Holiday marketing 2024

October may seem like the beginning of autumn or fall, but it’s a good idea to start planning your holiday season marketing for your business now. The holiday season is a prime time for selling products as gifts, and whilst services like copywriting can’t be wrapped, savvy entrepreneurs are always planning ahead so there’s never a bad time to market what you do.

Audience

Why do I call it the holiday season and not, say, Christmas? I explain why I call it the ‘holiday season’ here and really, it’s about inclusivity. I recommend it to you as it might be important when considering your audience and target market.

If you don’t know your audience already (and you should), now is the time to think about it. Are you sure that all of your audience is celebrating a particular religious holiday? Will you alienate a large sector of your audience if you focus on one? (If you do want to acknowledge particular holidays which are not fixed year on year, make sure to check them so that you get them right.) Also, are all your audience and / or target market in the same global region? Maybe some of your audience will be celebrating the holidays on the beach and so snowy images might not work to engage them! Have a think and remember that audience and target market are not the same.

Objective

As with any marketing, you should consider your objective. Is it sales, bookings, awareness, brand engagement or a combination of these?

Holiday season sales - products and services

If your business sells products, think about creating a gift list this holiday time, ‘slicing and dicing’ your product list for different age groups, demographics, price points and the like. You’ve seen this in magazines and online I’m sure, but there’s no reason why you can’t do the same. Think strategically about what you put on the list too. It might take a while so worth investing some time now.

If you offer a service like me, think about whether that could be turned into a gift. Could you partner with a complementary service to offer a ‘package’ deal? Or perhaps you could find a way to encourage people to book for 2025 - you could offer an incentive for example.

Brand engagement - thanking your customers

The holiday season is a good time of year to show gratitude for your customers or clients. You could offer a discount code on products in your marketing emails or for small/micro businesses you could demonstrate your thanks in person - perhaps host a coffee get-together or evening drinks. You could collaborate with peer businesses in your area to make it a holiday-season casual networking meet-up if you like - this helps share the costs too.

You could thank your clients by giving to charity, perhaps something related to your business or a cause close to your heart. A meaningful gesture like this sets a positive tone at this time of year.

If that all feels like too much then a handwritten card is just as good. But, of course, you can’t do this if you have thousands on your mailing list which brings us nicely onto…

Holiday season email marketing campaign

Whatever your marketing objective, how you approach this time of year does require some planning and email marketing should be a part of this too. This is especially important if you’re offering discount codes, running sales, offers and competitions.

Automated messages should be used for high volume responses such as the purchase lifecycle (‘You have left something in your cart’ type messages) to simplify your life but they still need to be written, or checked for suitability, if they already exist. Could they have a little holiday sparkle added? Perhaps your greeting or sign-off, or maybe your branding in general could be given some festive flair.

Things to consider when planning your email campaign are audience and objective, as I said, but also frequency and content. How much time do you have to spend on this? Perhaps a gift to yourself could be outsourcing!

Holiday season post ideas

When it comes to blog posts, you should always be thinking about keywords and it’s worthwhile thinking about what people might be searching for. ‘Christmas gift guide’ is too generic so try to make your keyword or phrase more specific and write about that. How does your product or service lend itself to this time of year? Make sure that content is written for humans and good quality or outsource it to someone like me who’ll do it for you.

Sometimes, you might just want to write. I get it (my November post is going to be just that) and a blog post is a good place to say thank you, carry out a review of the year or what you might like for 2025. All of these ideas would make good social media posts too. The ‘Wish list for 2025’ would be great in the lead up to New Year’s Eve.

The key to your holiday season marketing is understanding your target market and your marketing objectives. Spend an hour thinking about this perhaps and also be realistic about how much time you have to invest in this specific project. If you think you might struggle, get in touch. I could plan and write it all or proofread what you want to say, leaving you more time to enjoy the season!

All images credit to Unsplash