12 Days of Holiday Marketing for Small Businesses

We all love the signs of winter: the first snow, the first peppermint latte at Starbucks – and homes shining with twinkling lights. As the season progresses, businesses are looking forward to finishing the year strong. Although your customers are excited about spreading cheer, they’re also looking for the perfect gifts this season.

Here are 12 holiday marketing tips to help you unwrap the holiday spirit for your customers:

On the 1st Day of Christmas: Spread Good Tidings

Holiday freebies, promotions, sales, discounts, gift certificates, and other goodies will get your customers, both loyal and potential, talking about you. The holidays is the perfect time for BOGOs, free shipping, and discounts. In fact, research shows that businesses who give out freebies during the holiday season experience an increase in sales. You could even offer a coupon discount to start the new year.

Tip: Use the “12 Days of Christmas” theme to announce a different promotion each day.

On the 2nd Day of Christmas: Have a Merry Little Website

If you haven’t already, give your website a holiday makeover. Add a seasonal touch with holiday-related design and content. Feature seasonal images of people in sweaters or wearing Santa hats. Or add a touch of holiday symbols (snowman, reindeer, etc.) and green-red colors. The more personal you can make it, the better. Let your site be as festive as the stores at the mall.

Give your business the best present this season!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas: Adorn Your Logo

Play around with the elements of your brand: string your logo with lights, make a gingerbread version or anything else that you can come up with. If you’re in a crunch – either time or cost related – simply add a Santa’s hat to your logo or swap out a letter for a Christmas tree or a snowman.

On the 4th Day of Christmas: Deck the Cover Photos

Easily give some holiday spirit to your Facebook and Twitter cover photos with festive images. These festive updates will let your customers know you’re excited for the holiday season as much as they are. Remember to include your company’s logo and any holiday promotional tidbits. Holiday visuals + brand relevant text = perfect holiday cover photo.

Deck your profile picture

Altering your profile picture is another way to make your social media presence even more festive. For logo based images, refer to the 3rd day of Christmas.

Best Buy’s Holiday Facebook Cover Design

On the 5th Day of Christmas: Ho, Ho, Your Blog

Write a holiday related blog post that ties into your business or offers advice. Try to incorporate the holidays and what people are talking about into your business writing. For example, many people struggle with finding the perfect stocking stuffers, so write a blog about the ‘top 10 crazy stocking stuffer ideas’.

On the 6th Day of Christmas: ‘Tis the Products

Bundle your offerings into gift sets and add a seasonal trinket. Create gift bundles for parents, kids, for her, for him, your friends, etc. This is a great way to get your customers excited about your business and will draw them to you when they do their holiday shopping.

Tip: You could also send out an email newsletter promoting the launch date and provide coupons for customers who are signed up for your e-newsletter.

On the 7th Day of Christmas: Send holiday cards

Make your customers feel appreciated this season by sending them relevant and personal holiday cards with a special offer inside. Although it might be easier to send them an email, a holiday card is a more personal way to show your customers how much you care about their business. Remember, this is not the time for a sales pitch, instead focus on branding and customer appreciation — build a theme around their interests.

Your design should hit three main points:

• The design should promote your brand.
• The material should be affordable enough to send to all of your clients, without looking cheap.
• You should have room to include some form of personal message.

On the 8th Day of Christmas: Host a social media contest

Get your customers excited by hosting a social media contest. During this contest, give your customers the opportunity to win a gift card to your store or a holiday shopping spree. This reward will motivate your customers to get involved with your contest and spread the word about your company.

Our idea: host a holiday-themed photo contest. Invite customers to upload their photos of their ugliest Christmas sweaters and share it to your Facebook page. This is a great way to ignite holiday spirit, gain new followers and increase engagement.

Tip: Promote your contest everywhere. For example, update your cover photos to match, write a blog post explaining the contest and share images on Twitter or Pinterest to build awareness around it. Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tweet: 8 Affordable And Easy Social Campaigns For The Holiday Season

On the 9th Day of Christmas: Partner with a local charity

The holidays are a very special time of the year, because many people are in the spirit of giving. Toys for Tots? A food pantry? St. Jude? The Salvation Army? Partner with a local charity your customers feel deeply connected to and donate a percentage of your holiday sales. Use this partnership as a way to promote awareness of the charity and increase holiday donations. For example, invite customers to make donations to the charity with their purchase and match each of your customer’s donations. This is a great way to show your customers that you care about your community during the holidays.

On the 10th Day of Christmas: Spread Packaging Cheer

Ever saw a package and gasped because the package was so cool? Make your packaging stand out with holiday themed boxes, wrapping paper or even a simple red bow.

A Christmas package design from Little Debbie

On the 11th Day of Christmas: A Mobile Wonderland

This season, dashing through the snow of customers with a mobile-friendly strategy is vital. Everyone will be out and about, shopping, with family, so your holiday marketing needs to be optimized along with a responsive website to reach them on the go (a.k.a. their smartphones).

On the 12th Day of Christmas: Dashing through Emails

Stand out from the other companies and creatively decorate your emails for the holidays and launch a holiday campaign with a simple message. Need ideas? Start with, “what does your contact list need during the holiday season?” Also, reward your subscribers by giving them exclusive sale or promo codes; the exclusivity makes your products more desirable and your followers will feel special.

Tip: Send an email to your best or returning customers between November 1st and December 15th, to get people thinking about what you have, especially if you throw in that exclusive sale or free shipping.  Read more at http://brandongaille.com/10-first-class-christmas-and-holiday-email-marketing-tips/

Examples:

Dunkin Donuts – Holiday Email

By following these holiday marketing tips, you’ll boost your sales and bring more customers to you this season. So, what are you waiting for? Start using these ideas now as the holidays will be gone faster than you can sing, “Fa-la-la-la-la!”

What are your favorite holiday marketing tips for small businesses?