We don’t know about you, but we’re excited for Christmas this year!

Twitter has noted that people have been looking forward to Christmas all year, with mentions significantly higher than normal in 2020. It’s no wonder, with a disastrous year due to the Australian bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re hoping this Christmas is one to remember with plenty of family celebrations, delicious food and Christmas cheer.

With travel bans still in place and people simply choosing to stay home, we expect online shopping to hit record levels this holiday season. McCrindle estimates that Santa only has 3.5 milliseconds to spend at each of the 9,901,496 households across the country, which means businesses are in for a busy season to help get presents under all those trees! Finder reported that Aussies are set to splash $18.8 billion in the lead up to Christmas this year with $969 being the average household spend.

  • $386 will be spent on presents.
  • $41 will be spent on charitable donations.
  • $40 will be spent on decorations.

Holiday marketing is all about showing your audience how your product or service can spark joy, foster togetherness and make hectic times a little easier. It’s never too soon to start thinking about how to leverage holiday fever and be prepared for more competition that ever before.

 

Help Your Customers Stand For Small

While we’re still waiting for a vaccine, one outcome of the pandemic is clear – our community spirit and desire to support local businesses has become a big focus in 2020.

We encourage businesses, big and small, to take action and work together to support each other during this time. For larger enterprises, this might mean providing support for local charities or sporting groups, we believe marketing efforts that shine a light on good deeds inspire good feelings all around. For small to medium businesses, this could mean banding together to launch co-branded promotions to help each other to maximise brand awareness and bring more value to the customer.

 

Provide Gift Suggestions

Your customers are busier than ever and constantly on the lookout for deals, so make things easier for them by offer unique gift suggestions.

This could be as simple as bundling products to create a gift hamper, or building in suggestions to your e-commerce website which are themed according to price or age group. Try preparing your upcoming email campaigns with your best gift ideas and include shop now buttons that click to particular product pages. These simple steps provide great opportunities to upsell or cross-sell as you’ll most likely have products that go well together.

Visual networks like Instagram and Pinterest are critical to inspiring browsers and are a great way to showcase your products, whether shoppers are gifting or treating themselves. Instagram is encouraging this with new features to shop on Instagram including shopping tags and making in-app purchases.

 

Use Story Telling in Your Campaigns

We believe the best marketing content is one that reads like a story rather than an advertisement or sale. It’s no secret that we’re wired to process, relate to and remember stories, which is why the best content is a story that is positive and makes the audience feel good.

We know why know people love storytelling in marketing but, how do you achieve that over the festive season?

The Christmas holidays are often surrounded by memories of childhood magic, excitement and nostalgia. You can build on that by keep your campaigns simple. Stick to one idea or event, one benefit and one emotion in each message for your target audience. This might be feelings of giving back, gratitude or being home for the holidays.

Alternatively, try to think outside the box and leverage something interesting and unique that speaks specifically to your target demographic, rather than using the typical holiday related content or email subject lines. We love this New Zealand Vodafone advertisement series which builds on the story of Piggy Sue and connecting with family and friends.

It’s important to remember that photos and graphics tell stories before words. Keep this in mind when updating your website home page or Facebook cover photo with Christmas themed images.

 

Use Remarketing

Don’t forget about your existing customers! The relationship you’ve built with them throughout the year will be one of the deciding factors when they choose where to shop for the holidays. You can acknowledge them by offering a special gift, discount or handwritten holiday card with their next order.

When it comes to new customers visiting your site, there are often distractions and we’re sometimes doing multiple things at once. Remind shoppers why they visited your site or added an item to the cart in the first place. Retargeting these warm leads with ads should be a cornerstone of your online holiday marketing strategy.

For small businesses, the holiday period is a vital time during which a good marketing campaign can help inject a significant boost in sales. Think about how you personally purchased gifts last year and start with marketing there. It’s never too soon to get a head start on your competition and launch your holiday marketing campaigns.

 

If you need help planning your Christmas campaigns, analysing your results or building on your marketing foundation in the new year, get in touch with us at info@thinkcommunications.com.au