Halloween is behind us, and it’s time to begin planning for Christmas! Have you started preparing your holiday campaigns for your business?
Your holiday campaigns don’t have to be complicated or create more work for you and your marketing team. There are many valuable ways to create memorable holiday campaigns to thank your customers for their patronage, achieve your year-end sales or revenue goals, and increase your visibility online.
To help, we’ve brainstormed nine fun and effective holiday marketing ideas and campaigns you can start right now!
1. Update your profile pic and banner image for your holiday campaigns
We don’t recommend updating your social media profile picture too often, but the holidays are a great time to do it! Add some holiday colours or embellishments to your social media profile pictures.
Now is also a good reminder to update your business page banner images. Give your usual banner a holiday overlay, or use this space to promote your seasonal campaigns and offerings so they’re front and centre for increased exposure.
2. Create a holiday gift guide for your holiday campaigns
Gift guides are a great way to promote your products (and products you like) over the holidays. You can write your gift guide as a blog post or downloadable PDF. You could also create 12 days of Christmas-themed social media posts, promoting one gift-guide product per day for 12 days in November or December.
Include hyperlinks to your products in the gift guide and links to your third-party recommendations. Add tracking links to each one to help determine your ROI (to see which links produced the most clicks or holiday sales).
3. Offer complimentary gift-wrapping during your holiday campaign
If you have a product-based business, offer complimentary gift wrapping or greeting cards with customer orders. This small value-added service can be a real timesaver who your customers who get professional gift wrapping.
Having a “This is a gift” option on your online shopping cart can also be a great holiday gift (or year-round offering). When your customer checks this box, you ship the order directly to their recipient with a gift receipt rather than a full receipt.
4. Create a holiday bundle as part of your holiday campaigns
People love a good bundle! Bundle some of your most popular items or services with valuable extras to create themed bundles for your customers. Offer them at a discounted rate for a limited time.
Promote your limited-time holiday bundles on social media, on your website, and through some targeted paid ads to get the greatest exposure. You can write, design, and preschedule your social, ads, and website updates now so you don’t forget later.
5. Promote “stocking stuffer” offers as part of your holiday campaigns
Santa is always looking for stocking stuffers. If you have any small items that fit in a stocking, promote them in a campaign or wish list. You can discount them if you want, but it’s not necessary.
6. Run a holiday contest during your holiday campaigns
Host a giveaway or holiday contest. These can be simple and effective to run and not only help you increase engagement on your social media during the holiday shopping season but also help increase sales.
Create a contest that matches your brand and offerings. Have your followers or customers do something to get entered into a draw. Here are some social media and online marketing contest ideas to boost engagement:
- Follow us to be entered to win
- Follow and tag a friend to win
- Use our hashtag on Instagram
- Make a purchase [within a specific period] to be entered to win
- Fill in a contest entry form for our draw
If running a contest on social media, be aware of any rules that may apply. Some channels require that you say a “This contest is not affiliated with Instagram” type message. You may also be ethically or legally obliged to make other statements in your contest rules. Do your research or consult a legal or marketing professional for advice.
7. Setup holiday greeting emails during your campaigns
If you plan to send your subscribers a holiday digital greeting card or newsletter, you can write, design, and schedule it now to go out closer to the holidays. This means you can create your content now, before the rush of the holiday season, and don’t have to take a break from your time off to send your business newsletter.
8. Preschedule your holiday socials throughout your campaign
Speaking of prescheduling content, you can also write and schedule your social media posts for the holidays. This is helpful if you take time off during the holidays and don’t want to be on your computer posting for your business on social media.
If December is typically a busier month for your business, we recommend prescheduling all your December social media content. This ensures you have regular, consistent content publishing, even if you get busy filling your holiday orders or taking time off.
9. Promote gift cards during your holiday campaign
Offer gift cards for customers to send to their recipients so they can choose what they want. You can easily create digital or plastic gift cards (check out Square for a platform to order or create gift cards) or create your own paper gift certificates with a free (or paid) template from Canva.
Bring people and businesses together over the holidays
At picnic social, our mission is to unite people and businesses through innovative (holiday) marketing campaigns. We can help you design social media, paid ads, and other online campaigns for the holidays or year-round!
Book your free 30-minute consultation today to tell us about your marketing struggles, and we’ll see where we can help.