6 Christmas marketing mistakes you need to avoid

Andrew Shaw, Business Development Assistant at Aspire Business Partnership, blogs on the six most common Christmas marketing mistakes that you need to avoid.                            

During the month of December, we are bombarded by an array of marketing campaigns that tend to be unpredictable in terms of quality. We see a mixture of content on social channels, emails and websites that usually lack the style, tone and strategy required to deliver a successful campaign. They are sometimes hastily conceived and are not tailored for a specific audience.

In order to help you avoid the common Christmas marketing errors, read our list of the top 6 mistakes companies make over the Christmas period.

1) Christmas marketing for the sake of Christmas marketing

Everyone knows that Christmas is a time of the year that people spend their hard-earned savings on their loved ones. It is tempting to send out copious amounts of ambiguous Christmas-related material in an attempt to capture the Christmas market. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS.

In order to truly capture the Christmas market, you must plan your Christmas campaigns in advance and implement a strategy that provides your audience with thoughtful and helpful content that gently, yet helpfully, guides them to a purchase.

2) Don’t be a Scrooge

We all know that person at the end of your street that puts up their Christmas decorations far too early, however, they aren’t the worst Christmas culprits. Some companies’ marketing strategies seem to deny the fact that the holiday season is even occurring! Even if you are not a fan of the Christmas period, not using the festive period as part of your marketing strategy is a bad idea.

Make sure that your audience isn’t overwhelmed by your Christmas marketing material, but also don’t let them think that you are too serious for the festivities. Taking part is important and expected by your various audiences.

3) Using the same strategy every year

Often, people develop patterns and traditions over the Christmas period that can be detrimental to their marketing success. 

It is important to remember that marketing is an ever-changing field that requires updates and changes. You may have had a few successful campaigns in the past, however, that doesn’t mean you should keep doing the same. Different ways of reaching your market are developing and becoming the forefront of marketing activity. Don’t ignore change. Harnessing trends and using them to your advantage is the key.

4) Not sending clients a season’s greeting

It is important that your clients know that you appreciate them. Christmas is the ideal opportunity to let them know that you are grateful for their business. It is cheap and easy to send your clients Christmas cards or use digital formats, however, we suggest that using a physical token such as a greetings card is important in order to really personalise the message. Marketing is essentially the process of keeping your brand/company in the public’s eye. Cards are a relatively inexpensive way of thanking clients/customers whilst reminding them that you exist.

It may not seem like a worthwhile investment at the time, but people really do appreciate the effort. You could even incorporate this into your corporate social responsibility by ensuring the greetings cards that you purchase helps a charitable cause.

5) It’s not too late!

We all know that using holidays and other notable days of the year as parts of our marketing strategy is a brilliant way of generating new content. Whether you are a small niche business, SME or a large business, it is always a good idea to get creative during the Christmas period. However, you may feel that you’ve waited too long or have been too busy to plan ahead. This simply isn’t true! Plenty of blogs, including this one will advise you to prepare in advance for the holiday period in terms of a marketing strategy, however, something is better than nothing at all. People make purchases for Christmas right up to the very eve, so it is never a waste of time to reveal your genius campaign. Start strategising today!

6) It is creative ideas that capture the imagination of the market

It is already clear that the most expensive Christmas adverts created by the retail giants are not always welcome or successful. Interestingly, the two most talked about Christmas adverts this year are anomalies that have broken through using social media. The low budget commercial made by Phil Beastall that shows a young man listening to a message recorded for him by his deceased mother that has gone viral and received more reaction than the advert featuring Elton John. 

Another advert for a major company was banned for being “political” but has been viewed millions of times on social media platforms. Original ideas are essential in order to mark your company out from the rest and this is not necessarily something that requires a multi-million-pound budget. Go for it!