We hear you. Halloween and Bonfire Night may not have yet passed, but Christmas is only just around the corner – in fact, it’s just over 3 months away! With shoppers starting their “Christmas shopping” as early as the start of October (and as late as Christmas Eve) now is the perfect time to start planning how you’re going to snatch up eager shoppers. Here’s why you should start investing, now.
Update Your Marketing Strategy For Christmas
It’s safe to say that the team at Absolute Digital Media has ran its fair share of Christmas-related campaigns over the past 12 years with experts from each of our departments chipping into what will work well from their perspective as potential customers themselves. For more information about why now is a good time to invest in your Christmas marketing and how we can help, get in touch with me, Ben Austin, or a member of the expert team at Absolute Digital Media on 0800 088 6000, today.
Planning Your Christmas Campaign
Like all successful campaigns, whether they be SEO, PPC or Social Media, planning is key. Now is a great time to start planning your Christmas campaign as several other businesses focus on the events closer to us, such as Halloween, helping you to jump ahead of the competition. With just over 3 months to get to grips with your Christmas promotions, this gives you enough time to sieve out the good from the bad and help you to decide what products you shop promote and, more importantly, where and how.
The first step to planning one of the year’s most important marketing campaigns is to revisit the previous year’s marketing campaigns performance. This will help you to determine what worked well and why. Using this information, you can then review your target audience by going through the demographic and behavioural data you have stored about your target audience and customers. By doing so, you can spot any changes that have occurred over the past year, helping to make sure that you get your messaging right.
Considering Your Marketing Channels
When it comes to launching your Christmas marketing campaign, it can be easy to get carried away with where you advertise it. However, the channels you choose to share your marketing campaign on is just as important as the audience you select to share it to, heightening its performance. To build a memorable customer experience, you need to make sure that your Christmas marketing campaign is delivered consistently across your chosen channels. Through doing so, you can build your brands awareness whilst driving sales ahead of the most crucial times of the year.
Choosing Your Christmas Marketing Message
Like any successful marketing campaign, you must choose your ad message carefully to ensure that it drives customers to convert. In order to do so, you must think of factors outside of the box – and outside of what your competitors are doing. Each ad must respect the needs of your audience whilst supporting your mission and brand values. To make your campaign stand out, consider how your business stands out from competitors and in what ways you deliver value to your customers. This is especially crucial now as more people than ever will be reaching out for the best Christmas deal. To tie your campaigns messaging together, consider what you want your customers to do. For example, if you want users to click onto your advertising campaign to your website, you need to make sure that your ad messaging promotes a clear call to action that is easy to understand.
Deciding On Your Christmas Promotions
During the lead up to the Christmas period, numerous brands launch limited time promotions in order to encourage sales as quickly as possible, providing them with an edge over their target audience. Whilst some businesses begin their Christmas marketing campaign with subtle promotions to see what others are doing to engage their audience first, others take the leap of faith and begin to distribute large amounts of noise regarding the unmissable offers they have up for grabs. When it comes to Christmas promotions, don’t just think of 10% or 20% off of products. Consider how discounting multiple products within a certain range may further benefit your conversion funnel.
Supporting Assets
Your marketing message is just as important as your chosen promotions, of which are just as important as the supporting assets surrounding your campaign. Such “supporting assets” include the content you are sharing on social media as well as on your website, including any landing pages you may be using to drive sales. Regardless, all of your supporting assets must fit the theme of your Christmas campaign and be recognisable to the eye in order to drive greater brand awareness and traffic to your website.
Launching Your Campaign
Now it’s time to launch your campaign! Black Friday is a popular time whereby a number of businesses choose to launch their Christmas marketing campaign, and now could be the perfect opportunity to launch yours, too. By doing so, you’ll be able to jump on the Christmas bandwagon alongside some of the UK’s leading brands, allowing you to start competing against them from the get go.
Sprinkle Some Christmas Magic Into Your Marketing
For more information about why now is a good time to invest in your Christmas marketing and how we can help, get in touch with me, Ben Austin, or a member of the expert team at Absolute Digital Media on 0800 088 6000, today.
