7th November 2023
Christmas is a great time of year, families come together, we eat too much, maybe drink too much and overall have a good time. However, businesses can struggle through the festive period when there is so much competition around and there always appears to be someone ready, waiting in the wings to encourage your customers away from you. The question becomes about value, in the same way that when you hire a marketing agency you expect a certain level of value to come from them, whether that be in leads or sales or whatever your business goals, your consumer and target audience want the most amount of value for their money. What that value equates to will differ depending on your audience, if you aren't sure what your customers deem as "valuable" we can sit and work it out together!
It sounds simple but we need to communicate with your customers and get in front of them in order show them why they should shop with you specifically and not just your product or service from any other business. If you are someone who struggles to come up with content, then the Christmas period should be seen as a blessing, there are endless options that you can have fun with to maximise your brand before the end of the year.
If you are focusing on email marketing then you can send out holiday greetings cards via email, when they’re opened there is a deal or incentive inside. That can be something like a discount or a giveaway. This works the same way when asking for feedback too, you can offer incentives like “£5 for 5 minutes of your time” and ask a couple of simple questions that helps you get to know your customers. Encouraging repeat custom is often overlooked by smaller businesses when it should be focusing on, especially if you don’t have an e-commerce site set up for your business, if you are in a small town where footfall is your main income stream, repeat customers are your gold mine!
If your aim is to grow your audience and increase first time customers, you can focus on social media. Creating Christmas content is super simple, a simple content plan that we can build together, some themed captions and you can have yourself a month’s worth of content pretty quickly (don’t forget the Christmas decorations). Be careful when using seasonal hashtags though, you need a mix of largely used hashtags, a mix of mid and a couple of unique ones. The aim here is to get in front of your target audience, if your post is one in a million your chances of being seen are lower than if you are one in 20. However, there are more people looking at the million hashtags, so it really is a balance and truly understanding your audience and what they are looking for.
I for example may use #lincoln (millions of posts) #lincolnmarketing (not many posts but not many searches) #lincolnbusiness (somewhere in the middle for both. This is the strategy I used to help my clients double their engagement online.
Making marketing simple is what we do best and UGC is a big part of that, User Generated Content is taking the marketing world by storm and could be, in part, a replacement for influencers. The 2023 SEMRUSH reports show that authenticity is high on every consumer’s list of decision-making desires when they’re browsing through brands. UGC can be a great way for small businesses to have content created for them that appeals to their target audience, builds credibility and brand authenticity. Several new reports suggest that UGC has a significantly higher conversion rate than professional photography, our phones are our most powerful tool when used correctly. Even Zara is now using UGC to promote their products, and they have become synonymous with their professional quirky photoshoots.
Social proof has always been imperative in marketing, we know the importance of feedback and reviews, UGC is an advancement of this. There are so many ways to gain UGC content, you can pay a professional UGC creator, you can ask staff to help (each team member will have their own unique view of your brand that they capture), you can use customer feedback by using a unique hashtag and launching contests on social media sites like Instagram. At this time of year, everyone is looking for a bargain or a win so reward your customers and gain valuable content in the process.
There are so many other ways that you can engage your audience this holiday season as well as peppering for the new year. If you would like more help, please contact us today!
Whether you are looking for a one-off chat about a plan to go forward or would like to simply hand over the reins and let us bring your customers right to your door or maybe something in the middle, we will find a solution tailored just for your business.