Alongside falling snowflakes and the blinding Christmas house lights courtesy your overly-cheerful neighbours, holiday marketing campaigns are a guaranteed sight once December rolls around.

It’s hard to blame businesses for crowding the seasonal selling floodgates, looking to cash in on frivolous holiday shoppers. Emails, social media, TV ads, direct mailers, and what ever other way businesses can try to get you to notice them, they’ll try – nothing is off-limits come Christmas time.

But businesses need to toe the line between persistent and pushy. If there’s one thing shoppers hate around this time, it’s the Christmas creep that hounds customers, either in store or through a barrage of promotional material.

Rather than jamming Santa hats on customer’s heads, here are a few ways you can ‘Christmas-ize’ a regular marketing campaign without going over the top.

‘Tis the season of subtlety!

Stocking Stuffers

We like free stuff. Do you like free stuff? We bet you like free stuff, too.

Free stuff can be re-branded as stocking stuffers around Christmas, and believe us – that name change makes all the difference. There’s simply something about this season that makes the little gifts people would deem stupid on a regular day into cherished trinkets that brightens their day.

Stocking stuffers can be added on to purchases over certain price points. T-shirts, keychains, ornaments, custom candy – it doesn’t have to be anything overly complex. Think small, creative, and funny, and we’re sure you’ll find the perfect gift to appease your shoppers.

Create Holiday-Inspired Landing Pages

For e-commerce businesses in particular, you’ve probably noticed a significant upswing in new traffic to your online store throughout November and December.

It’s safe to assume (or you can confirm through your analytics) a good chunk of these users are shoppers on the hunt for gifts.

To take advantage of this newfound traffic, make gift giving easy by designing a holiday-inspired landing page that caters the experience to their needs and wants. This tiny bit of effort will undoubtedly pump up those conversion rates and attract even more new customers.

It can be as simple as a gifts-idea landing page, in which you can distinguish different lumps of curated goods collected under specific gift-recipient types. This can be done through analyzing your historical purchase data, helping you determine the types of products certain customer profiles, or types of shoppers, would want. For example, a men’s wear retailer could divide gift idea sections into denominations like ‘Outdoorsy’, ‘Sporty’, ‘Business’, ‘Surfer’, ‘Preppy’, etc.

A holiday landing page is an extremely efficient way to bank on the holiday frenzy without costing huge sums of money or hiring a formidable tech staff. It’s simply a customer-focused curation of information relevant to the consumer, presented in an accessible, user-friendly format.

Make it Musical

Alright, we’ll admit that the amount of Christmas jingles and carolers can be overwhelming in December. But if done well and with tact, a catchy Christmas tune can have your business stand out and stay top of mind.

Song parody’s have been done, so forget those. Think of a way to add a spring in shopper’s steps, but in a different way.

For example, your store or business could sponsor a social media contest where followers create their favourite playlist on Spotify. Winners can receive a stocking stuffer or gift, as well as having their playlist featured in your store.

Best of all, it’s engaging, unique, and fits the feel-good theme of the season. Oh, and it builds brand awareness and creates free shareable content for you, too.

Clutch Gift Ideas

It’s an annual holiday hitch that everyone has to face: buying thoughtful gifts for the person that has everything, or doesn’t want anything.

You can cater to the crowd that still can’t find the perfect gift weeks, or even days, before Christmas. Create thoughtful, considerate gift idea lists that don’t look like a hodge-podge of cutouts from a Sears catalogue.

If you can somehow, subtly, plug your business or service in that list, all the better. If that isn’t possible to do without saying ‘SHOP HERE’, have a few items on your list that’s related to what you do.

Make Christmas Pinteresting

Everyone remembers making wish-lists as youngsters. The hope and anticipation built from a wish-list are feelings that can only be elicited from a holiday like Christmas.

Businesses can take those warm and fuzzy feelings to Pinterest boards, or the modern day wish-list.

What’s great about utilizing Pinterest boards as a way to market your business is the ability to capture your target audience in a fun and wild way (see: memorable). You can show off impossibly rare or expensive gifts to create a sense of wonderment, or display realistic gifts related to your business that builds on that consumerism lust.

How ever you decide to employ Pinterest, just remember to be creative and clever. While your true M.O. is to generate leads and new customers, don’t be too explicit about it. Steer clear of pins with descriptions that scream, BUY NOW/REGISTER/SIGN UP, etc.

Another cool ploy you can utilize on Pinterest is a year-end overview, recognizing the most important moments of the past year from your business; link your most popular blogs, milestone moments, and product launches.

You can add a bit of Christmas cheer that your customers will appreciate and be amused by without going over the top, or shoving the holiday down their throats. Delivered with tact and strategy, sprinkling bits of Christmas spice throughout your holiday marketing campaigns will have your business rockin’ around the Christmas tree!

The holidays will be over before you know it, so get your last minute holiday promos done ASAP. But more importantly, use this time to start thinking about your post-holiday marketing. Contact us so we can help you grow your business in 2017!

Have a safe & happy holiday!