Can you smell the pumpkin spice, the cinnamon, and the mulled wine yet? Have you heard anyone groaning that Christmas lights and decorations are already in the shops? Yes, it’s that time of year again, when everyone starts stirring up our inner grinches and elves.
It’s the most important time of the year for many businesses. Halloween and Christmas are still the biggest sales periods of the year. No wonder everyone is thinking about it early. But how do you stand out in a crowded marketplace?
Lead with meaning, not just marketing.
It’s an old cliché that ‘Christmas is the time for giving’. We have all heard this, or variations of this, before. Yet, most businesses flood people with sales messages at Christmas. It’s almost like they abandon their values to get sales.
Rather than shouting out about your 20% discount, or your £5 gift-wrapping service, talk about how you are going to give back. Perhaps change your message to something like: ‘For every purchase we are donating a gift to a homeless shelter.’
Make it personal.
Christmas is about family and friends. At the end of the day, when we take our time off, the holidays are all about the people we share the experience with. This should translate into your marketing and your sales.
You can do many different things. Maybe you could write little handwritten notes to say thank you to your customers when they order? Perhaps schedule in a phone call to your biggest clients to thank them personally. Remember, customers remember effort, not just offers.
Lean into authenticity
Not everything needs to look like a polished cinematic offering from John Lewis. Your business is likely to be a messy tinsel-ridden office with people wearing daft jumpers. Show the team getting excited and tell all the little Christmas stories that happen in your office.
Authenticity does cut through a lot of polished noise. People like the relatability of a human business. And the good thing is that it’s a lot cheaper to create authentic content than it is to produce and edit a larger scale production.
Can you incorporate January into your Christmas sales?
Your product and service need not end when Santa is putting his feet up after the one shift he has each year. Is there a follow up service you can offer, for instance a service for one of your bicycles, or a free replacement for a part that would likely have worn in that time?
A customer likes to know that they are not going to be forgotten and that you want them to get the best out of your product or service.
So, what ideas do you have?
Standing out is, and has always been, about being yourself. Whatever drove you to create your business is unique, and as such, your business is unique. Play to your strengths and remember what you wanted to achieve when you went into business.
If you need to talk through your ideas or perhaps need a little help implementing them, contact us and invite us out on a little coffee date. We would love to be involved.
For a conversation about your marketing this Christmas, call us on 01604 698 948 or email us on
hello@tj-marketing.co.uk and we’ll arrange to meet for a coffee.
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