As they plan for this year’s holiday season, many business leaders are looking for something new to shake up their current marketing routine. It’s easy for holiday marketing to grow stale, especially when relying on old gimmicks or traditional strategies of years past. To stand out among the sea of other eager businesses looking to increase sales, companies will have to think a bit more creatively.
To help, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council each list one thing businesses can do to make their holiday marketing stand out from years past and explain what effect this will have on their relationships with their current and future customers.
Young Entrepreneur Council members offer tips for creative holiday marketing.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Make Customers Part Of Your Holiday Traditions
One way businesses can make their holiday marketing stand out is to focus on creating more personal and relatable content. This could be anything from behind-the-scenes videos of your team preparing for the holiday rush to images or stories that capture the spirit of the season. The goal is to connect with your audience on a more personal level and make them feel like they’re part of your holiday traditions. This will help create a bond between your brand and your customers that will last long after the holiday season is over. – Blair Williams, MemberPress
2. Give Away Freebies
Give away freebies this holiday season. For example, offering a free item on a $60 purchase creates a kind of gratitude loop that makes customers want to spend more with your brand. If freebies are a challenge, then offer free shipping this Christmas. Do a social media live-streaming contest to boost interest and demand for your best-selling products and improve visibility. Plan these campaigns early and make full use of social media. Amid inflation and rising prices, giving away freebies or doing a contest creates excitement and engages customers more with the brand, which is a beautiful opportunity to attract new leads and build a long-term customer base. – Brian David Crane, Spread Great Ideas
3. Give Back To Your Community In A Real Way
Make your marketing stand out by doing something outside the box—not a “Christmas discount” or giveaway on social media. Give back to your community and have your staff help you with this. Go volunteer and sponsor an event that helps young children who do not have Christmas. However, I don’t mean just throw money at it to have your name on the donor list. I mean get your hands on it, see those children and families who have nothing but each other and bless them as much as you can by handing them a gift, a smile, a hug and a “thank you for being here.” Lift up the world with the spirit of giving. I assure you that that is what’s best for your business, you, your employees and the underprivileged families. That is the marketing you want to do. – Jonathan Clausen, Lilac City LLC, AAG LLC, AR-TT LLC
4. Create Memorable Experiences
One way to make your holiday marketing stand out is to focus on creating memorable experiences. This could be anything from offering exclusive holiday deals to hosting festive events. By doing this, you’ll be able to create a unique and memorable experience for your customers that will keep them coming back year after year. Additionally, this will help you stand out from your competitors, who are likely doing the same holiday marketing as they’ve always done. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
5. Ask Your Customers What Excites Them The Most
The one thing that businesses can do to make their holiday marketing campaigns stand out from the previous ones is to focus on facilitating tailored customer experiences. This can be done by asking your customers what excites them the most this holiday season and then offering bespoke solutions for optimal traction. You can gather this information by hosting discussions or polls on your social media pages. This would help you cater to the specific needs and preferences of your target audience and ensure better campaign performance compared to previous years. – Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
6. Leverage Personalization
Personalization is a great way to stand out during the holiday season when every other business is inundating consumers with offers. Most of those offers will be generic, but if you ensure people are seeing the best possible content from you based on exactly who they are, what they need and the problems they’re facing, your offer will be the one that stands out. For example, create personalized Facebook ads for different hypertargeted audiences, and use dynamic content to personalize your email marketing campaigns without spending a lot of additional time creating different messages. Consumers expect to see ads and receive offers and emails that are highly relevant to them, so give them what they’re looking for by personalizing your content, ads, emails and so on. – Jonathan Prichard, MattressInsider.com
7. Promote A Donation Match
Rather than offering a discount, consider matching donations. Enticing people to buy when there are so many other vendors pressuring people to buy can feel out of place in 2022. Consider charitable giving and matching to increase brand awareness and brand loyalty. However, be selective in how you align your giving. If you are not a sustainable industry or product, greenwashing can do more harm than good. Strategically align yourself with charitable organizations that your audience also gives to, and communicate this messaging in your holiday marketing. You may be surprised to find that you end up selling more during this period because of your position on giving rather than selling at a discount. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic
8. Connect With Your Audience
This holiday season, businesses can make their marketing stand out by getting personal with their audience. Businesses should also focus on creating meaningful connections with their customers. This can be done by engaging in two-way conversations, listening to feedback and offering customer support. By personalizing messages and tailoring content to specific demographics, businesses can show their customers that they understand them and their needs. This holiday season, take the time to get to know your customers on a deeper level and create content that will speak to them directly. Furthermore, you can make it interactive by encouraging customers to engage with your brand through holiday-themed contests or challenges. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day
9. Tell A Meaningful Story
Create an innovative storytelling process for marketing your products this year. Every business wants to tap into the increased spending trends of the festive season. You may have a similar plan for leveraging these optimistic spending trends. As a business, you may have known that these days customers want to get deeply attached to their favorite brands, and to connect more users to your products, you need an innovative way to turn their heads. There is nothing better than telling an emotional story to your customers to hook their minds. Think about your budget and the marketing materials you need to design and share this story with your customers successfully. Only a creative story that attracts your customers to your business can make your marketing efforts an out-of-the-box endeavor. – Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz