One of the biggest effects of the Black Friday phenomenon is to move the bulk of pre-Christmas marketing and promotions to November, shifting the emphasis away from December and January sales. However, with Black Friday Week concluded now for another year, there are still valuable sales to capitalise on in the run-up to Christmas.
In this article, we will explore five cost-effective and easy to implement marketing tips to help you capture sales during the last few weeks of the year.
1. Promotional Offers
Roll out exclusive discounts for your email subscribers and social media followers to incentivise sales:
Promotional offers are something of a given around Christmas these days, and so your social media followers and email subscribers will expect something special to encourage them to revisit your shop and make their festive purchases with your business. Write a series of festive-themed emails and social media updates to highlight your festive offers, gift ideas, and other Christmas promotions, and schedule these to go live in the four weeks leading up to Christmas. This is a cheap and easy way of promoting any last-minute sales and offers. Make sure that each email/post includes direct links to product pages, gated content, or any discount codes you are using as an incentive.
2. Content Strategy
Create a content strategy specifically for Christmas, incorporating blog articles, social content, video, and landing pages for your festive promotions:
A popular way of doing this is to host a ‘12 days of Christmas countdown’ on your social media feeds and blog to drive engagement on your social platforms and increase traffic to your e-commerce website. This doesn’t have to be time consuming or super expensive to produce. Start with 12 short daily blog posts and/or videos featuring a different product or offer, counting down to Christmas. You can use this opportunity to showcase popular or trending items, offer snap discounts and introduce limited time offers. Increase the visual appeal of your content through festive themes and eye-catching visuals, and keep your content light-hearted around Christmas, emphasising fun, warmth, and togetherness.
3. Social Media
Encourage User Generated Content (UGC) to promote your products and offers and engage your market:
Christmas is the social season of the year, and social media usage typically increases in the weeks before and after Christmas, so it’s a great time to invest in social media advertising and marketing content. It’s also an extremely competitive time of year for social media advertising, so a good way of promoting products and increasing engagement without stretching your advertising budget is to encourage customers to post User Generated Content (UGC). This is easy to do around Christmas and the potential ideas are virtually endless. You could, for instance, start a carol singing contest in which customers are encouraged to post a video of themselves singing a festive song wearing an item of your branded clothing, or holding up one of your products. Keep an eye on your social feeds throughout the campaign and make sure you repost each relevant piece of UGC to reward your customers for their effort. You could even make festive incentives available to people who create UGC, such as Christmas-themed product bundles, money off discounts, or free gifts. Create a Christmas #hashtag relevant to your brand to make your festive social content more visible and searchable.
4. Give To Charity
Increase your brand profile by donating to good causes in your local area:
Christmas is a great time to showcase your business’s charitable giving and to get your customers involved on social media. There are various ways to do this, such as by giving customers the option of adding an amount to each online sale to your chosen cause, launching a JustGiving fundraising campaign for your favourite charity with a realistic financial target, or donating a portion of your festive sales revenues to a good cause. Promote your festive giving through your Christmas content, making sure that the angle is about the cause, and not about how good and kind you are to be giving all that money away! Most charities welcome business sponsorship and many will be happy to promote local business donors on their own blog, website, and social media feeds, giving your brand valuable festive exposure.
5. Offer In-Shop Christmas Promotions
Increase shop footfall, seasonal sales, and customer satisfaction through exclusive Christmas promotions and products:
If you operate a physical retail location, Christmas is the ideal opportunity to implement unique in-shop promotions such as a gift-wrapping service, ‘Buy One Get One Free’ (BOGOF) campaign, or ‘Only On The High Street’ seasonal product promotions. Clearly communicate these offerings in-store through signage and local advertising, as well as your online channels. Local footfall can also be increased through a geo-targeted advertising campaign on Google Ads, Facebook, or Instagram to increase brand visibility among local customers and drive sales in your target area.
Next Steps
There are a wide range of strategies available for retailers to increase their sales and brand engagement over the Christmas period. To find out more, please get in touch with one of our inbound marketing consultants by today by clicking here.
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