Christmas Marketing Ideas: How Your Business Can Embrace Christmas Time

December 15th, 2022 by Socially Powerful

‘Tis the season for all brands big and small to benefit from the hustle and bustle of Christmas time.

This is a crucial sales period, as between 50%-80% of total revenues are often generated within the last few weeks of the year. To ensure you get your slice of the pie this festive season, you need to up your social media marketing game and roll out some exciting Christmas marketing ideas!

Not sure where to begin?

This blog post has you covered, from best practices to inspirational Christmas marketing ideas.

Tips to ace your Christmas marketing campaigns

Understand the change in consumer behaviours

Covid has undeniably changed the face of consumer shopping behaviours.

A recent Facebook survey found that, as a result of the Covid lockdown, 80% of Gen X and Boomers have taken up online shopping practices, with 34% of them expressing their desire to continue shopping in this way even after the outbreak is over.

In another survey, Numerator observed that 73% of consumers expect Covid to impact their holiday celebrations, meaning they have plans to shop solely online this festive season.

As a brand looking to run a Christmas marketing campaign, knowing this data is crucial for tapping into the mindsets of consumers; increasing your chances at correctly targeting them.

Start early

Because nothing good ever comes from being late/unorganised.

The sooner you start to plan for your Christmas marketing ideas, the better. Specifically, you’ll have more time to:

Analyse historical performance, target audience, industry trends etc.
Brainstorm ideas with your team and run A/B tests to discover what works best
Keep up with the changes in the market and make necessary changes

Create a real reason to buy, with deals and offers

The Numerator survey suggests that 59% of consumers plan to spend over $200 at Christmas time. However, 89% of them still expect inflation to impact their holiday shopping, so they’ll still be looking for great deals on your products.

Offer incentives for consumers to buy from your brand by providing discounts, promo codes, free shipping or anything else valuable to potential customers.

Another way to incentivise shoppers is to create bundles that allow them to test out more of your products. Made By Mitchell does this perfectly by bundling his best-selling products up with others he wishes for his customers to try. This way, the customer feels like they are getting the best deal possible, as they have their hands on a best-selling product AND others, all for a fixed price.

@madebymitchell I LOVE THIS BUNDLE SOOOO MUCH 🥹💕🫶🏼💅🏼 #madebymitchell #blursh #mua #makeupartist #makeup #makeuptutorial #makeuphack #makeuphacks #beautyhacks #blushhack #nisrin #fyp #viral ♬ original sound – madebymitchell

Create buyer personas

This year, you can’t afford not to know who your campaigns are going to be targeted at.

Knowing your customer is the number one priority in creating a marketing plan for your business. Once you are armed with this information, you can craft better stories and sales pitches to give your social media posts a fighting chance at being engaged with.

Apply psychological marketing principles

As consumers, our decision-making is mostly driven by innate biases.

You can apply the following marketing principle to optimise ad campaigns, email marketing and website copy:

Social proof – consumers are more likely to adopt the beliefs or actions of others they trust. Take advantage of this by showing reviews, rating, testimonials etc, with shoppers.
Scarcity – The more rare an opportunity, the more valuable it is.
Urgency – let customers know a deal is about to end by using a countdown timer. This will encourage them to take immediate action.

Christmas marketing campaign ideas

Launch a Christmas email campaign

Ensure that your email campaign is aligned with that of your store/ecommerce store to send a strong, concise message to your customers.

The image below is ASDA’s Christmas email campaign. It creates a sense of urgency by letting shoppers know that just a few food slots are available; encouraging them to take action and book theirs today.

Launch a Christmas email campaign

Implement a Christmas marketing strategy

The key to marketing success is to have a strategy in place for how to wish to go about tackling this festive season.

Implement a Christmas marketing strategy

For example, in 2021, Macy’s ran with their Believe campaign to get their foot in the Christmas door. The campaign encouraged customers to write their letters to Santa in-store or online. For every letter received, Macy’s donated $1 to the Make-A-Wish foundation.

Share Christmas advertisements

Though this is a more expensive option, TV ads are the best way to reach a wider audience.

Etsy has mastered the art of advertising on TV this Christmas. They have released a series of ads, around 30 seconds each, with each of them highlighting gift giving for a certain group of people; from new parents to dogs. The one below is their ‘To The Travelers’ campaign video.

Share holiday-themed video content

To make your brand known on social media, you should be leveraging the power of video. Specifically, short-form video.

Here, The Body Shop makes use of Instagram Reels to offer their followers a brief gift guide so as to influence purchase decisions.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Body Shop Official (@thebodyshop)

Partner with influencers

Influencers are the most effective way of increasing brand awareness and driving sales and are therefore key to your success this Christmas. This is simply because consumers trust them over brands.

A great example of brands leveraging influencers during the festive season can be found here:

@dixiedamelio living in my cute custom red tracksuit and sipping my favorite red velvet latte from @originaldonutshop❤️ #DSHPPartner ♬ Christmas City 30 – Auracle

Influencers like Dixie D’Amelio have hundreds of millions of followers. Just one sponsored post from them will put your brand in front of more eyes than you can imagine. You can then sit back, relax and let the engagement and sales roll in.

FAQ’s

How do you market for Christmas?

Tap into consumer behaviours around the festive season. This is how you will know where to reach them; in-store or online.
Know exactly who you are aiming your campaign at. Create buyer personas to help you do this.
Apply psychological marketing principles. Social proof, scarcity and urgency.

How do you attract customers for Christmas?

Christmas branding
End-of-year reviews to let new customers know you’re a credible source
A Christmas-themed pop-up store (if you operate solely online)

How do I start a Christmas marketing campaign?

Start early! This way you will have more time to brainstorm a plethora of ideas and keep up with changes in the industry. Ensure that you are aware of who your target audience is and tailor your social media content accordingly.

And remember to keep it light-hearted and fun! It is Christmas after all.

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@ Socially Powerful

Posted in Social Media Platforms