Antony Smith, Bee Digital

The most wonderful time of year is upon us, with all the festive feelings in the air that couldn’t come at a better time for most of us, right? For some, it means staying in your bubble and Zooming around a virtual tree or dinner table. For others, it’s adjusting to the new Tier 4 lockdown rules we found out about at the last minute over the weekend.

No matter what situation you’re in, before you head off to make those last-minute online shopping purchases and shut up shop for Christmas, why not spread some much-needed cheer ahead of the New Year with these 7 Merry Marketing Tips?

1. Give your ads festive flair → From organic posts to PPC campaigns – add some fun and festive images or animation to your ads to stand out on those social channels. This can easily be done with free design platforms like Canva or Crello, simply by choosing colourful backgrounds, catchy fonts, photos and cartoons to engage your audience – whether it’s for an ad with a static image, a GIF or as a short MP4.
2. Create a Merry Instagram story → According to Instagram, 1 billion+ Instagram accounts worldwide are active every single month, 90% of accounts follow a business, and 500 million+ accounts use Instagram Stories every day. This in from Hubspot: “Whether publishers are trying to grow brand awareness, grow traffic to videos or newsletter outside of Instagram, or share sponsored content, publishers are flocking to Instagram to publish fun disappearing content that infuses brand voice and personality without taking up too much of the average techie’s dwindling attention span.” Share your MP4 ad as an Instagram story too!
3. Run a seasonal promo → Got a promotion or giveaway for Christmas? Create a limited seasonal campaign, incorporating your ads with a festive flair above. You might consider adding e-gift cards/ promo codes to your Christmas sales or throwing in a ‘mystery present’ to email your customers, so they have your brand in mind over Christmas and when they’re starting to think about their New Year strategy.
4. Send out Christmas-themed emails → It doesn’t even have to be a salesy email – just a nice, stand-alone message that isn’t intended to convert. Instead, send an email acknowledging how your customer deserves a break to relax and enjoy the holiday season after a very unique and challenging 9 months. Add an emoji to the subject line and throw in a GIF of your own (or even a fun one you’ve found that you can share) to show how your brand – and as a human behind your brand – genuinely cares.
5. Get remarketing to your online shoppers → Now is the time to launch remarketing ads. Why? Your customers will be online searching for Christmas gifts or holiday deals, so you can grab their attention when they are in the frame of mind to shop. From Black Friday sales to other promotions your ad is competing with – your audience are likely to need a nice little nudge to remind them about your offer.
6. Personalise messages to your segmented audience → Whether it be emails or ads, make sure they have that personal touch. For emails – which subject lines have performed better? Which campaigns have had the highest level of opens and clicks? With ads, what interests does your target audience have? Who are your lookalike audiences? With a customer persona you’ve discovered from Facebook, Google Ads and email data, personalise your message to highlight the interests and pain-points of your customers to ramp-up those conversions by building brand loyalty at the same time.
7. Make videos for the holidays → What do we love to watch over Christmas? Christmas movies! At Bee Digital, our favourites are Home Alone, Love Actually and It’s A Wonderful Life. You can’t go wrong with a classic… so take inspiration from them and create your own. If you have an in-house designer to produce one – what are you waiting for? Otherwise, reach out to animators and video creators who can turn one around quickly from Fiverr, Upwork, the Freelance Video Collective or others. You can always involve your colleagues to film a sketch or short message to give customers and prospects a fun and unique insight into your company. All you need is a phone or simply hit the record button on your Zoom call!

Not got time to wrap-up 2020 with our top Merry Marketing tips? It’s a good thing this wonderful time of the year takes place every year. Save this list for next December and go full-out festive!

Wait…

We’ve got one more tip we want to share with you.

That’s right, it’s an EXTRA TIP…

Start greasing the New Year wheels → Think about your New Year campaign and start creating email series, plus cold and retargeting ads that are ready to launch at the very beginning of January. Don’t forget to utilise TOFU with top-of-the-funnel blogs, newsletters – and even your retargeting ads – to get your audience eager and excited.

We get that this December will be a time for reflection. But more importantly, it’s a time to look forward to how you’re going to take on the challenge of what 2021 may bring.

From all of us at Bee Digital, we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and stay safe!