Christmas marketing ideas

Christmas is the ultimate time to generate revenue for any business - so naturally, some real thought needs to go into your Christmas marketing ideas. This is just as true for membership-style organisations as it is for anyone with an established customer base.

So planning needs to happen sooner than later in order to ensure you’re able to capitalise on this optimum time.

But what kind of Christmas marketing campaign ideas are there? And what could you or should you be doing?

Define your Christmas marketing goals

Naturally, it’s easy to focus on anything-gift related but don’t forget to apply the same rigour to any campaign as you do to your marketing throughout the rest of the year.

This, of course, means setting some goals. The SMART approach is a valuable way of ensuring you do so properly. It’s an acronym standing for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based, so any goal you come up with has to tick these five boxes.

Once you have figured out what you want to achieve, then it’s important to create a strategy and a timeline to ensure you can reach them. And naturally, if you’re working with bespoke print or digital solutions, it’s necessary to allocate a sufficient period of time to ensure you allow for the production process (and any kinks in the road).

Having said all that, there are certain types of asset or product, both print and digital, that you may wish to consider to engage or drive revenue from your users or audience at this special time of year.

Update your existing marketing assets

Nothing says Christmas like the holly and the ivy. The tinsel and the jingle bells. Obviously, how you communicate Christmas tidings has to be unique to your brand when you’re looking to give your website, social media or print products some kind of festive makeover.

Here at Dialogue, we have a well-versed and expert branding and creative team available to help you upgrade any type of marketing asset for this (or any) time of year.

Create print products

There are a variety of print products which, as a much loved brand, may be of interest for your users, consumers or members.

Organisations who have a large membership and a loyal customer base could provide a pack of exclusive Christmas cards to purchase from you for their loved ones (though you may also wish to send your own to say thank you to them for their support across the year).

Similarly, calendars and wall planners can be really popular Christmas gifts for membership organisations or passion brands for their consumers and/or can be sold online. This type of item can also be bagged with any Christmas publication and even cost you next to nothing if there is an opportunity to commercialise it with third party advertising or sponsorship. Or split the cost with a brand collaboration.

There is of course the opportunity to take any existing catalogue and turn it into a one-off magazine to engage any audience more deeply at this crucial time of the year.

We can support you in terms of design, content, print, sponsorship and even distribution (through a fulfilment house) - and with our Archant Community connection we can also help with a localised marketing campaign too.

Digital products

With sustainability being an increasing concern for businesses and consumers alike, it is of course possible to minimise your carbon foot print by taking any of the above concepts and digitising them instead. Although, fyi, you may be interested in reading our article on print magazines’ impact on the environment.

We are finding more and more clients wanting to create some kind of digital Christmas message, or send a gift/experience for their employees, clients or members, and this can be done in a variety of ways, from a simple email to an all singing and dancing video production! And of course, we can also support with the distribution.

Christmas is the perfect time to launch a digital catalogue, which is a great way to re-engage previous buyers with fabulous imagery, well-crafted SEO-content and quality design. You can even up the ante and launch a digital magazine which can be monetised through advertising and brand partnerships.

Digital offers all manner of opportunities, and many brands want to take advantage of the interactive nature of the medium with some kind of a holiday-themed quiz, or you could even create a digital advent calendar with giveaways or prizes, both digital and/or physical for your members or consumers. Creating a re-skinnable product also allows you to maximise its use at other times of the year too. Find out more about interactive content.

We can of course suggest, guide and create anything you feel would be commercial, engaging or useful for your members or audience.

And finally...

It is easy to think any Christmas marketing can stop after 25th December.

Yet many of these digital ideas also provide valuable opportunities to drive sign-ups across channels, build loyalty and word of mouth, all valuable for long-term brand building and which can then be capitalised on in 2022.

Similarly, don’t forget about the period between Christmas and New Year for your Christmas marketing campaigns. This is often when people have free time and perhaps have even been gifted money and are looking to indulge their passions and hobbies. Do make sure any of your Christmas marketing allows for this opportune period where possible.

Again, this is something we’d be more than happy to advise on in order to ensure you maximise this valuable time of year.