Stay Ahead Of Your Competitors This Christmas. Here’s How To Plan Your Marketing Campaign In Five Simple Steps.
You’ve done it before.
The middle of October lands and you suddenly realise that you’ve got zip, zilch, nada planned to help you maximise sales for Christmas.
You then go on to see many other businesses making the most out of the season, and worse - some of them are your competitors (ouch!). It's festive photoshoots, creative campaigns and dashing deals galore. And you sit there, glumly, wondering why you hadn’t thought about it sooner...
If that sounds like you, don’t worry – because it’s not too late to start getting some brilliant things planned and ready to go, go, go! (see what I did there?)
So without further ado, let's kick-start your Christmas Marketing Plan and get you prepared to begin the season on a high...
Step 1 - Set Your Goals & Budget
What do you want to achieve from the final quarter of the year?
Sell more stuff through your website?
Improve customer loyalty?
Get more bookings from new customers?
Defining your goals and budget before putting a plan of action in place makes things much easier to manage, analyse and report. If you have no clear idea either in the beginning, then how do you know if it's been successful?
Marketing doesn't need to cost a fortune (contrary to popular belief!), so work out what you can spend, then look for the best possible way to utilise this budget based on my below tips...
Step 2 - Create a Project Calendar
This is key and will help you keep track of your Christmas marketing campaign. Not only can you plan and schedule your content, but you can also track and analyse progress too.
If you don't already have one, you will need to start by finding a suitable platform to log your content.
I highly recommend an online project management system called "Asana". It's super easy to use and you can also download the app to your mobile phone, which then allows you to send yourself reminders.
Step 3 - Log Key Dates
Next up, get key dates throughout the Festive season logged so that you're able to devise a timeline of content to match.
You may also want to add in some of your own (i.e. your businesses anniversary or another key milestone might crop up during the festive months - why not make the most of that and offer a "one-off" to your loyal customers??
Step 4 - Plan Your Campaigns
Based on your goals, target audience and the key dates - you now need to put together some sale's boosting campaigns.
Predominantly, festive shoppers are on the lookout for good deals, but good deals don't always mean 70% discounts and freebies!
Taking part in events such as Black Friday can help you determine how consumers respond to your incentives - but this is a saturated time of year for offers, so you need to think about what's going to add the most value to the customer you are targeting and accompany that promotion with strong messaging and graphics (i.e. if you are targeting existing customers and you'd like to improve your retention rate, but you also want new customers - why not do a "referral programme"? If your existing customer recommends a friend, they will get £XX off their favourite product, and the new customers will receive a welcome incentive)
Similarly, December is a popular time for businesses, with many using it as an opportunity to get creative - so don't be afraid to have fun with it.
To help you out - Here are 3 of my ideas…
Product Bundle Deals
Fantastic at any time of year, especially at Christmas. And if you're a retail store measuring KPI's such as "units per transaction" then this is a win-win.
Gift hampers are a great idea to not only boost sales but also help you hit those sometimes tricky key performance indicators. What problem are you helping the consumer solve? Well, it will provide them with an instant gift solution, without having to spend the time shopping for individual items. Throw in a free luxury gift-wrapping service and they won't need to think twice...
Budget Tip: If you are a product based company, ensure you account for additional costs such as gift wrap.
Host Virtual Shopping Experiences
Instead of the usual in-store Christmas Event, host a live video instead. This will give you instant access to a much wider audience and give you the opportunity to increase your sales. It will also mean that you're giving those people who are still unsure about visiting stores, the chance to take a look at your products in a similar manner. Give people a tour of your shop, showcase your items - if they watch the live video, give them the chance to buy things at a discounted rate. Think about how you can make it memorable - why not get dressed up in festive-themed attire?
If people can't make the live video - you could hold virtual personal shopping experiences instead. People now expect to be able to easily access your products - and there's no better time to start.
Link Up With Another Local Business
There are so many great things about linking up with other businesses, and it's surprising that more people don't do it!
Not only are you going to maximise your awareness and increase sales opportunities - but you'll also be supporting another local business. For example, let's look at the above suggestion for a gift hamper. Who sells food/drink produce in your local community? Why not link up so they can provide cheese, chocolates or wine to make that hamper extra luxurious? Perhaps you know a local Illustrator? Why not ask them to create personalised cards or gift tags to make it extra special?
Don't be afraid to start asking around for potential business opportunities.
Step 5 - Prepare your content, then determine your communication channels
How do you want your Christmas campaign to look? And most importantly, make a consumer feel when they see it?
What action do you want your audience to take (i.e. buy now, visit our restaurant, enquire today?)
Who are you going to target? (New customers? Existing? How will you access these people?)
What kind of messaging are you going to use? (Sell the solution, not the product. Use emotional messaging to describe how your business can make a consumer feel).
When do you want your promotion to start going out? (refer to the key dates)
Create your images/graphics, plan what you're going to write, where you're going to post it and if necessary, shoot some themed content.
You will then need to plan "how" you're going to manage things (Who's going to post/upload/monitor the progress of your campaigns? Who will handle enquiries? How will you track the responses?) It might be hard to get your head into the Christmas Spirit - but planning ahead always pays off. And how nice will it feel to know that you have everything prepared and ready to go?
Below are some examples of the marketing channels you can utilise, as well as my tips on how to best prepare...
Social Media (Organic)
Planning Tips: Create your graphics, themed images and messaging.
Budget Tip: All social platforms are free to use organically -so you just need to factor in the time it will take you to plan your content and manage this throughout the festive season.
Social Media (Paid)
You will also have the option to advertise on social media, which is an incredibly effective method when used correctly. If you have some fantastic offers throughout the Festive Season, you can reach a much wider audience by paying for an advert. You can target people within certain locations, as well as those with certain interests (which is why it's so important to understand your target audience before setting up any kind of ad).
Budget Tip: You will be charged per day for social media advertising, so on the initial setup, you set your daily figure and the amount of time you'd like the ad to run for (i.e. if your budget is £50 you could run this for 5 days @ £10 per day).
Email Marketing
** You can only send your client's marketing promotions if you are following the latest GDPR guidelines**
Planning Tip: Use an email building software such as "Benchmark", to plan your email campaign. This will look much more attractive to the receiver as you can also add in images/videos. I recommend designing your email and having this ready send (based on your key dates) then preparing the data closer to the sending date. Don't forget to add an "unsubscribe" option to the bottom of the email and closely monitor this for responses.
Budget Tip: Email marketing software can have small monthly fee, dependent on the number of contacts you intend on emailing.
If you do plan to utilise email marketing, make it personalised. This will mean more chance of conversion for your business. In fact, 72% of consumers only engage with marketing messages that are customised to their specific interests. So analyse your data. What have they previously purchased? What can you send that will give them a tailored experience?
Website
Planning Tip: Consumers are on the lookout for Christmas gifts now (a whopping 34% started earlier than usual this year!). If you can sell products online, your copy should be updated to include festive themed keywords. Have a look at what consumers are searching for and optimise your content.
If you want to update the overall appearance of your site to have more of a "Festive Theme" - plan your imagery and graphics in advance and set a date for this to go live. Don't forget to let your customers know if you've updated it!
Thank you for taking the time to read my Christmas tips, I hope you enjoyed! If you take any of my advice on board - I'd love to hear about it! Please don't forget to share with any other friends, family members or business owners.
If you feel overwhelmed when considering your Christmas Campaign - you're not alone. But luckily - it's something I can help you with. Let's book in a call and have a chat about what I can do to help.
Lucy X
