Last-Minute Christmas Marketing Ideas

Ok, I’ll admit it: It is just two weeks away from Christmas, and my content marketing business is unprepared for the holiday season. I’ve been so busy with clients and the routine aspects of my work, I’ve completely neglected the holiday season from a business perspective.

There’s still time for those of us who have thus far neglected holiday marketing, however. While we cannot create elaborate Christmas-themed campaigns this late in the game or develop special holiday products, we can still get in on the marketing potential of the season.

If you’re like me and are a little behind on holiday marketing, here are six last-minute marketing ideas that you can roll out before the season ends.

1. Gift Ideas Email Campaign

Finding the right gift for everyone on your list can be hard, and many of your customers probably need help thinking of good gift ideas. This is a natural opportunity to drive sales for your products.

You don’t need more than a day to develop a gift-giving email campaign that suggests products and services your customers and potential customers might give this Christmas season.

Think about including both your products/services and those from other non-competing companies that you’ve run across so the email is less of an overt marketing vehicle. Consider customizing your campaign based on the tags you’ve applied to different customer segments within your Agile CRM account, and use catchy subject lines such as “The Procrastinator’s Guide to Winning Christmas Gifts” or “7 Awesome Last-Minute Christmas Gifts for Dad.”

2. Holiday Deals by Push Notification

An easy way to get in on holiday marketing is by offering a discount on one of your products or services for those who buy before the end of the year. Even if there isn’t time for a major marketing campaign built around this promotion, you still can get the word out fast by using Agile CRM’s push notifications feature.

Push notifications cut through the marketing clutter and reaches your customers and leads almost instantly by flashing a notification pop-up on their computer. You can couple this with a push SMS campaign, another great way to draw attention to your promotion fast.

3. Rewards for Top Customers and Social Media Fans

Loyal repeat buyers are the lifeblood of any business, especially small business. Build brand loyalty and give back to customers and those who have promoted your business on social media by offering a holiday sale or discount just for them.

In addition to sending a special promotion to your top customers, you also can use the holidays as an excuse to prime the pump with important prospects. If you’re using Agile CRM’s lead scoring, you can segment your holiday rewards campaign easily and send a special mailing to important prospects who might respond well to a little surprise love during the holidays.

4. White Elephant Gifts

Nothing wins you a customer for life faster than a gift that is both unnecessary and completely unexpected. Strongly consider no-string-attached gifts that you can include with holiday orders, be it a physical item such as a small product that you have overstocked or a digital gift like an ebook you’ve already created for your lead-capture landing pages.

Warning, though: Don’t give discounts or buy-one-get-one-free offers. Make the gift self-contained and free of any sales pitch or upsell. You want your customer feeling like you’ve given a gift, not a sales promotion.

5. Wish Lists Through Pinterest

A quick way to get in on holiday marketing and show some Christmas spirit is by creating holiday-themed Pinterest boards.

Have fun with these Pinterest boards and showcase funny gadgets that your customers cannot live without or gift ideas gone wrong. You want to differentiate your Pinterest board and stand out among the many holiday boards pinned up by others. Make sure you avoid pins that scream marketing, too, such as BUY NOW, REGISTER, SIGN UP, etc.

You can get a little sneaky with your board and use it for lead scoring, though. Make the links for your pins pass through your web site so every click by a prospect in your CRM is recorded. You can use this for greater customer segmentation.

6. Helpful Holiday Videos

First, you’re missing the boat if you are not creating a holiday video for your customers. You just need your phone and something like YouTube Capture to create an authentic, quick-and-dirty holiday video for your company.

The opportunities go deeper, though. You also can develop and release holiday videos such as how to wrap the perfect gift, how to choose the right version of your product for family, how to not fight during the holiday, etc.

Use your imagination, but make the videos no more than 60 seconds long so they are easily sharable on Twitter and Instagram. Also consider adding link cards to the video on YouTube (tied to a landing page you can quickly create from within Agile CRM), and maybe even an in-video link or product shoutout like I did with this lead-generation video I produced for a client.

Planning ahead for holiday marketing is the best practice. But even if you are late in making plans like me, you still can take advantage of the holiday season from a marketing perspective.

Just don’t be too late. We are only two weeks away from Christmas, after all. Now’s the time to ramp up some holiday cheer as a business. These six ideas should help.