During the festive period, you’re focussed on getting products out of the door and delivered to customers. Or to make sure your product lands on retailer shelves on time. After all, it’s what’s going to pay the bills and help with your business growth, isn’t it? But have you stopped and thought about your Christmas marketing campaigns?
Whilst you maybe focussing on supply chain issues or the logistics in your business, Christmas is going on. And you don’t want to miss out! Because this is the time to get up off your bum, step away from the computer and the factory floor and see what’s happening in retail.
Here are just three ways you can benefit from this and use it in your Christmas marketing campaigns going forwards.
Visit stores and markets
This should be a massive part of your marketing, and I could write a whole blog about it. But at Christmas, you definitely need to be getting out there.
Whilst the shops feel crowded and you may be a little bit bah humbug about Christmas (after all you’ve probably been talking about it for months), you can learn so much by doing a series of store visits.
You can look at what is going on in your category and assess new Christmas product launches. The more you know about your category, the easier it will be for you to show your knowledge and sell your products. It’s great category management!
You can also visit stores or supermarkets that don’t stock your product type but go and see what trends and themes they are running with.
Store visits are also the best way to check your price points too – not just at Christmas either!
If you’d like to know about my expertise in product marketing, take a read here.
Festive ads
The great British public have come to expect dazzling Christmas adverts from the likes of John Lewis, haven’t they? But there’s lots you can learn from these ads, especially about other organisation’s Christmas marketing campaigns.
Take Aldi and Kevin the Carrot, for example. What do we know about Kevin? Kevin is trusty. He is the good one. Kevin is reliable. All things I’m sure Aldi wants it’s customers to think about them. And Aldi’s ads have a cheeky side – again something we’ve come to know and love about this retailer.
But then you look at the M&S ad campaigns – they have one for clothing and one for food this year. Apart from showing a bit of fun and wanting us to buy their products, I don’t think there’s any key messages in there. What do you think? What are M&S trying to achieve with this ad?
Customer journey
When you step inside a shop or supermarket, what are you experiencing? Perhaps it’s a great scent or beautifully laid out décor. If you have a high street presence, how does your customer experience compare? What could you differently next year?
If you’re an ecommerce business, what can you learn from shops so that you can create those magical Christmas vibes on your website. How can you entice shoppers to loiter on your shop before encouraging them to click through and make a purchase? And how easy is it for people to find what they need and want to buy?
Learning from Christmas marketing campaigns
So there you have it, my three tips for making the most of this Christmas so you can have marketing success in 2024.
Please give them a try and let me know how you get on. If this is something you know you should be doing, but you or your teams just don’t have the time, then my marketing support service can help you.
And as always, if you have any questions, please get in touch.
