Christmas is coming…
Plan your marketing campaign more effectively
It’s that time again! As of today, there are only 100 days to Christmas, and we want to help you to prepare your festive campaign. In this blog, Michelle Jones, Ketchup’s MD shares her no-nonsense, pre-Christmas list of marketing tips and insights.
Pick the right channels and maximise them
It’s important that you don’t spread your marketing too thin, especially when you have limited time and budget. That’s why you must choose the most effective online or offline channels and adopt a powerful targeted campaign that compels customers to buy.
Be prepared to be ruthless and persistent because the festive competition is fierce. Once you’ve picked the right channels, you must maximise them. That means being prepared to stand your ground and doing everything in your power to make sure Christmas shoppers pick your product or service over your competitors.
At Ketchup, some of this year’s Christmas campaigns (yes, we’ve already produced and signed off many festive projects - planning is key at this time of year!) include Christmas events promotions to increase footfall. We’ve been busy creating digital advertising campaigns, online quizzes, advent calendars and producing direct mail campaigns – all targeted to align with specific marketing objectives to increase awareness and increase sales.
Know your customers’ habits
If you’re serious about giving customers what they really want for Christmas, you need to understand them. Most of your customers’ habits will have changed considerably in the last 12 months when it comes to buying your goods and services online.
According to Microsoft, global e-commerce sales grew by a staggering 32.4% from 2019 to 2020 and are set to increase by another 6.8% in 2021.
Key to understanding customers is your ability to gather valuable information, such as their order history and data around their likes and dislikes. As soon as a customer engages with your business – at any time of year – you can and should gather and store relevant information about them. Then you can use these valuable insights to develop a Christmas campaign to match their desires and generate those all-important sales.
Tracking your advertising spend
By properly tracking the ROI of adverts during your Christmas campaign, you can ensure you’re getting the most from your budget.
Ads play a big role in getting the word out about your seasonal products, services, and promotions. Driving traffic through increased clicks on your adverts should be one of your main advertising goals.
Of course, your ultimate goal is to boost revenue for your business with powerful ads that compel customers to click the buy button. Which is why it’s so important to be able to determine the effectiveness of your ads by calculating your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
We have a dedicated Digital Marketing team that will help guide you through the process of working out which platform is best suited for your business, what messaging you should use and when. Get in touch today and speak to our team of digital specialists who will take away any mystery and hassle and deliver you results.
Timing is everything
Seeing mince pies on the supermarket shelves before November is unacceptable for many traditionalists, but things are very different in the online world. Leave your campaign until after Black Friday (26 November) and the window of opportunity becomes far too small to really influence your audience in time for Christmas.
While there will be many people who start buying their gifts from Black Friday onwards, it’s also worth bearing in mind that super-organised people and those with larger families may begin buying as early as September or October. So, allocating additional budget for late October/early November could help you to sell more, plus you’ll have more time to convince those customers that buy later.
Your Christmas campaign all wrapped up
Right now, you may be feeling far from festive. But with only 100 days left, you need to seriously consider your Christmas campaigns. The good news is Ketchup’s highly qualified marketing team can handle every aspect of your seasonal strategy.
From writing and creating new website content to designing and executing your digital media strategy, and creating branded merchandising, we are here to provide inspiration and take the stress out of your Christmas campaign.