Planning your Christmas e-Marketing campaign

It's that time of year again, and it seems to be getting earlier each year.  Find out what you can be doing to maximise the goodwill of the festive season.

Some people do nothing and choose to ignore Christmas in their marketing mix, but those that prepare their websites and e-marketing for Christmas have a big business advantage, particularly those that market to consumers.

Who says Christmas time is closed for business ?  It is the busiest sales time of year for many online retailers.  Even if you are a service business or organisation, Christmas e-Marketing works.  Sometimes it is the quiet time that professionals use around Christmas to prepare the business and marketing strategies for the upcoming calendar year.  So even if these people aren't buying now, an effective online marketing campaign can be a great form of promotion which can reinforce your brand and product offerings.  All this helps you to strike when the iron is hot when they are ready to enlist your help.  So before you start planning the Christmas party, start planning your e-Marketing campaign.

Here are some tips and initiatives that can help put your company on the map around Xmas time:

A bit of Mistletoe for your Website ...

Putting subtle themed messages on your website is a great idea to start with.  Google like to do seasonal plays on its logo, and there isn't any reason why you can't too.  Website decorations and imagery are a low cost option to spread the goodwill passively as people visit your site.   A bit of mistletoe, subtle Santa's hat or bon bons to decorate your website can be a great idea.  You can even spice your website up with a bit of animation - for the City of Stonnington, we made their famous Christmas "Celebrate in Style" tram run across the web pages complete with sound.  Some may think of it as tacky or gimmicky and even detracting from your brand, but at this time of year people are already starting to get in the festive mood, and you only need to put it up there for a couple of weeks and then it is gone, so why not !

The Easter (Christmas) Egg

A great idea to get people to check out your range of products and services is to hide a something on your website and have people try to find it.  In the past we have run a "Find Santa" competition on our website and awarded a prize to those who find it.  Personally, I find that it adds a bit of fun to the website experience.  This type of marketing has had a great response and been really successful and not difficult to do.

Plan to remove things quickly afterward

Noone likes seeing decorations still up weeks and months after Christmas and websites are no different.  If you do plan to do one of the above, it helps to plan to not forget it is there and remove it afterward.  We work with content management, and one of the benefits of this is that content can be scheduled to publish and expire.  On our site, we have Christmas themes which are set to appear and disappear on pre-scheduled dates.  When the time comes, we don't even have to do a thing, everything runs just like clockwork.  A great way to remind yourself is not to have to !

e-Cards, animation and email

Another option for Christmas is e-Cards, which can optionally be sent via email.  If an e-Card is catchy or funny enough, it can go viral as it becomes popular and people forward it on.  Animated e-Cards are always a great idea, and Flash technology is one way of doing this.  An e-Card can be a really effective way to strengthen your brand recall with positive messages.  Sending a link to a website with the e-Card is probably a safer option though, because some email programs block certain types of content, such as Flash for security reasons, and you don't want your cleverly designed e-Card to be blocked by a spam filter.  Used effectively and e-Card strategy can be combined with website strategy.   Don't forget you can also them graphical HTML email newsletters.  These days you can even use YouTube to send or share video animations with a festive theme.

Online Gift Giving

If you are a non-profit or charity, then consider enabling your members or donors to make a donation on behalf of their friends or family via your website.  People love giving tax deductible gifts.  Even if you aren't you can affiliate yourself with a charity and still get your brand in there, or if you are in consumer services, consider making your own gift vouchers.  Once they've purchased the gift, have it send an email or posted Gift Pack, including a certificate just before Christmas.  We've built several systems just like this for many of our own customers.

Be Politically Correct

We've mentioned Christmas in our title because it is a mainstream thing these days, however we live in a very multicultural society, so make sure your e-marketing strategy avoids the common cliches and respects the large number of people with non-Christian beliefs.  Seasons Greetings are just as effective as Christmas messages.

Consider trying some real Goodwill

Christmas can be a very consumer oriented time of year, but real goodwill can be a lot stronger than commercial messages.  Particularly in the business world, it can be a really effective message to give something back.  The web provides plenty of opportunity to tie into charities and other programs - whether it is philanthropic, environmental or for any good cause.  Make sure the cause is aligned with your customer base.  Last Christmas, Datalink donated to one of our goodwill partners (and customer), Plan Australia.

Be Consistent

An e-Marketing campaign is most successful if you are consistent with your offline newsletters and print.  Make sure you use the same theme elements consistently in all of your marketing and branding.  A good web designer/developer can provide you with the visual elements to use with other important aspects of your business brand.

Don't leave it too late

You're going to have some lead time with any e-Marketing initiative.  Make sure you don't leave it until the last minute, or you might get lost in the Christmas rush while your competitors are prepared and send a much stronger goodwill message to their customers.  Also, remember that search engines like Google may take some time to re-index the Christmas promotion related content on your site, so you need to get in early.

The best time to start - is right now.

Know where to look

Not just any web designer can co-ordinate an effective e-Marketing campaign for the festive season. 

You will need a web developer that specialises in creative e-Business.