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Please be aware there will be a lot of bad Christmas puns throughout this article … Unless you’re a Yuletide pro it is all too easy for a small business owner to get overwhelmed by the most commercially busiest time of the year! That’s why we’ve put together these points to hopefully help you sleigh and make sure you pull a cracker of a turnover … yes, the cringe is real!
Brands like John Lewis and Coca Cola have really nailed their branding to be synonymous with the Christmas period. Every year their Christmas adverts are eagerly awaited by thousands if not millions of people! Unlike these large corporations however you may find you don’t have the budget or time to produce a mini film but there is something to be taken away from their beloved adverts and their Christmas marketing strategy. Want to find out what that is? Let’s check the list then check it twice … oh deer! Maybe we should rein these puns in?
Getting back to it …
Your brand needs more emotion!
Sounds more complicated than it looks! Most if not all of the larger corporations manage to stay large because they understand this number one principle of marketing. When promoting your brand, it needs to invoke an emotional response within a potential customer. This is what makes it memorable. Another well known brand is Cadbury’s. Look back at their adverts over the years. I guarantee a lot of you will remember the gorilla playing Phil Collins’ drum solo! Why? Because it was unexpected and funny!
Think back to John Lewis and their adverts. They are often heartwarming and invoke a sense of togetherness at Christmas. Even Kellogs nailed one of their Christmas adverts years ago with a little girl waking up in the middle of the night to find Father Christmas eating a bowl of cornflakes. It invoked an awwing emotion (technically again a heartwarming emotion) but hopefully you’re starting to see the relevance.
When promoting your brand or products, try to associate it with an emotion! If you don’t know what emotion to stir up, here is a list of the good ones; joy, gratitude, pride, serenity, heart warming, inspiration, awe (wonder not awww how cute), and humour. Obviously avoid the bad ones at all cost! Be careful to make sure you don’t offend anyone!
This emotion strategy should be implemented all year round in fairness but if this is your first time hearing about it, now you know! Which rhymes with snow … thankfully Christmas is once a year.
Be prepared!
Although the season to be jolly is once a year, you’ll have noticed that it is no longer just limited to the month of December. Most Christmas promotions begin as early as September, sometimes leaving very little room for Halloween promotion to be done effectively. This is because a lot of commerce businesses, traditional and electronic, know the importance the Christmas period has. Let’s face it January, February and March can be very quiet months for commerce so it’s important to make sure your Christmas earnings can see you through til the Easter period. Not all sectors do poorly during those months. It can actually be a great time if you’re in the fitness industry for the obvious New Year’s resolutions.
Which is another point to be made. Christmas and New Year’s fall in the same peak season so not only is it important to focus on your Christmas marketing (almost a pun) but don’t neglect the opportunity of New Year’s too.
Of course your preparation shouldn’t just hone in on promoting and brand awareness, make sure you have enough stock to sell! Not too much if it’s a seasonal product. Your aim should be to have stock you know you can sell out of stock. Of course, if worse comes to the worst you could always discount these come New Year’s or January but leftover stock can mean storage space and storage costs.
Make sure you know delivery cut off dates!
Technically this is part of the preparation part but it is often overlooked by so many that it can become a big problem for so many. Not only will you have a disgruntled customer who blames you for ruining little Carol’s Christmas if a delivery is late but it may result in a refund and a bad review. Reviews are fundamental for small businesses so make sure you don’t fall into this trap early on by ensuring you can deliver on time.
How can you do that? Simply get in touch with your courier services and ask them for the Christmas cut off dates. If you work with a third party logistics company or a fulfilment centre, you can request the same information from them. Customer satisfaction is also fundamental so make sure you can deliver on time.
It’s Christmassss!!!!!
This should ho-ho-hopefully be the last pun. Who knows? Or should that be who Rudolph The Red Nose … as you can tell I just can’t anymore.
For the love of oh holy night, don’t forget that it is Christmas! (I wish I could) …That means snowmen, Santa Clause or Father Christmas, Christmas trees, candy canes, snowflakes … you get the point. Be sure your branding or products somehow relate to this. Now, you don’t have to go out and buy every festive memorabilia you can think of but there is definitely an opportunity to be had by making your brand festive. It shows you’ve made the effort. Have a look at how you can do that? Cost effective ways would be to have all of your digital marketing Christmas oriented but if you can afford to then why not also spruce (last pun) up your packaging too?
Now in the words of Judy Garland have yourself a merry little Christmas.
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