The Christmas season is upon us, and with it the surge of holiday-related marketing. Surely, in the next several weeks the odds of turning on the television or radio, or opening a newspaper, and not seeing some sort of Christmas advertising are very slim. Of course, if you’re looking to up your advertising game during this holiday season – and who isn’t? – you may be wondering how to make the most of this year’s campaign. Here are some tips to help you do just that:
Keep things festive:
When sending emails to your audience, be sure to give them a holiday theme. Use holiday templates if possible; if not, at least change the background and font color to reflect the season. Be sure to mention the holidays, but not in a desperate or obvious way. Customers are smart enough to sniff out a cheap tactic. Instead, be anecdotal – after all, business owners and marketing departments have to shop for gifts, too, so remind customers that we’re all in the holiday madness together. It will be a refreshing change.
Go for sentiment:
Reminding customers of the joy they felt as children is a surefire way to capture their imagination as well as their shopping dollar. Even something as simple as asking “Remember the feeling of opening the biggest present under the tree…?” works to get the ball rolling. It’s especially a good idea to ask questions like this not only in ads and email campaigns but also via your company’s social media account. Ask your followers their favorite gift growing up and you’ll encourage conversation and engagement – after all, who doesn’t want to reminisce over the best Christmas gift they ever received? Before you know it you’ll have more comments than you can keep up with.
Segment your mailing list:
Email marketing is one of the most effective methods of advertising, especially during the holiday season, but it must be handled with care.Be sure to direct holiday offers toward the correct people by looking back over past email campaigns and focusing on those recipients who responded to an offer in the past, then sending related offers their way. This tells your customers that you’re paying attention to and care about their preferences, while you avoid inundating other customers and running the risk of having them remove themselves from your mailing list.
Advertise one special offer at a time:
This may seem counter-intuitive – after all, you want your customers to buy more than just one item, right? – but studies have shown that in order to lessen guilt over spending money, many shoppers will purchase another item…then another…and with each purchase their guilt will grow smaller. All it takes is one hard-to-resist offer to draw your customers in. You can even change this offer daily- and advertising this as a “for today only!” sale creates the feeling of scarcity that compels people to buy before their chance runs out.
Get attention:
If you have a brick-and-mortar location, there are plenty of cost-effectiveways to generate buzz.For example, have a willing (and brave)employee wear a reindeer or elf costume and hand out treats to children as they enter the store. Decorate the store and let your local newspaper in on the fun, in hopes that they’ll do a story on your holiday festiveness. Or change things weekly in order to get attention and smiles from passerby.
With a little planning and understanding of the psychology of holiday shoppers, you can make this a profitable holiday season. Let our experts here at Creative Spark help you with any other questions you may have.