We know it’s not actually feeling festive yet, but the earlier you make holiday marketing plans for your business, the less stress you’ll feel as the holiday season approaches, trust us. Holiday planning is one of the most enjoyable times of the year for us at Get Online NOLA as we get to reflect on a years-worth of successes, and bring some joy to our clients and their customers. Every year we like to help our clients end the year on a high note – here are six ways we help spread holiday cheer.
1. Run a social media contest
One of the best ways to boost your social media presence, and spread the word about your products or services? Running a social media contest. Your contest can vary from encouraging your followers to post a photo with your hashtag, to resharing a post, to commenting on a post with their answer to a question. The key is that your giveaway prize must be a good fit for your audience, and make sense for your business. If you sell a physical product, you can give away something from your shop. Service based businesses can offer trial services, or local prizes like restaurant gift cards. You can spread the love further by including prizes from your local customers’ stores or restaurants.
2. Give unique client gifts
What can we say? We love swag. We don’t just love receiving swag, but giving it ourselves, and helping our clients do the same! Swag, or promotional products, are useful everyday products that include your business’s logo. We love swag because people keep and use these products, keeping your business at the top of their minds – read all about it in this post. Some of our favorite brandable gifts this year are:
- Bluetooth speakers
- Portable phone chargers
- Insulated water bottles
3. Support charities your staff loves
Supporting charities is always a great idea. Make it even better this year by getting your employees involved. Not only does this boost morale for your employees by showing them that you care about the causes they care about, but it’s also a great way to get your employees involved with your marketing efforts. An easy way to do it is by asking your employees what charity they would like to support and why, and if they’re comfortable with you sharing their answers – then you can use approved responses in a blog post and share them via social media! This not only helps the charities, but it allows your community to get to know your employees and their interests a little better too.
4. Update your logo to reflect the festive spirit
A fun way to show your holiday spirit is by updating your logo! Adding in snowpeople, Santa hats, baubles, or bows can be a simple but effective way to get into the holiday spirit. Your logo can be used on social media, holiday gift cards for customers to purchase, and even on thank you notes or holiday cards to be sent by your business.
5. Run a special holiday promotion
Nearly every business has a product or service that could be turned into a special for the holiday season. You can run a flash sale, raffle off a big-ticket item, offer a two-for-one special, or simply offer a discount on your product range.
If the holidays aren’t quite the right fit – keep in mind that the new year will be right around the corner as another opportunity! While deciding on a holiday promotion can be easy, getting the word out is the hard part. We recommend making a landing page on your website specific to the holiday promotion. Then use PPC (pay-per-click) ads on social media and Google ads to direct traffic to that page. This gives you the opportunity to push a great special that will benefit your current clients, encourage repeat business, and encourage urgency among prospective customers.
6. Send a newsletter or printed card
Kick it old school by sending out a holiday card either in the mail or digitally with a newsletter. A good way to jazz up this tried and true idea is by making it more personable. Physical cards can include a team photo, or an email newsletter can be made more exciting with a custom GIF. Make sure to personalize each card, either by adding client-specific content to a card in the mail, or by using personalization fields in your email message so it is sent to the recipient’s name, not to a generic term like “valued customer”.
Getting your holiday plan in place early is always a good idea. Get Online NOLA can help with all this and more! Want to chat about ways to bring cheer to your customers?