You may have heard the faint echoes of Christmas bells jingling their merry way into our lives through the radio, adverts, and retail playlists.
Your town is most likely strung with the familiar annual lights, and your social media ads are likely flushed with reds and golds.
Christmas marketing is in full swing, and most businesses have jumped on the tinsel-covered bandwagons, ready to delight their customers at Christmas.
Time to delight
Not only is Christmas a great excuse to gorge on copious amounts of food, but it’s also a great opportunity to impress your customers and serve them an extra plateful of ‘delight’ during their inbound marketing journey.
The ‘delight’ stage of inbound is where you really go to town on the transaction/purchase part of the journey, with the combined forces of your sales and marketing teams.
You’re delighting your customer with your product or service and reminding them why they’ve put their pennies in the correct pot.
Delighting isn’t just making a sale and thanking your customer for it. Delighting is going above and beyond for your customer to make their experience as unique, and personalised as possible.
Tailor to their specific pain points. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know that if you make your customers feel extra special, they’re more likely to buy from you, and buy again and again. It’s marketing 101, and it works every time.
Focus on this, and you’ve nailed the ‘delight’ stage of your marketing.
Delight isn't just making a sale and thanking your customer for it. Delight is going above and beyond, making your customer feel like your most important sale.
Delight strategies are all about ensuring your customer is satisfied during and after their purchase. Following up on your customers ensures that your customers continue to feel valued even after their purchase. This can really flick the switch between a one-time customer and a returning customer.
But seeing as it’s Christmas, you can capitalise on the festive season to go double whammy on the ‘delight.’ Plus, with all your competitors jumping on the marketing sleighs at the same time, it’s important to make your business stand out from the rest.
Add a little bit extra into your Christmas marketing by...
- Personalising marketing content
- Being spontaneous
- Releasing festive promotions and deals
- Joining forces with influencers
- Asking for end-of-year feedback
- Saying thank you, and obviously...wishing your customers a Happy Christmas
Personalise at Christmas
Like every festive season, Christmas means something different to everyone.
Of course, your Christmas marketing is going to be niche to your brand. You'll shape your content to fit your customer's idea of Christmas. But you can go even further with this, addressing your different types of buyer persona.
Let’s say Tesco are putting a Christmas deal on kid’s Christmas stocking fillers. The marketing team might direct personalised Christmas emails to customers who fit the family demographic, and who have previously ordered kid's toys. Whereas, for the customer who regularly buys oat milk and dairy-free cheese, Tesco might send personalised marketing emails about discounted Vegan festive food.
So whilst you can put out some persona-based generalised ads, Christmas is the perfect time to go even more niche with your marketing and target those separated profiles.
Be spontaneous
Christmas is a time when emotions are particularly heightened, everyone is busy, and it can take its toll on our energy.
This absolutely gives us the opportunity to be extra spontaneous.
Surprise and delight go in the same bracket here. Give extra quality service to your customers: Give away free stuff, splash out on fun or immersive marketing, get social in your network, and hold events or competitions.
This not only delights your customers even more, but it also humanizes your brand and will spur your customers to return the kindness with positive reviews.
Promotions and deals
There's no denying that Christmas is expensive. Give your customers a financial break and incentivise them to purchase your goods with Christmas discounts and deals.
Influencer Christmas specials
If you've got any third-party endorsements, get them involved in your Christmas marketing cheer.
Joining with influencers can help amplify your festive marketing, and it makes Christmas marketing that little bit more special.
It’s always a good time to join up with an influencer, but if your product or service sells particularly well during the festive season, then glossing your brand up with some third-party endorsement can capitalise on this even more.
Ask for end-of-year feedback
Christmas is the perfect window to ask for some end-of-year feedback. This not only shows you’re willing to improve your services for the year ahead, but it can also help to give you insight into any changes in customer preferences. This will allow you to get a well-rounded scope of the year in hand and improve next year.
Incentivise your feedback forms with discounts or free items, and thank your customers for their time.
Say thank you, and obviously...wish your customers a Happy Christmas
This goes without saying – but it can be so obvious that it’s forgettable. Thank your pre-existing customers for their custom, and wish them a happy Christmas. Everyone loves receiving a Christmas card, so say it from the heart.
