Christmas blog post

We’ve had the antics of Black Friday and we survived! Now we go into the two-month marketing and sales period of Christmas and New Year. Two holidays, a week apart and two months of offers and deals to whet the appetite of everyone. It’s a prolonged spell which very lucrative for businesses of any size!

Christmas is starting earlier and earlier every year and I swear I heard ‘All I Want For Christmas’ as early as August! But we’re well into the festive season now, our tree is up and the tinsel is covering our computers and though many companies have started their Christmas marketing in November and even October, it is never too late to get in on the festive offers.

People will always be looking for bargain evenings out, last-minute gifts or even the weekly shop (UK residents spend over 20bn on food alone!) Essentially, any deal to save them a little money and time this holiday season. There is still plenty of opportunities for you to muscle in on the market to get your offers out there through SMS, one of the quickest and most direct forms of marketing there is.

It only takes a few minutes to set up a campaign and get it sent out directly to devices which people spend the most of their time on. The Ofcom report recently stated that on average, people check their phone every 12 minutes! Get your messages sent directly to where people are always looking.

Once sent, an SMS will be with your target audience within seconds. So it makes sense to use it this festive period, it’s much more personal than emails and way more cost effective than radio and TV.

With Christmas in mind, we’ve put together a little list (and we’ve checked it twice) with some easy to follow marketing tips to help you make the most of the festive season and the month following!

Tip 1: The Offer

Email inboxes will be full of Christmas offers which will mostly go ignored. With SMS you are pretty much guaranteed that the recipient will see your message, so make sure your offer is eye-catching with clear instructions on how to take advantage of your offer such as “Act now and save up to 50% click here” or “Kids eat free over the holidays reply with ‘MEAL’ to 88440”

Tip 2: The Timing

Timing is key with any campaign. Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas) is on the 22nd this year, and is a huge opportunity for everyone, with people rushing to get the last of their presents or food bought for the big day. Get your offers out in the days leading up to it to make the most out of people’s last-minute spending.

There are a multitude of different industries with different effective times to send out your offers so it is always worthwhile to do some research into the best time for sending campaigns within your industry.

Tip 3: Theme

People love Christmas! Make sure your campaign is Christmas themed, whether it be the offer itself or by using a festive keyword like ‘NOEL’ or ‘SANTA’. Customers are more likely to spend if they are in the festive spirit.

Tip 4: Easy Access

As we all know, for a lot of people this is the busiest and sometimes the most stressful time of year. Let your customers know your opening times or customer service hours so they can rest assured they’ll be able to buy in time for the big day.

If you’re a digital platform then include a short URL to a Christmas themed landing page on your site.

Tip 5: Post-Christmas Sales!

Christmas being over doesn’t stop the offers and deals going out and can often be overlooked, but Boxing Day and January Sales can be extremely lucrative for businesses of any size.

Get a plan in place to make sure you can take advantage of this prime spending time.