5 Creative Christmas Marketing Strategies to Use This Year

Done right, holiday marketing can be like a gift under the Christmas tree: exciting, with something in store for everyone.

Christmas marketing strategies are nothing new. In fact, Christmas as we know it today is based on a marketing strategy: in 1931, Coca-Cola notoriously made Santa Claus look happy and bubbly for the first time in history to advertise its proprietary drinks. And oh, was it a successful campaign indeed – so much so, that today’s Coca-Cola image of Santa is almost the only one everyone recognizes, no matter where in the world they may be.

Needless to say, marketing has changed dramatically since 1931.These days, shoppers are looking for the best quality products from trustworthy sources at the best price, and sellers are trying to be found by the right kind of shoppers.

Evidently, Christmas time is a great opportunity for this to happen.

In 2023, Christmas shoppers in the US spent no less than $944 billion during the winter season – so tapping into the opportunities at the end of the year holidays is definitely a good idea.

That’s why we put together a quick but comprehensive guide to help you build the best marketing strategies for this year’s winter holidays.

Keep reading if you want to get inspired.

“Christmasize” your service (or products!)

When we say “Christmasize,” your mind probably goes to standard practices like turning all product packaging red or adding miniature Christmas trees to all of your social media graphics.

That is only natural, and we don’t blame you.

However, there are many other ways to bring the holiday spirit into your business or products – and it all starts with a thorough re-investigation of your buyer persona(s). Which of their needs is most urgent around holiday time? It could be things like:

Finding unique and thoughtful gifts for family and friends that fit various interests.
Managing tight holiday budgets while still purchasing quality products.
Access to convenient and fast shipping options to ensure gifts arrive on time.
Dealing with the stress of holiday preparations and seeking ways to simplify tasks.
Accessing exclusive holiday deals and promotions to maximize savings.

Once you figure that out, adapt your service or products accordingly, starting with your business image. Go on social media, change your cover photo, and start posting according to a content calendar built on your buyer persona’s specific needs.

Keep your audience in mind when you design your visuals, too. Are your clients (past, current, or potential) more likely to respond to traditional imagery or more contemporary graphics?

Here are some examples of traditional and contemporary Facebook cover designs for reference:

In terms of what campaigns you could run, giveaways and contests are an easy way to spread the holiday spirit. Everyone likes presents around Christmas time, so this is also a good way for you to boost your engagement rates and generate leads from your social media accounts.

Want to tap into the new(er) media?

Research TikTok/ Reels/ Shorts trends around Christmas to piggyback on viral songs and challenges to get your campaign in front of your ideal buyers. From Mariah Carey’s ubiquitous Last Christmas I gave you my heart to newer trends, there’s a myriad of options to tap into. Do your homework to spot the best opportunities for your business and audience.

Even the simplest changes to your website can add up. For instance, updating your landing page banners with some festive spirit, or sending electronic Merry Christmas emails can all make your customers feel closer to your brand (and more likely to buy and recommend you to peers).

Boost Christmas sales with generous offerings

Everyone is giving out gifts during the Holiday Season. The best way to get into the benevolent spirit is to partake! After all, there’s nothing people love more than a good discount – especially for seasonal products.

You could spoil your customers with a coupon or discount, or figure out alternative ways to sell your products—like cross-sells and upsells, for example. For example, those Christmas socks would work great with a tin of premium hot chocolate, right?

Customers can also be pushed a little over their spending limit by

Setting a minimum viable purchase amount that would bring you a profit over the course of the Holidays in order to receive a discount
Offering free delivery over a specific sum of money, if that works better for you.

According to research, a staggering 93% of shoppers will buy more to qualify for free shipping–so you should definitely tap into this behavior.

End of the year discounts

Winter holidays aren’t all about Christmas, as the end of the year brings a treasure trove of opportunities in terms of marketing.

For instance, you can start preparing for January by running end-of-the-year sales towards the end of December. If you own a multi-item store, focus on seasonal items: discounts on festive clothing items and sparkly home decor will guarantee an increase in sales.

Otherwise, use this occasion to market your services accordingly. Do you own a cleaning company? Give your clients a discount on end-of-the-year cleaning packages. Or maybe you run a travel agency? No month is better for traveling to warm places than February.

Offer coupons

Coupons are another fairly easy way to increase sales. If you choose to run BOGO coupons (Buy One Get One, free) go down the “spoil a loved one” marketing route. Once again, always keep the context in mind: it’s the Holiday Season, so everyone loves an opportunity to give a present to someone about whom they care.

A unique strategy to use promotions for Christmas is through an advent calendar: 24 single-day promotions leading up to Christmas Day. For instance, just a couple of years ago, Sephora ran a similar campaign, offering special discounts on specific product categories, every day, for the 24 days leading up to Christmas.

Get emotional with your Christmas ads

Christmas is all about giving to others, and people hate to be bombarded with advertisements around this time of the year.

Telling a beautiful story is, however, different. Be strategic about this and focus the shift from your product(s) towards storytelling. How does your product tap into the holiday joy? Take, for example, by a German mail-order pharmacy, Doc Morris. When watching it start-to-finish, the storytelling is so immersive it’s almost impossible to hold back tears.

Or, if you want a sweeter take on this, take a look at Suchard’s ad from their 2023 Christmas campaign:

Embrace email marketing

In contrast with social media, email marketing is much more personal, and “personal” is what Christmas is all about. Not to mention Return on Investment for email marketing can be as high as 400%!

Email helps you create a tight-knit community that will be connected by the interest in your business that its members share. Here are some basic tips to help you win at holiday marketing this winter:

Kickstart your Christmas marketing campaign by sending out a newsletter highlighting the season’s unique offerings to keep subscribers informed without being overly aggressive.
Regularly monitor your KPIs and adjust your marketing strategy as needed to optimize performance.
Design your newsletters with a festive holiday spirit, incorporating personalized Christmas greetings in your signature.
Segment your email list to tailor content for different audiences.
Use engaging visuals and festive colors to capture attention.
Include special promotions or discounts to incentivize purchases.
Create a catchy subject line to increase open rates
Test different email formats and content to see what resonates best with your audience.

Invest in paid advertisements

Running paid advertising campaigns is a must this time of the year.

As everyone rushes to buy and buy, your business must be the one they should reach first. Whether you choose to run social ads, video ads, Display ads, or Search ads, rest assured that your efforts will pay off.

If you’re in B2B, this is an excellent time to put your money into a good lead generation campaign. More on this below!

Start thinking about a lead magnet appropriate for the winter holidays and develop it way ahead of time. You can:

Write a blog post,
run an email campaign,
partner with influencers in your niche, and/or
run a paid social campaign to advertise it

Then put it in front of your potential customers in time, and the Festive spirit (along with the closing of Q4) will work in your favor. There are many ways to make your lead magnet relevant to the Holidays. For example, if you’re a graphic design company, you might give away some free Christmas-themed social media templates for your subscribers to draw inspiration from.

How to maximize Christmas season sales online

Want to make the most of the holiday season for your business – even way past December 31st? Here are some tips you can use to maximize your online sales for other seasonal events throughout the year.

Maximize The Christmas Season Sales Online

Appeal to your customers’ seasonal pain points

Our emotions are naturally heightened during seasonal events. Between planning the food, buying gifts, and dealing with that great-aunt who insists on smooching when she sees you, seasonal events can be tough.

For customers, it’s a difficult time. But as brands, you can play on that to maximize your online sales.

Identify specific pain points that affect your customers during different events. For example, your customers might be concerned about spending too much around Christmas, so highlight your generous savings as a counter.

For Thanksgiving, there’s a lot of pressure on the head chef of the family to cook the perfect turkey. Why not create a video showing your customers how (featuring your product, naturally)?

Similarly, Valentine’s Day might put a lot of pressure on couples to surprise each other, and summer vacation might make planning and organization a bit more difficult.

If you know how to offer solutions to these kinds of issues, your customers will love you!

Other ways to tap into various holidays throughout the year include:

Create useful content (on your blog, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to build authority, trust, and make your audience more likely to buy from you when they are ready
Add countdown timers to your emails to create a sense of urgency as a big holiday approaches. This can induce FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) in your customers, and it might give them the nudge they need to make a purchase.
Promote your campaigns in your email signatures. This is especially true for B2B businesses, but email signatures are an under-used, yet very efficient way to get the word out on the special offers your business is running.

The good news is that, with tools like WiseStamp, you can easily create, update, and track metrics email signatures across your entire organization.

The early bird gets the worm

Start your marketing campaigns early. This doesn’t mean sending out Christmas discount emails in the middle of June, but giving yourself at least a couple of months enables you to build a slow-burning campaign that builds to a crescendo.

Don’t go too hard too early. Just a little reminder here and there to begin with will pique your audience’s attention, and then you can gradually build up to a solid seasonal campaign.

You can use this extra breathing space to create a seasonal loyalty scheme, starting a month or so before the event. Points earned during this period can be used during the final run-up to the event, keeping them locked in with your brand for a sustained period.

Increase your mailing list with a seasonal lead magnet

Email marketing is an important part of any seasonal marketing strategy, and this is especially true for seasonal events. And the bigger your mailing list, the wider your reach is. You’ll have more people you can push your products to, increasing your online sales in the run-up to the event.

While you’ve likely got a sizable mailing list already, it’s worth adding to it as seasonal events roll around. And what better way to do that than with a lead magnet? Lead magnets are digital pieces of content that customers can download in return for their email address. They’re free for the consumer, free (or at least very affordable) for brands to make, and they’re great for building email subscriber lists.

While lead magnets can be used throughout the year at any time to build mailing lists, creating lead magnets that tap into the seasonal mood. For example, a gift guide blog post featuring product ideas for every member of the family is a standard for brands. But a downloadable gift guide ebook to inspire you on your commute to work? Even better.

Seasonal lead magnets work. Create a Halloween decoration guide using a good flipbook creator like Designrr, then create a dedicated landing page and direct customers to it using paid social ads.

A strong lead magnet that your prospective customers will genuinely want populates your mailing list with qualified leads in the run-up to seasonal events. This both boosts your sales in the short-term, and widens your reach in the long term.

Add a decorated holiday email signature

Email marketing is critical to your seasonal sales. As is adding a festive opening line and a Christmas email signature to your outgoing email during the holiday. This will make sure you stand out and gain favor by bringing smiles to your readers.

A seasonal banner is a great way to promote your holiday sales, products and simply spread holiday cheer. See how the email signature example below uses a banner to promote a Black Friday sale. You can easily add a seasonal banner to your signature by using the WiseStamp email signature generator.

Create a pop-up shop to drive online sales

While pop-up shops might not immediately seem to maximize online sales, they’re actually great drivers of digital revenue. Create a pop-up shop a month or two in advance of the event in question (but not so far back that it’s irrelevant) and sell your products in a brick-and-mortar setting.

Offering coupons for online purchases can bring more people to your website, especially since they’ll now trust you more, after visiting your physical pop-up shop.

Look at this as a chance for you to showcase your online products to an offline audience, raising awareness of your business with customers who might not have experienced it before.

Even if you don’t sell your products, simply hosting a pop-up shop with some samples is enough to get your brand at the forefront of shoppers’ minds in the run-up to seasonal events. If you do decide to sell offline, offer your customers a receipt or coupon via email. This is a chance for you to build up your mailing list as the event approaches, presenting you with more marketing opportunities further down the line.

Final thoughts & Season’s Greetings

Winter holidays are about hope, family, and gratefulness – and while your business should definitely tap into the sales opportunities that come with end-of-the-year celebrations, it’s also important to remember the core of these events.

Make sure your brand aligns with these values, stay real, and always remember to put your customers first. The way to “win” at Christmas marketing campaigns is by aligning with the positive feelings of the season!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!