Planning in advance is key to ensuring your Christmas campaigns run effectively. Many people are busy around the holidays, so it’s important to capture different audiences early on.
Analyse Last Years Campaign Data
It is essential to review and analyse last year’s performance to determine what worked well and what didn’t.
When did you see the most traffic? Which pages underperformed? When did you receive the most conversions? Which pages received the most traffic?
Answering these questions and analysing this data is crucial to help inform this year’s strategy and improve the success of your campaigns.
Define and set your goals for your campaign
After you have analysed the previous year’s data, you can start setting some goals that you want to achieve this Christmas season. Defining your goals will help create a clear vision and will enable you to keep track of how well your campaign is performing.
Looking at the data from last year, you will be able to set goals which are measurable and achievable. It is a good idea to create specific goals with key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs are quantifiable measures of performance, such as conversion rates and customer acquisition rates. They allow you to see how well your campaign is doing towards your goal.
Some common business goals are:
- Increasing sales/revenue
- Increasing brand awareness
- Acquiring new clients
- Increasing website traffic.
Optimise your website
The festive season is a great time to update your site and give your clients what they’re looking for.
Consider giving your website a seasonal makeover, especially on your homepage and landing pages to show your clients what you can offer them this Christmas. Use festive imagery and visual elements to help gain the attention of clients and show your Christmas spirit. By analysing your page traffic data from last year, you will know what pages and products received the most traffic and you can optimise your homepages by creating festive CTAs to go straight to these pages.
Update your content with festive language such as ‘Find Christmas Gifts’ or ‘Shop Santa’s Favourites.
If your business doesn’t offer any seasonal services or products, you can still make sure to update your site’s content with news and any changes to your normal services over Christmas.
This is also a good time to make sure your website is functioning properly. Check for any broken links and make sure your website is optimised for mobiles to ensure there is a good user experience.
Consider your Platforms
It is important to think about all of your online platforms and implement your campaign consistently across these platforms. This ensures you create a seamless experience for your clients.
Social media
Social media can play an important role during the festive season, helping to increase brand awareness and online sales.
Once you have optimised your website for Christmas, you can use social media to tell your clients all about your products and services and direct them to your site. Use social media to promote special offers to your clients, such as free shipping, discount codes or free gifts above a spend threshold. Social media will help you reach new audiences and increase traffic to your website.
Lots of companies change their profile images, logos and cover images to reflect the festive season which creates a fun and approachable feeling for your business. It also suggests that your business might have special Christmas offers and potential clients might be more inclined to follow your business and look for offers on your posts.
Christmas is a great time to communicate with your clients on a personal level. Share team photos and festive activities to spread the Christmas spirit.
Email marketing
Reach your existing clients through email campaigns and show them what is coming up for Christmas. Gift guides and wish lists are great ways to showcase products to your clients that they might be interested in. As your subscribers are already interested in your products, providing them with exclusive offers will encourage them to make a purchase.
PPC
If you run any PPC campaigns, you should adapt and optimise your campaigns during the seasonal period to attract traffic from Christmas shoppers. Create Christmas-oriented ads that are relevant to your business and gain traffic from seasonal searches.
If you are thinking of adapting a campaign that is already running, you create a backup of your account before you make any seasonal changes so you can revert back to your original campaign after the Christmas period is over.
Once you have tailored your ad copy and keywords to Christmas, push your best promotions with ad extensions. For example, callout extensions are a great way to highlight important selling points such as free delivery.
Final Thoughts
Once you have planned your Christmas marketing strategy, you are ready to start implementing changes! The run-up to Black Friday is a popular time to implement your Christmas marketing strategy as many people will begin searching for Christmas gifts during this period to get the best deals.
