Christmas campaigns may seem like a gimmick, but they work. That’s because it’s a time of year where people are looking to buy and as a result, customers are far more communicative.
Hellmann’s Christmas Advert
Look reactionary by planning early
Planning early has many benefits. For example, you don’t want to get a campaign stopped behind bureaucratic doors and miss your chance to launch it at the best of times. If your campaigns are pre-approved you won’t miss those good opportunities to launch them when they come by.
Nothing says “viral campaign” like a relevant one that comes out as soon as a meme starts. Start planning your campaigns early, and plan multiple variations for different situations. Then all you need to do is keep your finger on the pulse throughout the run-up to Christmas period and unleash your chosen campaign when the best opportunity arises.
Here’re a few campaign ideas:
- Relevant product promos – promo your 2015 calendar when advent calendars start getting popular.
- “Still time to buy” reminders – customers often rush for purchases just 1 week before Christmas, so a little timely reminder can go a long way.
- Discount codes & free delivery – while most common of Christmas campaigns, a time-liimited discount campaign is often short and sweet enough to catch more attention.
- Extended returns period – take the “giving mood” approach and develop a relationship with your customers.
One things for sure, each campaign must decide on a clear goal. Review previous campaigns, check their strengths and weaknesses, then carefully plan out how you’ll support your campaign goals through action.
Focus on increasing dialogue with customers (not necessarily hard sales)
Christmas is a great time to develop customer relationships as well as just push sales. Use the increase of inbox opens and social media interactions to build your email lists and get more in touch with your customers. Outside of capturing emails you could also push feedback forms and surveys to capture behavioural data which can improve all your 2015 campaigns as well.
You could:
- Simply wish Merry Christmas via email or pop-up box.
- Run social media competitions that require email opt-ins, but instantly give a discount when a customer enters.
- Re-engage with past buyers by offering them something special for doing business with you again.
- Have fun and test out marketing platforms you wouldn’t normally use, potentially opening your exposure up to a whole new crowd.
Offer something DIFFERENT
Make an impact and stand out from the crowd by doing something different. Implementing a wishlist on your website (EXTRA: can use data for targeted mailing!), personalising your promotions and running some exciting social media competitions are a few ways to have your company look both professional, and interested in its customers.
The question you need to ask yourself now is – “what’s the best Christmas campaign for my business”?
7 steps for creating your Christmas marketing campaigns
STEP 1: Collect and assess behavioural data from past campaigns.
This should be as straight forward as going into a database and looking through campaign statistics. If you’re not doing this already, a simple excel spreadsheet and recording past campaign data should be your next course of action!
STEP 2: Think of 5 opportunities/ circumstances for sending campaigns.
These opportunities should be periods around Christmas (start of advent calendars, last week before Christmas, etc). Try to find opportunities that can easily be related to what you offer as a company.
STEP 3: Write up these campaigns.
Carefully plan out each campaign with action lists and then make sure you’ve got the content ready to go for each action.
STEP 4: Schedule campaigns that can be scheduled.
If your campaign is time dependent, schedule it and make an alert to remind you when it goes out. Once it is live, you should still have to take action (such as sharing your campaign via social media), so have that ready.
STEP 5: Create daily Google Alerts for topics that the remaining campaigns can react to.
If you’ve created some reactionary campaigns for the holidays, make sure you’ve got ways of identifying when they can best be activated. We use Google Alerts to track conversations so that we can react to them, and it’s a great way for looking for that perfect campaign launch opportunity.
STEP 7: Recap on all campaigns (analytics and assessment).
Once is all said and done, sit down and have a good look at the results of each campaign and how they went. This is very important as it will help you create more successful campaigns for the future!
Looking for fresh ideas and assistance on your Christmas marketing?
Drop us an email and we’ll be happy to brainstorm ideas for you!
FREE eBook: Cold Emails – Doing it right and netting yourself leads
/0 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Direct Marketing, Email, Marketing, Sales /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamOne way to use email is through cold emailing, which is emailing to people you don’t know. It can come across as underhanded, but when done correctly it’s a marketing practice that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Find out about cold emails and how to write them in our free eBook…
Cold Emails – Doing it right and netting yourself leads
In this eBook, we’ll go through how to:
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Christmas Campaigns That Shine
/0 Comments/in Advertising, Branding, Direct Marketing, Email, Marketing, Marketing ideas, Sales, Social Media /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamChristmas campaigns may seem like a gimmick, but they work. That’s because it’s a time of year where people are looking to buy and as a result, customers are far more communicative.
Hellmann’s Christmas AdvertLook reactionary by planning early
Planning early has many benefits. For example, you don’t want to get a campaign stopped behind bureaucratic doors and miss your chance to launch it at the best of times. If your campaigns are pre-approved you won’t miss those good opportunities to launch them when they come by.
Nothing says “viral campaign” like a relevant one that comes out as soon as a meme starts. Start planning your campaigns early, and plan multiple variations for different situations. Then all you need to do is keep your finger on the pulse throughout the run-up to Christmas period and unleash your chosen campaign when the best opportunity arises.
Here’re a few campaign ideas:
One things for sure, each campaign must decide on a clear goal. Review previous campaigns, check their strengths and weaknesses, then carefully plan out how you’ll support your campaign goals through action.
Focus on increasing dialogue with customers (not necessarily hard sales)
Christmas is a great time to develop customer relationships as well as just push sales. Use the increase of inbox opens and social media interactions to build your email lists and get more in touch with your customers. Outside of capturing emails you could also push feedback forms and surveys to capture behavioural data which can improve all your 2015 campaigns as well.
You could:
Offer something DIFFERENT
Make an impact and stand out from the crowd by doing something different. Implementing a wishlist on your website (EXTRA: can use data for targeted mailing!), personalising your promotions and running some exciting social media competitions are a few ways to have your company look both professional, and interested in its customers.
The question you need to ask yourself now is – “what’s the best Christmas campaign for my business”?
7 steps for creating your Christmas marketing campaigns
STEP 1: Collect and assess behavioural data from past campaigns.
This should be as straight forward as going into a database and looking through campaign statistics. If you’re not doing this already, a simple excel spreadsheet and recording past campaign data should be your next course of action!
STEP 2: Think of 5 opportunities/ circumstances for sending campaigns.
These opportunities should be periods around Christmas (start of advent calendars, last week before Christmas, etc). Try to find opportunities that can easily be related to what you offer as a company.
STEP 3: Write up these campaigns.
Carefully plan out each campaign with action lists and then make sure you’ve got the content ready to go for each action.
STEP 4: Schedule campaigns that can be scheduled.
If your campaign is time dependent, schedule it and make an alert to remind you when it goes out. Once it is live, you should still have to take action (such as sharing your campaign via social media), so have that ready.
STEP 5: Create daily Google Alerts for topics that the remaining campaigns can react to.
If you’ve created some reactionary campaigns for the holidays, make sure you’ve got ways of identifying when they can best be activated. We use Google Alerts to track conversations so that we can react to them, and it’s a great way for looking for that perfect campaign launch opportunity.
STEP 7: Recap on all campaigns (analytics and assessment).
Once is all said and done, sit down and have a good look at the results of each campaign and how they went. This is very important as it will help you create more successful campaigns for the future!
No related posts.
3 Cheers to the Design agency who fired Lord Sugar
/0 Comments/in Marketing /by Rebecca CaroeA delightful story from Design Week about the agency hired to help with the Apprentice reality TV show and how they ended up quitting.
Does anyone remember Richard Seymour on the Product Design show “Better by Design”?
The agency had EXACTLY the same reaction – the show took top talent out of the business and it became evident it wasn’t financially worthwhile.
Much as I like the idea of bringing creative industries in front of the public, with shows like Mad Men (fantasies in advertising) and the Apprentice, it’s all about the un-reality of TV not about the realities of our working businesses.
P.S. the only exception is Dragons Den.
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Marketing a tree care surgery business
/0 Comments/in Advertising, B2B, B2C, Case Studies, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca CaroeNo related posts.
Long copy email as a sales tool – example
/0 Comments/in B2B, Direct Marketing, Email /by Rebecca CaroeWriting long emails
Writing and reading long emails [Image credit ContactMonkey.com]
I often read these.
David Baker runs ReCourses – a service advising owners how to run their marketing agency as a better business.
Read this example.
Hi Rebecca,
I came across this interesting statement recently:
The concepts are important, of course, but what’s most interesting is that it was written in April, 2000, nearly fourteen years ago. I wrote it in an article for Persuading, trying to help agencies like yours understand how digital work should fit within the marketing mix.
There was some real enthusiasm in writing that, largely from the promise that the internet would provide a new era in marketing. It didn’t fulfill that promise, really, as privacy concerns, inept agencies, and lousy UI dominated the lack of innovation.
Enter marketing automation technology (MAT), though, and the internet is finally delivering on its promises. This is especially true in the marketing of professional services, where decisions are more considered and where authenticity and truth can be established via thought leadership content.
While the wait has been lengthy, the pace of recent developments has far exceeded what we have come to expect. MAT is a milestone that will honestly change every single thing about selling your services:
You can establish a funnel to define the most likely path to hiring you.
You can develop the tools to bump leads to the next stage in the funnel.
Prospects will be fully aware of your abilities, your remuneration, and what you won’t do. In the process of discovering that, prospects will self-select themselves out of the running so that you avoid the biggest danger in business development: dating prospects that are not marriagable.
Best of all, it changes the equation from pushing to pulling.
The amazing thing is that—no matter how good you are at selling—if you are in front of a prospect that has already taken the safety chain off the door and invited you in, you can sell. Yes, you can sell. What you hate about selling is trying to convince a prospect that they need you. No more. MAT has changed that for you.
There is so much to learn about this and I hope you will join us in Chicago on March 6 for a packed day of learning MAT, both for yourself as an agency and in your work as an agency for clients.
David C. Baker
ReCourses®, Inc.
Why is this long email effective?
Deconstructing this email the method David uses is this:
So that’s a series of subjects that you can use for your next email (whether to a cold introduction or a luke-warm prospect).
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A note on subject lines for cold email
/1 Comment/in Copywriting, Email, Sales /by Rebecca CaroeI am subscribed to get emails from Nick Johnson from Incite. His copywriting is exemplary and I regularly find myself wanting to take the actions he requests.
Look at this picture taken from my in box of recent messages I’ve received from Incite.
Cold email subject lines
Did you notice that few of the subject lines actually say what’s in the message. So if I want to know what it’s about I HAVE to open the email.
some of the message subjects aren’t written with capital letters – makes it look like Nick wrote it quickly and forgot – but it’s more a feature of personal email not mass email and so I think this is clever, if used occasionally.
They clearly experiment with subject lines – one of them is a ‘Newsletter’ and is titled as such, but the content of many of them could be classified as news.
I have highlighted two parts because they show best practice.
The Red box surrounds subject lines in which they’ve included my name. It feels like it was written just for me – but I know it’s just a personalisation insert from their database – but nonetheless it’s effective.
The Orange box encloses a subject “a quick heads up” which they used twice. The first one follows the pattern of not saying what’s in the body of the email. The second is sent with the same subject but as a forwarded (FW) message from Nick’s colleague, Kate. It is the same message inside, but it makes me think I’ve overlooked the earlier message and so I feel more inclined to open this one.
Very clever people – I recommend you subscribe to their newsletter – Insight and Debate on Marketing Innovation.
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Skincare brand launch gift ideas
/0 Comments/in B2C, Case Studies, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca CaroeWe got a question from a reader
Skincare launch [image credit beautynewsla.com]
Product launch gifts
What the gift is – should relate to your brand. Ideally can you create small samples in tiny bottles, blister packs or boxes so people can try out several products?
For your launch gift, I suggest three options based on the commitment people make to giving you their time and attention for your launch event.
The key here is to give the greatest value to the people who come on the day.
Product launch marketing campaign
When planning your launch marketing you will need to have thought through the following as well
Of course, this is just a list of ideas and needs to be linked together into a fully rounded campaign and tied into your website, CRM database, metrics and other publicity to make a proper campaign.
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Business Marketing Tools Explained: What Are Autoresponders?
/0 Comments/in Email, Marketing, Marketing ideas, Strategy /by Creative Agency Secrets TeamAutoresponders are more than just those out of office replies you get when you email someone sometimes. They’re automated emails that start based on a defined event.
This means that when your customer does something (an event), the autoresponder sends an email or a series of emails. Examples include joining a mailing list – triggers a welcome message. Or buys something online – triggers an upsell offer.
Simple, you might say. Yes, Autoresponders are simple in concept, but they bring you more marketing possibilities than you may realise…
Instant Response Autoresponder
You can set an Autoresponder to simply respond when an action (the trigger) is performed (like receiving an email). This is great for small tasks like “out of office” notices and “thank you” emails after a customer buys a product or service. However, this side of Autoresponders doesn’t quite go as far as you need it to. It’s just a single message with no follow-through.
Delayed Response Autoresponder
Autoresponders can be delayed to appear a few hours, days, weeks or even months after the trigger has been activated. These are useful for time sensitive reminders such as warranty expiry and account subscription top-ups.
Multiple Autoresponders
A neat little trick with Autoresponders is to make them trigger off of each other in a series. This allows you to build a message that is progressive. Examples include training workshops and stories.
For example, perhaps you want to teach a customer how to use your service that they subscribed to online – you can set up a series of Autoresponders that trigger one week after each other, with each Autoresponder email covering a different part of your service. Yes they can unsubscribe and yes maybe not everyone would read them. However it increases those odds of a customer picking them up and making the most of your service, which increases your customer engagement and satisfaction.
The Strengths & Weaknesses of Autoresponders
Autoresponders work best as a marketing tool when they are integrated with other promotional activities. But they can do so much more than people realise. Here’s a list of their strengths and weaknesses that might lead you in the right direction if you’re thinking of using them.
Core Strengths…
Core Weaknesses…
So go out there and discover ways to integrate Autoresponders into marketing for your business. Need help? Feel free to contact us for a complimentary chat or use our training resources below for detailed examples and different structures of autoresponders…
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What’s the best way to introduce my business by email?
/0 Comments/in B2B, Direct Marketing, Email /by Rebecca CaroeWe get asked this a lot and the short answer is that it must be part of a wider marketing / business development plan. BUT
within that context here’s our recommendation.
The best way to introduce a company to new buyers using email is this.
The deep skill lies in writing that first, well-researched email. It needs to be short, engaging and to create a desire to learn more from the reader. If you work in B2C this is not a practical solution unless you are a startup, because it’s too time consuming.
Creative Agency Secrets provides email copywriting services, and training to teach your team how to write and execute email introduction programmes.
The Top 6 most popular articles of all time
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