As we enter the busiest (and most magical!) time of the year it’s important to maximise your social media and take the time to plan ahead - with the ultimate goal of maximising sales. Consumers look to their newsfeeds for gift ideas creating an unique opportunity for businesses. We have put together some key steps to help you create and amplify the magic!
Step 1 – Start planning early
It may be a little too early to pop up the Christmas Tree and sparkling lights but now is the time to start planning your festive marketing campaign, to ensure that you tap into all the key dates and events, and maximise your outreach to your customers and potential new customers.
Don’t wing it last minute! Set aside some time to properly plan what you want to promote and how you want to promote it. Have a meeting with your team and throw around some ideas on how best to promote your business. Here are some things to consider for your social media campaign:
Step 2 – Choose what products and services you want to promote
Make a list of exactly which products, services, or special promotions you want to highlight and prioritise during the festive season. Ensure you focus on these key products or services and use them to create a unique festive campaign. The goal will be to promote your specials to your audience in a clear and consistent way across digital channels such as social media, email and your website, along with in-store.
Festive packs are great to focus on during the festive season as they take the guess work out of choosing products for someone and they are usually good value for money.
Step 3 – Create a clear campaign
How will you promote your business, products and services? What’s your angle and key messaging? What will make your customers buy from you? How will you promote your key products, services and special offers (as decided in step 2)?
Think of a unique way to do this and get creative with it! Ensure that your festive campaign is represented in-store and online – you want to create a clear and consistent campaign that will encourage your audience to shop with you. Do you have a unique tagline or hashtag? Don’t forget to let your audience know where and how to purchase from you.
Step 4 – Map it out
Download and print a monthly calendar and plan content for the weeks and months ahead. Pop in your key dates (such as Christmas Day, Boxing Day etc) and start to plot what you want to do when.
Key dates:
Remember to humanise and personalise your messaging and ensure everything aligns with your campaign. Evoke a positive reaction by sharing relatable content – think about what you would like to see or read.
Content ideas to consider:
Step 5 – Make it festive, make it fun!
Create a unique and branded experience for your customers. If you don’t have a graphic design pro up your sleeve there are resources available such as Canva which allow you to create marketing material using existing templates. Or try your hand at photography – simple shots using your mobile phone and natural lighting can be really effective.
Amplify the festive vibe by offering something special that will reward and delight your customers and entice new ones. Examples of this could include:
Step 6 – Plan and schedule your content
Now that you have thought about the kind of content and messaging you want to share schedule your planned content to be automatically posted for you on set days and times. Facebook has an in-built scheduling function and you can use third-party apps (such as PLANN, Planoly & Later) to schedule Instagram posts. Check Facebook and Instagram analytics to see when your audience is mostly online and schedule your content to go live at these times.
Here are some app suggestions:
Don’t forget to also log in to your social media accounts daily to ensure that messages are answered and any questions or interactions from your audience are responded to in a timely manner.
Further to scheduling your content to automatically post at set times, you should also set up automatic replies on your Facebook messenger or emails. This will be helpful during the festive season to let your audience know that you are currently a little busy but will respond as soon as possible, or perhaps your business will be closed for a few extra days. This will ensure that if anyone is trying to contact you they will know that you aren’t ignoring them and when they will likely hear back from you.
Step 7 – Spread the joy!
Hit ‘publish’, tap ‘schedule’, click ‘send’! Now that your social media campaign has been properly planned and scheduled, ensure that you have thought about emails, your website and your in-store display. Are they all consistent? Evaluate this every couple of days to ensure that you are maximising your opportunities and your campaign is running smoothly.