Christmas is a great time to strategically promote your bestsellers or any surplus merchandise. One US survey shows that the vast majority of the pollees (86%) are planning to buy gifts from e-commerce stores and apps.
Given that this is the most profitable time of the year for all retailers, the competition is on the rise. As a business owner, you need to make sure that you are prepared enough to attract more visitors. For this, we wrapped up the most effective Christmas marketing ideas from 2020.
Christmas Graphic Design
Holidays bring us aesthetic pleasure while reviewing online stores or anything else on the Internet. The look of your brand should go hand in hand with a festive mood. For e-commerce websites with a large selection of items, it might be worth adding a new section to the menu that highlights all the special Christmas deals.
This year, a very original idea was presented by Rossmann, one of the largest drug stores. Their Christmas sales page is decorated in Advent calendar style. After clicking on the box with today’s date, you will see a window with detailed information about the offer.
Here are some classic tips for your Christmas-theme landing page:
- Dress up the background, icons, and logo;
- Give your content a festive touch. Be sure to add some Christmas related notes to every phrase, from campaign title to product description. Make up your wishes to create a magical atmosphere and make the online experience more personalized;
- Change your product images with a Christmas theme: You can pin top-selling products on your front page to give it a breathtaking holiday spirit;
- Apply Christmas related theme to all social media profiles.
Сustomized Gift Guides
During Christmas and New Year time, people mostly buy gifts for others, not just for themselves, and accordingly, this opens up a new niche for retailers. Creating a simple gift guide can be a great way to draw people’s attention to your products. A gift guide can be released as a simple collection of goods that people buy as gifts for their families, friends, colleagues. To create an online gift guide, start by adding a few product categories and then сomplete them with products that fit better.
One of the most interesting examples is released by Moleskin, a company that produces notebooks, planners, sketchbooks. Instead of the standard product division into ‘Gifts for him’ and ‘Gifts for her’, they personalized product categories: ‘For art & creativity lovers’, ‘For organized individuals’, etc.
Time for Gift Cards
To ensure a higher conversion rate, consider offering Christmas branded gift cards. Use this option as a competitive advantage. This can mean a simple graphic on a landing page or a link in your menu specifically dedicated to gift cards in your store.
Bonus: by giving your loyal customers some special benefits over standard gift cards (like, some discounts or cashback), you can earn their trust and they will be encouraged to gift more, which in turn will help attract new customers.
Rewards and Last-Minute Discount Codes
Themed discount codes or coupons can make customers feel like they’re getting a great deal. The rush to buy last-minute gifts can benefit business owners as people are less likely to buy later losing a discount. Limited-time offers encourage them to press the button before time runs out. Make sure that the deadline is clearly specified on the main page:
Another idea is to organize ‘private’ sales for customers who have already completed the purchase or subscribed to the newsletter. Even a simple points-based system lets you get more loyal customers. Earned points сan be redeemed for some types of perks such as discounts or limited offers. In the context of Christmas and New Year, you can offer an exclusive discount code to make next purchases more desired.
Creative Shopping Experience
Product bundling is another way to experiment and, as a result, attract new customers. Like any other sales strategy, successfully bundling products is a kind of art. Try to create some product bundles yourselves, test different sets, and choose which ones perform better.
Some online companies, such as ‘Build my gift’, turned a DIY approach to product bundling to their core feature, allowing customers to create their own collection of items in 3 steps:
Promotion on Social Media
Social media is traditionally one of the most effective channel to boost any marketing campaign sales. One-third of US consumers shopped online using the ‘buy’ button on social media page (18%) or clicking a post/story related to some product (16%).
That is why a lot of brands use the end of year period to share Christmas mood with their followers: post useful information such as unique gift ideas, upcoming deals and offers, style tips for holidays. For example, this year Lego has shown on their Instagram how Star Wars heroes can be upgraded with festive builds. As a result, some holiday sets are already sold out.
We also encourage you to run contests and polls, add branded hashtags, and take part in viral challenges that your target audience might find interesting.
Instead of a bottom line: Post-Holiday Time
The surge in audience activity doesn’t end with the 1st of January. It usually takes 2-3 weeks between Christmas and the moment when people are getting back to work and daily duties. This is the right time to continue marketing campaigns while people are still relaxing at home and having enough time to scroll through social media or browse online for something interesting to buy. Even after the holidays don’t hesitate to promote your brand with post-Christmas and New Year promotions.
All these ideas emphasize the following: sell an experience, not a product. Holiday visuals, giveaways, gifts, and direct communication on social media share the festive atmosphere, and consequently, attract new audiences. So, keep looking for new creative campaigns in 2021.
