7 Marketing Ideas To Prepare For Christmas

So that time has rolled around. The sun’s starting to fade (at least it is here in the UK!) and the kids are going back to school.. Which means, it’s time to knuckle down before everybodys favourite period – Christmas!

In this article I’m going to go over a couple of things you should be doing in your business to get yourself ready for the rest of the year, and Christmas.

Stop Automatically Messaging People!

This one was a hot topic on my LinkedIn profile this week – those annoying auto DMs or Tweets when you follow someone or when they interact with you. Social Media is becoming more personal by the minute and so automated messages like this just aren’t cutting it anymore. They make work in some instances, but in most it just pisses your customer off.

People are so tired of these that even when messages are sent direct and not automated, they often don’t get replied to as they still think it’s not personal.

This month, cut off any auto message systems from access to your profiles (Chatbots are TOTALLY fine) 🙂

Stop Spam Adding People

I’m not sure if that’s a real term but let’s roll with it.. I get multiple friend requests every day from business owners (and spam accounts) and 9 times out of 10, I send them a message saying hello, thanks for adding me and how are you. Often, I get ignored. Why is this? Why add someone if you’re not interested in talking to them?

Oh I know, a way for them to see your company name. But it doesn’t work like that.

Social Media is about a social connection so you need to be creating conversations with your connections, no matter what the platform. The best conversations happen over Private Message.

Start Live Streaming Twice A Week

That’s if you’re not already! Livestreaming is such a powerful tool and allows you to connect on a more personal level with your audience. Consider reading out an article or even coverage of an event you’re attending. The possibilities are endless!

This will help you build your audience and rapport in the run up to the Christmas period. I have a Livestream Tipsheet available here.

Create A Content Creation Schedule

I cannot stress how important this is! Although you don’t need to follow it to a T, it’s always good to have your content planned out so A) you keep up with it regularly and B) you don’t have to think on the spot every time you want to create content.

This saves you so much time by thinking up a months worth of content in say, an hour, as opposed to sitting there for half an hour when the time comes for you to create.

A simple Monday-Friday spreadsheet will suffice but you can use an app called Trello (which integrates with Slack AND is FREE) to create a “board” for each month. Trello is best if you’re working with a team or outsourcing as you can assign tasks to specific team members.

Map Your Customer Journey Properly

So many people don’t actually know what their website visitors are doing or where in the journey they are dropping off, which means you also don’t know why you’re not making sales. You need to map it properly and examine the data.

Too many people we speak to simply have a plain and boring website that does not help them reach their businesses goals – it must be built with your customers behaviour patterns in mind.

If you’re not too clued up with analytics, I would recommend getting a professional in to install it and examine the data, as it can often be confusing. Google also has a free course here.

Consider Affiliate Marketing

Do you know of a product or service that would benefit your customers but isn’t necessaril yours? Consider becoming an affiliate and earning commission for every one you sell.

When you think of affiliates, it often sounds spammy, but it can work in so many ways.

Say for instance you run a business that sells jewellery online. You could retarget your customers with ads for jewellery cleaning products (that you have tested!!) and you get a kickback from the sale, without any of the nasty admin work.

Or, if you are providing a business service, you collaborate with other businesses for a referral fee. Or refer your customers to a software that they already need for you to do the work.

There are many potentials with affiliate marketing which is why we will be writing a full article on it over the coming weeks. You can even sell affiliate products as if they’re your own in some cases..

Always make sure you can vouch for the product or service first!

If You Haven’t Already, Prepare Your Offering For Christmas!

Some people like to get this out of the way earlier in the year, or even last year. However if you haven’t, now is the time to start. Christmas is such a crazy time of the year, especially online as there are offers coming out of your clients ears.

This is why you need to start warming up your potential clients now, get them to purchase before the December rush!

Consider doing a campaign that utilises both online and offline mediums. Perhaps host an early Christmas mixer, do something charitable, something wild and wacky. Be a little different.

Look at Christmas campaigns from other businesses in your niche or failing that, look at what businesses local to you have done in previous years. These can be a good source of inspiration and you can still do great things on a budget.

September is a month for focus and preparation for the end of the year/start of next before the madness starts near Christmas. Make sure you have your foundations set and processes in place before the busy time comes or you’ll be regretting it come January.

Happy September!