Platform81 Christmas Survival Guide!

We know that Christmas can be a stressful time for lots of businesses, so to make things a little easier this year, our lovely team are sharing their expert top tips and industry secrets to ensure you survive the festive period!

SALES

Get ahead…

If you’re a B2B business, you might feel like you have limited options when it comes to making the most of the festive season, but that’s not the case! You can still leverage these last few weeks to get ahead & plan for the coming year.

P81 Director Nick says: ‘Many B2B services are season dependent, so don’t panic if your sales figures are not up to the usual levels in December. Customers tend to ‘switch off’ from 16th, so you really only have 2 full working weeks in December. Use the time wisely to clear you desk and plan activity for the New Year’

WEB

Declutter your website…

If you’re an e-commerce business, chances are you’ll have lots of people visiting your site during December.

Make sure your customer’s browsing experience is as simple and stress-free as possible by de-cluttering your homepage and product pages. Get rid of those out of date offers and make navigation to Christmas products as obvious as possible.

As the days until Christmas rapidly count down, your customers will thank you for a quick and easy shopping experience!

SOCIAL

Run a social media competition…

One of the quickest wins on social media over Christmas is to run a festive competition.

Giveaways and contests are great at driving engagement and getting people to talk about your products and services on social media. Costa Coffee’s #MerryChristmasToMe campaign is a perfect example of this, encouraging customers to post a selfie with their festive Costa cup to be in with a chance of winning some goodies.

Social Media Manager, Hannah says; “For me this is one of the most exciting times of the year on social media! I love seeing all the creative ideas and campaigns that other brands have come up with.

Like the Costa competition, the most effective campaigns are often the least complicated so I’d keep it fun & simple.”

If you don’t have time to manage a festive campaign this year, talk to us about creating & managing it for you!

SEO 

Optimise product descriptions…

According to Google Analytics, there were around 30 million searches for the abbreviation ‘Xmas’ last year.

With this in mind it’s definitely worth optimising for popular seasonal keywords such as; ‘Christmas gifts for children’ ‘Christmas party dress’ etc.

Obviously this won’t apply to every business, but if Christmas is your busiest time of year then you are guaranteed to bring more customers to your website if you’re using seasonal SEO to your advantage.

EMAIL

Create leads with an E-Newsletter

Christmas is one of the most profitable times of year for many businesses and email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for driving sales.

Platform81 Web Designer Simon says: “Email marketing is an affordable and effective way of adding a bit of personality to your business this Christmas. Send your clients, business contacts and even potential customers an E-Christmas card and show them your personality. Not only could this endear you to them, but it is a good way to keep yourself in their thinking without being blatantly salesy.’

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Remember the power of print…

Even in a largely digital market, printed marketing materials are still one of the most effective ways to reach your audience before Christmas.

Well-designed flyers, brochures, and direct mail can really grab the attention of your potential customers & drive sales so if you’ve got a great product or service to sell then it’s definitely worth the investment.

DIGITAL MARKETING

Who are your competitors and what are they doing?

When it comes to marketing your business over Christmas, keeping up to date with competitor activity could really help you assess your performance.

Digital Account Manager, Fiona says: “Keep a close eye on your competitors this Christmas, their activities can really help refine your own campaigns and strategy”