Blogs

When it comes to marketing ideas, it is never too soon to start thinking about Christmas. For retail businesses, it is the most important period of the year, and the most important aspect of a successful Christmas marketing campaign is planning and preparation...

Gone are the 12 days of Christmas, now it’s more like the 12 months of Christmas for marketers. Integration is the big buzzword at the centre of the most successful communications strategies in today’s fast paced media environment, meaning there’s so much more to think about and lots of planning to be done. Engaging content is the key to making brands stand out, driving traffic and converting traffic to actual sales. When it comes to this time of year, it’s important to get the tone of your content right; capturing the magic of Christmas without making people weary of its commercial nature goes a long way. Here are a few examples of some of the best Christmas campaigns driven by content from the last few years:

Video campaigns

The Body Shop - Jingle Bells

The Body Shop's 2015 Christmas campaign was driven by this video which registered 80,000 views on YouTube and racked up many more across social. Arguably the strongest aspect of the campaign was linking it to the spirit of giving – for every gift set purchase in The Body Shop they donated a day of water to a family of Ethiopia.

Edeka - #heimkommen

This is a great example of the kind of emotive content which really connects at Christmas, a trend most clearly evidenced by the John Lewis ad last year. Edeka is a top German supermarket, whose emotional gut-punch of an ad became a viral hit online. Sentimentality is a big seller at Christmas, but you do need to be wary of overdoing it.

Mullberry Miracle

Mulberry is a premium British fashion brand who specialise in handbags. This humorous nativity parody connected perfectly with their target audience around Christmas… 

Email campaigns

Great Christmas content doesn’t need to be built around a huge campaign with high-budget TV ads, we know not all brands can afford such extravagance. But worry not, you can also make an impact with your Christmas marketing by doing smaller things effectively. One of the best ways to do this on a budget is email marketing. Below are a few great examples of companies making the most of this channel.

Firebox

Firebox sell the kind of fun gifts which make ideal stocking fillers, so Christmas is a key time for the retailer. They connect with their market by using humour, which is captured perfectly in their emails:

Baileys

Baileys are clearly targeting a very different audience segment from Firebox, but their images are impeccably presented to get readers into the festive spirit. This shows how simple it can be to adjust your communications to the festive season.

Howies

Making Christmas shopping easier for people is one of the best things you can do to help boost your content efforts. We all know how exhausting it can be to find the ideal present, and receiving emails like this at the right time can easily convert to a quick purchase:

Festive visuals

The impact of visuals can never be underestimated in effective content marketing, and Christmas is one of the best times to make sure that your designers are delivering their best work. During the festive season there is a lot of noise to cut through, with every brand in the world desperately trying to capture the attention of customers. The great visuals can make you stand out from the competition. Here are just a few classic examples of great seasonal visuals.