6 Holiday Marketing Campaigns to Swipe This Season
Leverage the Holiday Cheer in your Marketing Strategy
Tis the holiday season!
People are generally in a cheerful mood as we get closer to having time off for the holidays. This is a great time to reach out to your network and try to get some face time.
Even if people are in a great mood, however, they still more than likely don’t want to be spammed or cold-called. This is where a little creativity can go a long way towards keeping relationships alive with past or potential clients.
In this amazing age of technology, it really doesn’t matter if you don’t personally have a creative bone in your body; turn to good old Google to help you come up with some preliminary ideas…or blogs like this one!
Plan a Team Strategy
As a team leader, it may help to have a discussion with your team as soon as possible. This will help you sync up your efforts and be the most effective.
Have your team brainstorm ideas of what you can do to stand out to clients and then strategize a way to implement your plan.
Different people have unique strengths and getting on the same page with your team can help you to understand who can contribute to this marketing opportunity and in what capacity.
Feel Free to Use Our Ideas!
If you avoid creativity like the Grinch and a 39.5 foot pole, here are six great ideas that you are free to steal and make your own:
A Toy Drive
Many people love giving as much as they love receiving during the holidays. Setting up a toy drive in your office or at a local business would give you the opportunity to either go to a client to pick up the toy or have them drop it off. Either way, you will more than likely get some face time. You also get the benefit of helping children that are in need. Which makes everyone feel good.
Treats
Many people are willing to splurge on treats during the holidays, getting in those last calories before New Years’ resolutions hit. Hand delivering some sort of treat will allow you multiple touches of communication with your clients. First, call to see if they have any allergies or preferences and set up a drop off time. Then drop off the treat. Afterward, you can email or call to find out how they liked it. Send the treat with a business card in it, so they have an easy way to contact you. Some popular items to send are assorted cookies, pies, tins of popcorn, baskets with finger foods, or anything that can be easily shared. If they are sharing the item, you hope that someone will ask where they got it and you could be making new clients by referrals with minimal effort.
Host an event
This one you have to plan out very well because people are busy over the holiday! Maybe, make it a family-friendly event and promise a free picture with Santa for children. Sometimes you can even hire Disney Princesses or other characters to show up for the evening. If you are looking to do an adult-only event, you could advertise it as a networking event with prizes. Make sure that every person goes home with a valuable goody bag equipped with business cards. Always follow up with a phone call to see how they liked the event.
Handwritten Letters
If you don’t have a large marketing budget at this point of the year, you can always resort to the tried and true effect of a handwritten letter or holiday card. Now, if you are writing 600 of them, that may be a little overwhelming and it would be better typed and hand-signed instead.
A Personalized Item
There are plenty of vendors in every city of this country that produces all sorts of items. Contact one of them and try to get a group price for buying in bulk. If you help that business out by allowing them to place a business card on the product, even better. You will make a good relationship with them and be helping out the local economy, possibly gaining them a new long-term customer, while serving your own interested of being able to get face time with the client during drop off.
Some popular items that we have seen are: cutting boards or signs with the family’s last name on them, a basket of soaps, Christmas tree ornament shaped like a house or a key with their last name, a welcome mat for their front door (then they will think of you every time they walk in their house), or a framed map of their town.
BONUS TIP
Don’t think that you can only do one of the options above! You could actually use all or multiple of these suggestions for your plan. If you have a lot of contacts, try to separate them into categories and have a plan per category. For example, if you have a very cold lead that you are pretty sure will never give you business but hope to warm them up, maybe go with a less expensive plan. However, if you have a serial investor that has bought from you and referred 6 clients this month, maybe move them into a VIP category and put in a little more effort, time and money.
Once you have a Plan, Stay Organized
Once you work to develop your brilliant marketing strategy, make sure that you have a way to organize it. This is especially important if different people on your team have their individual roles to play for the plan to succeed.
This is where we can help! ZipperAgent’s Communication & Engagement Centers, located in the platform, can help you execute many different campaigns and track your clients’ engagement – so you know exactly what is working and who’s a hot lead. This would be the perfect system to categorize your clients based on your holiday marketing budget to make sure that the right plan is being executed for the person that you are intending. Learn more or schedule a demo today.
