagement
- Increase sales
- Generate leads
- Improve website traffic
- Build brand awareness
- More?
Knowing your goals, strategically planning for these, and communicating these helps to keep everyone on message. Your marketing then supports this consistency in messaging, building momentum, and driving results.
Strategic planning also allows you to track your campaigns’ effectiveness, making slight adjustments and tweaks as you go.
You’ve got a plan; now let’s get started.
Dates to know.
As part of your Christmas marketing, the most important dates to be aware of in the run-up to Christmas are Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Taking place this year on Friday 29th November and Monday 2nd December.
These days are the largest and most advertised dates for consumers to grab and maximise their shopping spend during the festive period.
In the UK alone, Black Friday weekend saw an estimated £9.42 billion in 2021 (61.49% of which was from online sales).
During this time, we know that you need to stand out from the noise and for your target audience to connect with you.
The best way you can achieve this is by adding value.
For some people, the pressure of Black Friday and Cyber Monday can be too much, or something might crop up, and customers feel disheartened because they’ve missed the bargain.
Ways you can add value include:
- Offering a discount code that target customers can use for the rest of the year.
- Offering something for free to loyal customers.
- Providing free postage/returns – not a new concept, but if this isn’t something you offer, it could be enticing.
- Extending guarantees to give customers peace of mind that even if it has been an impulse sale because they’ve been drawn into the Black Friday hype, they still have options.
Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is also an excellent opportunity to grow your email marketing list prior to these dates asking people to register their details in advance so you can contact them with great offers and products they might be interested in.
Small Business Saturday will also be taking place on 7th December this year, promoting shopping locally, and supporting local businesses and communities. Small businesses can get involved by hosting specific events, running discounts on this date, and creating content to tell their story. It’s a great opportunity to engage with your target audience, connect with them and convert them into customers.
Don’t forget those that bought from you at Halloween. Take the opportunity to remind customers of any special offers you have coming up, remind them that Christmas is fast approaching and how you can help them be prepared. The aim is to keep them engaged.
We must also be mindful that Santa may not have delivered everything people expected. Some people also like to wait for the January sales or want to treat themselves in the New Year, and you should look to maximise this opportunity. In fact, statistics show that the second week in January is the best time to draw people back in and engage them in further promotions. You’ll also find lots more dates in our November and December blogs.
To the fun stuff
Marketing Ideas for Christmas
Product
Do you have a Christmas product you can introduce alongside your regular products? For example, maybe a Christmas family photoshoot alongside a typical shoot? Or perhaps you sell cakes, and for every box of 12 sold, one special cupcake will be decorated as a reindeer. It doesn’t always have to be about inventing new products but slightly changing what you have to match with your campaign.
Can you create Christmas product bundles? Can you show clearly on your site what products complement each other and how people can save by purchasing products together rather than individually?
Look to introduce Christmas-themed product names. Get creative and draw your audience in to truly make them smile. Again, this strategy focuses on engagement and building your target audience numbers.
Can you create a gift guide? Give gravitas to your top products this Christmas and make your guide digital or even a dedicated landing page. Ultimately, gift guides help make people’s lives easier, and if you can view a range of top products in one easy-to-navigate guide, your audience will remain engaged.
Customise your packaging. Could you offer a gift-wrapping service on and offline, promoting a seamless customer experience no matter how your customer chooses to shop?
Run a countdown to Christmas with digital advent calendars. Allowing you to engage your target audience, look to promote particular products and discounts on certain days, and keep users active with you and your site/products.
Website
- Does your website look ready for Christmas?
- Do images show any Christmas promotions?
- Does your social media reflect the same imagery and colour consistency?
Colours and animation play a big part in how you can make small festive changes to your website. For example, adding hints of red, green, and gold, the colours associated with Christmas, can all help to spread the festive cheer.
As well as updating imagery and adding a fresh hint of colour or Christmas décor to your site, you must also ensure that shopping on your site is convenient and intuitive. For example, if someone makes a purchase, what could they add to this to make their lives easier, i.e., batteries, wrapping paper, Christmas cards, etc.? Do you have any products on special offer that you could push as an impulse buy? (This can be a great sales tool as we know 84% of all shoppers are known to make an impulse buy at the point of checkout. This means product placement on your site is vital.) Introducing and highlighting “other people also bought” is also a great way to play FOMO (fear of missing out) to your advantage.
Content
The festive season is the best way to play with your content and bring in some real emotion.
How?
Because we know that Christmas is a time that families come together, we watch films with hot chocolate; we buy scented candles that remind us of Christmas and frosty winter mornings.
These familiarities are what you need to draw on with your content, telling a story and engaging with your target audience.
Ideas to try:
Email announcements. Let customers (new and loyal) know what you have to offer; how will you get them into the Christmas spirit and entice them to click on links embedded in the email?
Engage your team and run a campaign where a staff member tweets their favourite childhood Christmas memory, what they love most about this time of year or their top present idea for 2023, etc.
Repurpose outdated content. This not only saves you money and considerable time, but not everyone sees your first posts, so changing the images slightly and repurposing and re-promoting content could help you to reach a whole new audience.
Remember to consider all forms of content. From blog posts to videos, infographics, and more. Building a strong content framework, where each piece contains identified keywords (yes, we can’t forget those all-important keywords), with a robust editorial calendar to help keep everything on track and consistent.
The aim of your content is to engage and convert. Creating a seamless customer experience from your offline marketing to online visuals and sales promotion, social media, email signatures, and more. Consistency in messaging is vital.
Christmas Social Media Ideas
Your social media strategy should not stray away from your Christmas marketing strategy; it should support and strengthen it.
Marketing ideas on social media can include:
Competitions – this can be very popular at Christmas, especially if you have a great gift to give away. An excellent way to generate leads and build your email marketing lists.
Instagram 60-second stories. Now you can tell longer stories on IG; great if you have a well-thought-out campaign message or even a Christmas advert to promote.
User-generated content – let your audience create the content for you, engaging them with your brand. For example, ask them to tweet pictures of their homemade Christmas cake – after showing them pictures of yours (of course including your products and branding), and introduce specific hashtags to start a trend!
Remember, social media is 24/7. There is no off switch. That’s why you must plan, scheduling your posts, and planning in accordance with your overall marketing campaigns and strategy, with everything working together like a well-oiled machine.
There are a lot of marketing opportunities in the run-up to Christmas once you lock yourself in a room and start brainstorming.
However, keeping things simple, aligned with your goals, and consistent across all channels is key.
No marketing elements should work in silo for a campaign to truly be successful. Every aspect should be strategically planned and considered, and everyone should be involved and committed to making these campaigns successful.
Research shows us that higher sales and levels of engagement can be achieved when you fully embrace the Christmas spirit.
If you don’t have time to create your festive content, a marketing strategy that engages users throughout the entire winter, and social media campaigns that lead the hashtag way, contact our team today.
Email hello@pieceofcakemarketing.co.uk and let us know your marketing objectives.
