September is starting, which means that Christmas is not far behind… I know what you’re thinking: it’s still warm outside, why talk about Christmas now? Well, simply because a good Christmas campaign is prepared several months in advance. Do you want to be in the spotlight with your campaign and be cited as an example in an article such as: the 10 best Christmas 2020 campaigns? Don’t delay!
The holiday season is one of the biggest times for businesses and these days, making a simple Christmas card is all well and good, but why not take the idea one step further. Companies are making more and more creative and original campaigns and you need to stand out to stay in the race.
Let’s start at the beginning: the key elements of a good Christmas campaign.
Planning
As mentioned above, it is important to plan your campaign well in advance, i.e., a few months in advance. I know it’s hard to think about snow when it’s still 25 degrees outside, but it takes what it takes!
A campaign done in haste and at the last minute can certainly not have the same impact as a well thought-out and elaborate campaign.
Plus, if you wait until the last minute to get started, chances are you’ll get caught up in the holiday whirlwind. As a result, you simply don’t have the time to do the campaign you would have wanted. Not only you, there are also your customers who will also be in the pre-Christmas rush and won’t have time to read your wishes or do the required actions, if any.
Personalization
The objective of a Christmas campaign is to strengthen the relationship you have with your customers by building their engagement. By creating a link with them, you can more easily build brand loyalty. But to do this, you need tools.
Think back to when you received a paper Christmas card with a personalized note? Try to recreate this feeling of closeness to your customers. Whether it’s a personalized message, a photo, or the team dedicated to your customer, personalization is your best ally.
Your customers will feel unique and important to you and this is exactly the feeling you want to make them feel with your wishes.
Interaction to generate engagement
To create real engagement with your customers, it is recommended that you find a way to get them involved in your campaign. The ideal is to make them interact with your brand with concrete actions. It can be a survey, a quiz, a gift hunt, in short, you have to make your client want to take this action.
To do so, it is important to design your campaign on the principle of giving and sharing. So try to turn the campaign to your advantage but in order to give something to your client instead of just receiving it.
So if you’re doing a survey, it’s important that your client benefits from it as well. Of course, the answers can be used to enrich your relationship, but there doesn’t have to be a goal behind it. You can do a fun survey without expecting anything in return. Above all, don’t ask for something that only benefits you.
Using the gamification principle is also a good way to put it into practice in your campaign. Whether it’s a quiz, an interactive map, or a fun contest, using the game to engage your customers is always a winner.
Think multi-channel
The last key point is also valid for all your marketing campaigns. It’s simply a matter of thinking about reaching your customers across multiple platforms to create continuity and consistency in your campaign. For example, your greeting email could lead to a fun landing page and promote it on social networks as well.
It is, however, necessary not to copy and paste your greeting card on all sending platforms. For example, sending the same message by email, SMS, and web push… It’s a bit too much! On the other hand, try to find a different use for all these platforms to, for example, advance your game or simply enrich the experience created in another platform.
In addition, it is important to think about your campaign in a way to adapt your message to the medium. For example, a card sent by email is not the same as a paper card and vice versa. Keep this in mind for each platform you will integrate into your campaign.
A few inspirations
Here are a few examples of well thought-out Christmas campaigns that we have selected to inspire you. We have all kinds of them, from a very simple card to slightly more complex wishes, to show you that you can do something original no matter what your resources are.
Personalized wishes via form
The idea was to send personalized Christmas wishes by setting up a form that your employees could fill out by choosing the desired visual, writing their wish, and the recipient in question. Then, the message is automatically created with the right message and the right visual and the customer receives the wish directly in his mailbox.
It’s a very simple idea, but it makes the process much easier and more enjoyable for your employees, and customers receive a unique and original wish.
This idea can be done by customer segmentation, so for example, a design by geographical area, or in 1 to 1, depending on your technological capabilities. Moreover, what is interesting is that if you have a customer who is in contact with several employees in your company, this system makes sure to gather all the wishes to the same person in a single email. This avoids bombarding your contact with a ton of emails for nothing, which is very convenient.
Card with a personalized image per team
Another example of a simple and effective Christmas card is to send a card by email containing an animated photo of the team that is dedicated to the client who will receive the card. This type of email implies a high degree of personalization because you create an email with all the possibilities of teams and clients. Each team has to write one word for each client, but they only see what is relevant to them in the email.
In this concept, the fact that the image is animated makes it less monotonous and more fun than a simple email without animation. Moreover, by adapting the photo according to the team that takes care of the client regularly, it represents a special attention to detail and the client feels better treated and it strengthens the relationship with the client.
Invent a Christmas story to entertain your customers
For this campaign, a well-known Christmas concept is used: that of the elf who makes bad moves before Christmas. This campaign, therefore, represents a hunt for the elf who stole Christmas wishes and who must be found before December 25th so that everyone can read his wishes in time to spend a nice Christmas Eve.
At Dialog Insight, this campaign took place on social networks and by email. The first step is to send an email explaining the situation. This can be directly in the email, or direct people to a landing page with a video or simply a text that explains that the elf stole the Christmas wishes. The hunt can also be followed on our social network pages, as we have done below.
« A malicious leprechaun broke into Dialog Insight and stole our holiday wish list. Plus, he’s having fun doing all sorts of nasty things to us at night… But don’t worry, we’ll catch it! Come back every day to find out what new bad move our leprechaun has prepared for us and see if we’ve caught it! »
Then, every day (or every week, it’s up to you), customers receive communications to follow the story of the leprechaun, his last bad moves, the last place where he was seen and several clues to find him.
So there is an evolution in the story every day before Christmas until the elf is finally caught.
So we were able to retrieve the wishes and distribute them to all concerned. At this moment, the customer can click to discover his wishes and spend, a beautiful Christmas without hassle.
Here we have a concept that requires a little more work than the previous ones because it is a long-term campaign. You need to think of several different communications and put them in place.
We can also take the concept even further and involve the client in the search for the leprechaun through several different channels. You can mix emails, landing pages, videos, social media, animated GIFs, SMS, in short, anything is possible. This makes it all more fun and friendly for your audience.
A thematic quiz
This tactic involves a quiz and, in our case, the questions that were asked were related to good industry practice, and then determine whether you were wise or naughty this year.
Using this tactic is convenient to open the door to continue the discussion between you and your client. Especially if the result is that he has been naughty, it proves that you can surely suggest training, a complimentary product, or coaching services to him. And if he has been wise, it is also an opportunity to congratulate him and start the conversation with him. And if you want to take advantage of it to push a sale or a promotion, it’s also an opportunity to tell him: You can go to another level and offer him a more advanced product or service.
In any case, what is important in this campaign is not to stop at the Christmas wish. We said earlier not to ask for purchase with this campaign, but nothing prevents you from using the result as leverage to push the relationship further. This is why it is important to follow up on the result obtained, in order to close the loop.
The information you obtain with your follow-up can be used to enrich your database. Thus, you will be able to have a better knowledge of your customers and use this knowledge to optimize your future customization.
Also, make sure that your follow-up message is in the same tone as the survey. For example, if your survey is fun and funny, be fun and funny in your follow-up communication as well.
Use classic Christmas concepts
What is as classic as Santa Claus at Christmas? The Advent calendar! Well ok probably Mother Christmas and the elves are even more so, but hey, you get the idea!
The Advent calendar can be used in many different ways, but I will present you with a fairly simple one that you can adapt to your own needs as a business.
So, we start with a special newsletter sent, obviously, one month before Christmas. This newsletter directs you to a landing page where you will find the famous advent calendar. In the beginning, all the small doors are closed and cannot be opened. Every day, a door opens and when we click on it, presents us with an interesting offer, either a discount, a promotion, or even a gift.
It’s a great way to reward your customers for being loyal to you, but it’s also a great way to prepare them for the holiday season. As everyone knows, the holiday season can be an expensive time of year, so offering discounts encourages people to buy from you rather than your competitor.
We have applied this concept to the retail and e-commerce industry but you can, of course, adapt it to your industry and do something very original with it as the Bang Marketing team did for Christmas 2019.
Click here to see the animation (the card is in French only).
It’s a rather versatile concept, adapt it to your sauce!
Conclusion
As you can see, it is quite easy to start from a simple idea and develop it into something original and personalized. But for it to be really successful, it is essential to plan it in advance. This will give you time to develop a complete concept, in your own image, that no one else has seen before.
A Christmas campaign is a good opportunity for you to strengthen the feeling of closeness with your customer through the personalization of your wishes. And if the wishes come from the people your customers work with most often instead of the company in general, this has a great impact.
Add to this recipe a playful concept that creates an interesting experience that is different from your approach the rest of the year… You have a winning recipe! Especially in a post-COVID period, when you realize that customer engagement is key.
That’s also why when developing a Christmas campaign, you don’t necessarily have to think about leading to a direct purchase, but rather about building the bond you have with your customers. They will certainly appreciate the attention and will be all the more ready to start the new year in strength with your company!
If you need help to brainstorm, plan, or realize your campaign, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will certainly be able to help you get it all setup!
