Christmas Marketing for
Small Businesses in 2020
Katie Batchelor
It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
Ok, so saying that Christmas time is the best part of 2020 is kind of like saying that one bag of rubbish is the best one in a skip full of rubbish bags. We understand. This year has not been easy personally, financially or emotionally. Covid-19 has affected your family and your business, but the festive season is upon us and it’s more important than ever to make the most of Christmas marketing opportunities this year.
So, from our business to yours, Deearo is gifting you these useful tips on how to make the most of the festive period for your business.
Embrace the Christmas marketing cheese
Christmas: the time for festive cheer, cheese and beer…No? Just us, then. Seriously though, people are much more accepting of cliched marketing techniques at this time of year than at any other. So, run your social media best elf joke competitions, tweet your festive hashtags and shamelessly promote your brand with gusto this Christmas.
Making polls on social media is a great way to build engagement so why not ask people whether Christmas pudding or mince pies are the superior festive sweet. Is it Roses or Quality Street? Or ask which Christmas character is better, Rudolph or Frosty. Try to link it some way to your business to make it relevant, but more importantly, build a conversation with your clients. Polls are a great engagement builder because they invite people to get involved. Whatever you can think of that gets people communicating with you is great. Posts and blogs are good marketing tools, but people don’t always like to feel talked at. So, polls and quizzes make it a two-way conversation.
Value your customers
Show your customers you are thinking about them by sending them something special this Christmas. Sandstonecastles writes that, “after a year like 2020, showing gratitude to the customers and clients who stuck by you is important”. Use this holiday season to make sure your customers know you value them by sending exclusive offers for them. Maybe post an advent offer program by scheduling posts for every day or week of advent to give different offers to your customers or followers. Get them excited to see what the next one is and make them feel valued at the same time.
If sending out actual presents is in your power, then do that. Thank the people who got your business through (hopefully) the most difficult business year of your life. Your customers have gotten you this far and now you can do something for them. Getting new business is wonderful, but always remember to appreciate your existing customers too
Send out company Christmas cards
The more creative, the better. Just get people to laugh. Maybe poke some fun at the current situation by doing a badly photoshopped festive picture to point out that it was clearly not taken all together this year. For example, have someone holding out the arm as if it’s around a colleague’s shoulder but no one is there. Have someone leaning on thin air or laughing and pointing at nobody. Just a bit of tongue in cheek humour can show your company’s whimsical side and endear you to your customers.
It doesn’t have to be a physical Christmas card by the way, a nice email Christmas card is still a lovely touch for the season.
Sandstonecastles recommends sending cards over Christmas to your clients and business partners. They say, “you have many options nowadays when it comes to sending Christmas cards; by mail or email, using standard or branded cards.” Traditional cards are lovely, but we think this year people might be getting more brown envelopes on their door mats and ‘urgent: action required’ emails in their inboxes than usual, so maybe this year, make your company card light hearted and cheer someone up.
Get connected
Keeping the British high street alive and supporting small businesses has never been more important or talked about than this year. People want to help small businesses survive the covid storm and to come out on top.
If you felt the need, you could team up with other local small businesses to make a virtual gift hamper and do a social media ‘share to show you care’ competition. That will not only promote your business but help out other local companies and spread some festive joy. Even if you don’t make anything physical you can still put a gift card for one of your services in the virtual hamper or donate a bottle of wine. Teaming up with another business ensures that every customer of theirs now has heard about you and vice versa. You can promote yourself while helping someone else.
We urge you not to pick one of your competitors to team up with though. It might be the season of goodwill and fellowship, but you don’t want to help any of your customers jump ship by pointing them at another business who can do what you do for them. Be sensible.
E-commerce
If you don’t yet have a system in place where customers can order your products or services online, then what are you waiting for? A national pandemic that will make shopping in person next to impossible? Oh, wait… Think with Google say that “the rise in e-commerce seems like a stepchange, not a spike”, which means online shopping is here to stay.
The way we shop is changing and if businesses don’t change with it, they won’t survive indefinitely. Of course, we still want to support the local greengrocers or butchers, but it’s getting harder for little companies to compete with the prices offered by bigger retailers. If people want to support local businesses and local businesses want to be supported, why are small businesses still floundering? Well, because no matter how great your products, services and marketing, if you don’t offer the convenience of online sales, then you’re missing a massive chunk of potential customers.
Black Friday may be over but it’s never too late to set up an e-commerce website and start trading online. The more convenient you make the shopping experience for your customers, the more custom you’ll have.
Well, however you are spending the festive period we hope you enjoy it and make the best of it. We wish you all the best for Christmas, the new year, and beyond for you and your business. Merry Christmas from the Deearo team.
