Holiday campaigns for your business
It’s that time of year again, Halloween is almost upon us and then holiday season is right around the corner. That means it’s time to start planning a holiday campaign for your business. This is a great time to get your business seen, promote your products or services and reach new audiences; but it’s important to stand out from the crowd and cut through the noise.
We’ve collected some of our favourite examples and ideas that can help inspire your own holiday campaign.
Goal Setting
It’s important to be clear about what you want from your holiday campaign, so you can maximise its effectiveness for your specific goals. Are you looking to grow your online audience or get rid of your existing stock to open up space for your next year’s products? These two scenarios might involve completely different solutions. Be prepared early, so you can enjoy your own holiday season. Set yourself S.M.A.R.T. goals, that is: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound goals. Then take it one day at a time.
Christmas or HAPPY HOLIDAYS?
Not everyone celebrates Christmas, there are many other celebrations going on in the holiday season.
Hannukah is a Jewish holiday that is celebrated for eight days and nights, the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar cycle so it can fall anywhere from November 28th to December 26th. Diwali is the Hindu Festival of Lights and is a five-day long holiday celebrating life which takes place in October or November every year based on the Hindu lunisolar calendar. Chinese New Year is another major holiday during this time, it is celebrated for 15 days and begins on the first day of the lunar new year and is celebrated with time spent with family and loved ones eating and enjoying time together.
This holiday season, think outside the Christmas box and celebrate all the great holidays during the end of the year. You can do this by making changes to the language and visuals you choose for your holiday campaign to make them more inclusive, or by taking time to celebrate these holidays as well as your usual Christmas themed content.
Slay SHIPPING
Before COVID people were already shifting to buying online, this has only increased drastically in the past year. Australia Post is already reporting a backlog of parcels waiting to be delivered. Unfortunately, you can’t use Santa’s sleigh to deliver to all your customers in one night! To take full advantage of holiday season purchasing, do a stocktake early and make sure your most popular products are in stock and your online store is working perfectly. Get started early on your marketing and holiday campaign, people will be buying gifts earlier this year to make sure the come in time.
*Bonus tip: Offer free shipping this time of the year, it may make the difference in someone choosing you over a competitor!
Hang the Decorations
Take some time to hang your decorations! Update your website and social media with some holiday themed graphics to help your customers get into the holiday mood. This could involve creating some new categories within your online store, creating a digital catalogue that’s easily searchable for your customers and making sure your holiday promotions are on full display like the example below.
Counting Down The Days
The Christmas countdown or advent calendar is a classic! You can create your own digital version and roll it out on your socials to create an interactive campaign your audience can engage with. Create an advent calendar for the 25 days of December leading up to Christmas day and unveil a new promotion or prize to win every day. How? Jump into Canva and design your own branded advent calendar like the example below.
Gift Guides
Provide a handy gift guide for your followers to help them pick gifts for their loved ones. Take stock of your range of products and suggest different gifts for the different people in their lives, something for the lil ones, something for their mum or significant other, etc. Take the work out of choosing gifts and offer different price points for your customers with different budgets. Jump into Canva and create a collage like the example below.
*Pro Tip: You can use the Background Remover in Canva to create your gift guide collage.
PRomotions & Giveaways
Gift your followers and customers with promotions and giveaways. You can do this several ways, one idea is that you can bundle some of your products for a larger promotion and ask your followers to comment and tag a friend to grow your audience. Another is giving away a gift card to your online store, which allows you to choose different price points, run multiple giveaways and this also lets your winners choose their own gifts!
Custom Packaging
You can create some new holiday themed packaging for these this time of year, this could involve designing and creating a new Christmas themed container for your products like the image below. An easier way of doing this for small businesses, is offering complimentary wrapping and cards for your customers on checkout.
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
Partner with a like-minded business, organisation or influencer for a holiday themed article or campaign like the example below, a partnership with 1800 Flowers and John Legend for ‘A Legendary Christmas Collection’. Think outside the gift box! Try to brainstorm how you can reach new audiences or communicate your products or services with a holiday themed brand partnership.
Email Marketing
Reach out to your existing database of customers with a holiday themed email marketing campaign, this can be as simple as a digital Christmas card or you can send a series of emails highlighting your products and integrating your other holiday promotions.
A Time For Giving
Christmas is a time for giving! You can commit to giving to a cause of organisation as part of your holiday campaign, reach out and do a brand partnership with a charity or donate a portion of your proceeds and encourage your followers to do the same.
Blak Friday
Run your very own Blak Friday sale or promotion. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great opportunities for you to increase your sales over the holiday period. You can also use these occasions to grow your database in the lead up to the Christmas rush, with Black Friday being on Friday 26th November and Cyber Monday being on Monday 29th November.
The Art of PR
Create a press release to send to relevant publications, social media profiles and websites. You might appear in one of their gift guides come Christmas time, like the example below of the Broadsheet Christmas Gift Guide 2020. Keep it to one page that tells your story and highlights your holiday campaign, including products you want to promote and remember to include your prices and important links.
Stocking Stuffers
You can offer product bundles or complimentary smaller gifts as an extra thank you to your customers during the holiday period. Make sure you have enough stock for any complimentary gifts, consider using this as a chance to promote a new product and fold the budget for the product in your marketing spend.
