It’s that time of year again and Christmas is almost upon us. Here are some promotional ideas for your business during the holiday season.
1) Run a Festive Contest Get into the into the swing of the holiday season by running a holiday themed contests. This is a great way to engage with your customers and is also a fun way to make the most of the time of year. There a loads of different types of competitions that you can run. From leveraging social media, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, to holding in-store giveaways. These contests help grab the attention of your customers and get them to engage with your business.
2) Check your list for who’s been “Nice” Have a look through your client list and see who have been your most valuable customers throughout the year. Look at the most active customers and offer them a reward for their loyalty. There are several ways you can show your appreciation. Offering discounts, temporarily extending your services for no additional cost, offering complimentary upgrades or perks, throwing a Thank You dinner or sending personalised are all great ways to say “Thank You” to your best customers.
3) Create a Holiday Specific Advertisement In our last blog, we talked about creating specific content for the festive season. Some brands are well known for their Christmas advertising such as John Lewis and of course, this advertisement from Coca-Cola is a classic. There are even some smaller brands that are creating great festive content. Like this ad from Yummy Cafe in County Kerry. Make the most of your Christmas advertising by incentivising people to share it. You can tie this in with competitions that you are running. It’s simple to spread your Christmas message, gain exposure and reward your customers at the same time.
4) Give Back Christmas is a great time of year to show appreciation and gratitude for what you have by helping others. Choose a charity to get involved with in order to help those less fortunate and spread the Christmas Spirit. Ask your customers to get involved as well, by asking them to donate money, or even time, to the charity that you are backing. This works well for everyone, the charity gets support, your clients and employees will get a feeling of satisfaction from giving back and your brand will get some good exposure. Here are 2 great examples from River Island and Aldi.
5) Decorate your business Make sure people know that you are feeling festive by decorating your business. Place Christmas decorations in your window and throughout your premises. You can also use this as an opportunity to come together with other local businesses to help promote the business district. Place a tree in your locality and hold an event and have a “switching on the lights” ceremony. If you don’t have a store or a physical business premises, that’s no problem! You can decorate your website or social media pages with Christmas themed content and graphics. You can add Christmas themed elements to your email signature, or include Christmas promotions and graphic in your email marketing campaigns.
6) Create a Gift Guide This time of year can be a very tricky time for people who are trying to decide on the perfect gift to get for their friends, family members and the office Secret Santa. From the people who already have everything, to the ones that will always return presents, and anonymous colleagues, it can be very difficult to know what to buy for the people. Help ease the stress that your customers may face by creating a gift guide. This is a great way help generate interest in your business, showcase the products and services that you offer, as well as generating traffic and/or footfall.
7) Hold a Christmas Event You can hold a Christmas themed event for a variety of purposes. It can be a sales event, in-store or online, offering discounts on your products and services. You can also hold a Christmas party event and invite along your most valued customers as a way of saying thank you. Alternatively, take this as an opportunity to get to know surrounding businesses a little better by holding a Christmas party for the local business district. These are a few ways to promote your business during the festive season. It’s a great time of year to engage with clients and customers and share in the festive spirit.