Christmas is fast approaching, but is your business ready for it? Do you have a Christmas marketing strategy in place?
It’s worth taking seriously: nearly half of UK shoppers already begin their festive shopping before November even starts, according to EY’s Holiday Shopping Survey — so a lot of buying decisions are made well before December arrives.
You may have already considered the obvious things, such as getting more stock ready for the season of sales or hiring some temporary staff. But have you considered how the Christmas period affects your marketing and communications with customers?
Here, we’ve collected our best advice for getting your business ready for the Christmas period:
Keep Your Customers Informed
Over Christmas, a lot of businesses will have a shutdown period. This can be the case for both B2B and B2C businesses. Remember to update your website, social media, and any other platforms where your business is active with your opening times/shutdown period to keep your customers informed.
If your business is B2B, you could set up out-of-office emails or edit your email signature to contain your opening hours during the festive period. These are easy ways to let customers know when they will get a response from you; you can even include instructions on how to get in contact if it is urgent.
If your business is B2C, add information to your website, such as a warning about longer delivery times or a countdown to order for deliveries to arrive before Christmas. Send out emails to inform customers about any special offers and shout about them on your social media. Set up ‘abandoned shopping cart’ reminders via emails to get those extra Christmas sales in.
Show Your Customers Some Love
This can be an especially good strategy for B2B businesses. Consider showing your appreciation for their continued support through company Christmas cards, gifts or hampers. Christmas is a great time for working on your customer relations with thoughtful gestures such as this.
Consider Creating Christmas Gift Cards or Vouchers
In the run-up to Christmas, consider offering gift cards or vouchers to your customers with special discounts for the festive season. These could include a fixed amount of money on a card, a percentage discount, or free additional services such as two-for-one offers, gift wrapping, or free shipping.
Gift cards can be an excellent way for your business to earn a bit of extra cash by:
• Limiting the validity period of the voucher to create artificial time pressure
• Setting a minimum order value as a prerequisite for using the voucher
• Allowing or excluding multiple uses
• Restricting the validity of the discount code to specific items
If you’re looking to offer your customers bespoke gift cards or vouchers, Dash can help. Contact us for our complete list of available services over the festive period.
Check Your Website Is Updated And Ready
As well as decorating your website for Christmas with new artwork and banners, focus on making your website’s performance as customer-friendly and efficient as possible.
Make sure your website can handle the influx of customers for the season of shopping. Check that your website infrastructure and hosting provider are robust enough to support the higher traffic.
This matters more each year, not less — UK shoppers now spend a record amount online during the festive period year after year, according to Adobe Digital Insights. The traffic surge you’re preparing for isn’t a one-off spike; it’s a trend that keeps climbing.
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Get Ready For The New Year
The new year always creeps up faster than you expect, so use the quieter post-Christmas period to plan ahead for January. Hit the ground running once the new year begins thanks to your preplanning in November and December. If you already have obligations or commitments for January, check whether there’s anything you can start now, or at least get organised, to make the process easier once you’re back.
It’s also worth using this quieter period to reflect honestly on the year you’ve just had: what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d do differently next time. A few areas worth revisiting before you close the year out:
• Which campaigns or channels actually drove results, and which are worth dropping
• Whether your marketing budget needs rebalancing for the year ahead
• Any seasonal patterns specific to your business that you could plan around earlier next time
• Whether your goals and KPIs still make sense, or need resetting
Use what you find to inform your business strategy for the year ahead, rather than starting January with a blank page.
If you need help with your Christmas marketing strategy or are looking to work with a marketing agency in the new year, get in contact and schedule a meeting to discuss your business needs with Dash. If you’re planning further ahead, see our guides to Black Friday marketing and summer campaign planning, or browse all our Seasonal Campaign Planning insights.