Christmas is coming: is your online marketing plan in place?

Christmas is coming and the time has come for some online marketing in the run-up to the festive season.

Content marketing

A great way to drive traffic to your website is through content marketing.  This includes both your on-site content and off-site content.  By using content marketing to its full effect you can attract traffic to your website, gain new customers and boost conversions.

Good content is essential to a good website and marketing plan.  Write about your business, the products you sell and the locations you cover, and you will have a better chance of being found for these things.

If you are struggling about what to put on your website in the run-up to Christmas, how about a Top Ten list of gifts for Christmas, or a Top Ten 2012 list – showing which of your products sold best over the last year.  You could try to predict trends for 2013 and make a story around that.

How about a Christmas competition or deal: people love competitions, discounts and deals and it will help promote your business and products/services.

Christmas is also a great time to link up with a local charity and do some content marketing around this.  You could write about the relationship on your own website and also get something on the charity’s website about you and a link back to your own website.

Social media packages

All the above ideas can then be shared via your social media profiles.  If you don’t have these set up yet then Infoserve can help you.  Infoserve offers a range of social media packages which offer businesses the opportunity to engage with potential customers and get noticed online.  Infoserve’s social media packages allow a company to present a branded, consistent image across all the major social networks: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, helping to increase traffic to your website and therefore generate an increase in new business.  If you want more details about how Infoserve can help your business, call 0845 36 77 200 now.

Using social media allows you to interact more closely with your customers allowing them to see a much more human side to your business; customer service enquiries can be handled much more efficiently and conversations regarding your industry can be monitored.  You will also gain improved insights about your target audience and develop a better understanding of customers’ perceptions of your brand.

If you do already have social media profiles in place, remember that your followers are already engaged with your brand and so tend to be quite loyal.  Reward their loyalty with special offers and discounts and make it clear they are getting these offers and discounts early or exclusively.  This should also result in shares, which will help build your brand and hopefully lead to more sales.

It is important to keep your followers engaged.  You can do this by asking them questions, or sending them pictures or links to the latest products you have in stock.  You could post some videos too.

Christmas content marketing

Perhaps you have advice you could share with customers.  In the run-up to Christmas this may be tips on Christmas gift wrapping; your Christmas opening times; or details about Christmas deliveries.  Encourage people to share your posts and videos.

You could post about a Christmas theme: such as the most wanted Christmas present for ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘the kids’.  It’s all about getting involved and being part of the conversation.  Don’t be frightened to get involved.  It’s amazing what you can learn through social media: it may help you revise your marketing plan as you go.

Everyone is always looking for unusual presents at Christmas, so if you can deliver some of these to people through your website and social media profiles then go for it.  People will thank you for it.  Other people will start doing your marketing work for you: by sharing your ideas for gifts with friends and family.

You could perhaps do an advent calendar that you could run on your website and through your social media profiles.  Share images, discounts, offers, ideas and information each day.  Vouchers could be another thing you could push: these could include some special offers for January and February when business may be a bit slow.

Remember you can schedule posts so that when you are extra busy at Christmas, your brand will still be alive and people informed of what you are up to, such as Christmas opening times.

If you stick to posting quality content it will tend to get shared.  It may not bring you millions of new customers, but if it connects with say just 25 new customers who all buy from you that’s got to be worth having: right?

Well, what are you waiting for?  Get started on your Christmas content marketing now.  Christmas is coming!