12 Days of Christmas A Guide To Marketing Your Business At Christmas
Do you feel like you have missed the Christmas boat on social media? Have your competitors been flooding Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with a tirade of countdowns to Christmas? Advent calendars full of offers or helpful hints and tips. Well fear not, it is not too late to grab a piece of the action.
Regardless of the business sector, you are in social media can be a really powerful tool in reaching out to your existing customer base and finding new customers, especially at this time of year. A Lithium survey indicates that 26% of consumers report social media as one of the top 3 ways they become aware of new brands and products, and 52% said they use social media to connect with brands. So this is not an area to neglect!
The term social media encompasses a vast array of options, and it can be quite daunting keeping up with all of the different platforms. Our advice is to select one or two channels that best fit your business. For example, businesses that operate within a business to business market may choose to utilise LinkedIn and Twitter as their social media channels of choice, but if you operate as a business to consumer business you may find that you have better results with Facebook and Instagram. A good way of working out which channels are the best fit for your business is to ask the customers you already have what social media channel they access on a daily basis. This doesn’t need to be in the form of a questionnaire, just drop it into conversation and keep a note of how they respond.
So with just 12 days to go until the big day why not start your own #12DaysOfChristmas campaign or if you are reading this post a bit later, try a #CountdownToChristmas campaign instead.
Now, not all of these suggestions will work for all businesses, but take a look through the list for inspiration, who knows once you start you may find that you come up with some even better ones of your own that are perfect for your business and the audience you are trying to reach!
1. Tip of the day
Share a useful tip with your customers either that relates to the business you are in or a general Christmas tip. Here is one we have created to get you started!
Design online for free at: www.canva.com
2. Foodie Tips
As an extension of “Tip of the day” as the big day gets ever closer people’s minds will start to turn to preparing and cooking the Christmas dinner. Could you share your preferred turkey cooking method? Or maybe even you Granny’s mince pie recipe? Or your tried and tested method for cooking the best ever roasties?
3. Competitions
Everyone loves to enter a competition. Could you offer a free pair of tickets? A prize delivered in time for Christmas? A meal for two at a local restaurant?
If you have the ability to run the competition through your website, GREAT! Set it up and be sure to ask people for their contact e-mail address to enter along with the correct answer so that in the New Year you can contact these people again with your latest deals or promotions. Be sure to include a double opt-in to ensure your data collection is GDPR compliant. Not sure what this is? Click here to find out more.
If you don’t have the facility for this fear-not! Make it a social media competition, ask people to comment below the post with a special phrase relevant to your business or the competition e.g. “Christmas Countdown”, like your page and share the post. But if you are running it on social media, be sure to add those key words at the bottom of your post “This competition is not endorsed by Facebook*.”
*Replace Facebook with the relevant channel you are posting on.
4. Free Postage
A nice and easy promotion if you operate a business which delivers their goods to customers through the postal system. Limit it to a specific time frame, perhaps one or two days and ask them to input a code at the checkout so that you can track the impact of the promotion.
The concept behind a free postage offer is that customers will be more inclined to make those final few purchases that they have been deliberating to ensure they get them in time for Christmas. Be prepared though, if promoted correctly you might just find that you receive an influx of orders.
Whatever you choose to go with make it personal, people like to feel like they are getting to the person behind the business.
5. Discounts
Customers love a good discount, especially at Christmas. Just look at the impact that ‘Black Friday’ has on shoppers. Thankfully, things seem to have calmed down on that front this year and there was a lot less hysteria. But as part of your #12DaysOfChristmas or #CountdownToChristmas campaign you could offer a limited time discount offer either across the whole selection of your goods or services, or maybe just a specific product, category or selection of items. Tailor it to whatever works best for you. Plus, why not run a different variation on this one a few times over the next 12 days, with different offers of different products. A great way of getting some of your products in front of your audience.
Again, track this one with a code at checkout or a voucher downloadable from your website.
6. Recommendations
Either ask your audience for recommendations on their favourite Christmas film or Christmas song or recommend a local business that you often work closely with. Perhaps they can offer you a promotion or deal for your audience to help you both drive some business you way?
7. Caption a picture
Have you got a picture from the Christmas party or even someone in the office you could ask your audience to write a caption for? Perhaps even offer up a small prize for the best suggestion.
8. Wish your customers a Merry Christmas!
Use the free graphics available at www.canva.com and include your logo in there so that there is no doubt where the message is coming from!
These examples are designed to get you thinking about the types of content you could produce for your own business social media channels. Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram love posts where your followers interact with your post, so the more opportunity for interaction the better. The type of posts we have included here are great for interaction and will hopefully put your feeds in front of lots of potential new customers if their friends are interacting with what you share.
Don’t forget, Christmas time is a great opportunity to have a little bit of fun with your audience. Don’t over think it, just roll with what you think might go down well, if it gets a great response
A great way to come up with ideas is to sit down with your team and ask for their input. Ask them what they like to interact with on their social media pages and apply the same logic to your own.
At the end of the day, have fun with it. Merry Christmas!
P.S. Don’t forget your hashtags!
#12DaysOfChristmas #CountdownToChristmas #ChristmasCountdown #MerryChristmas
Need further advice? Get in touch with us here at Morgan Digital; we have a fully dedicated team ready to help you and your business get ahead online. You can get in touch via our email or social with us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn!
