It’s time to prep for a successful holiday marketing season!
The holidays are a joyful time filled with family, love, food, and so much stress!

One of the more stressful things about the holidays is how to make the most of the holiday marketing opportunities without coming across as tacky. Luckily, we’re here to help guide you through “the seven levels of the candy cane forest, and through the sea of swirly-twirly gumdrops.” (Elf)

Rules for your 2021 Holiday Marketing

Use ALL the holidays.

There’s no rule that states you must send holiday cards to clients on December 15th. Send Thanksgiving cards and call it a day! After all, what could show gratitude more than a thanksgiving card? Or, send New Year’s cards and wish your client a prosperous New Year (perhaps with a list of ways you could help them out in the new year.) If you go the New Year way, time them to arrive on the second week of the year in order to ensure they’re back in their office.

The other great thing about thumbing your nose to the Christmas season is that Hanukkah is at the beginning of December this year. You cannot send out holiday cards on December 15th and pretend they’re covering all religions. No siree Bob, not this year!

Only send personalized cards.

Your cards should represent your brand. If you’re sending out generic holiday cards, you’re diminishing your brand, your company’s mission, and all that you stand for. And, if that’s not enough (how is that not enough??), imagine sending the same card as your competitor. Awkward!

Schedule ecards ahead of time.

Spend the money now and make the most of the early bird specials! Order a digital card from us today and you’ll get a discount. Then, use your handy dandy mass email tool so that you can schedule it to go to all clients (and prospects, employees, and vendors) at the right time. What I’m saying is, you’ll be all done with the holiday stress just in time to join the Black Friday line at Walmart!

Don’t send cookies, cupcakes, or towers of food

Do you know what happens when you send these things? The assistants take them into the kitchen and share them with all employees. That’s awesome if you’re an employee, but not so great if you are a business owner trying to get some credit with your client. Instead, make a donation in your client’s name. Make it on the first week of December and send them a card with a note that states “A donation has been made in your honor.” Most charitable organizations will also follow that up with an e-message from you. Be sure to pick a non-political charity just in case!

Offer holiday marketing discounts

B2C organizations certainly seem to have the upper hand when it comes to offering discounts, assigning coupon codes, and whatnot, but B2B companies can also set up offers. The key to a good offer is the limit you place. If the service you offer is based on your time (you’re a designer, for example), make sure to limit in a way that ensures you can keep up. Here’s an example: “We’re giving away free personalized logos to the first ten customers that respond.”

As you lay out the plan for your discount offer, (we can help with this by the way) make sure you understand your highest profit margin services. For example, if you are a staffing agency that can provide construction workers at a margin of 10% or technology experts at a margin of 25%, it probably makes more sense to offer the discount on the tech experts. You have more room for a discount. Also, keep in mind that the goal in this example, is not to provide one tech expert at a 15% margin, it’s to build a relationship with your prospect so that you can keep supplying them with tech experts at 25% margins after the discount is done.

Don’t raise prices to offer a discount

This happens all the time. It’s underhanded and dishonest. If you get caught (there’s always some way of getting caught), you risk losing the sale and your reputation. If you don’t have your pricing structure laid out yet and you’re a service-based business, we have some words on that. Check out these articles:

Throw in a freebie

This is something we’ve started doing and it’s paying off in spades (for our friends in England, we don’t mean literally. We don’t accept digging instruments as a form of payment.)

In the emails we send out, we usually include something that our readers can have free of charge. It might be an email template, or images, or a social media banner. COuld be anything, but the key is to make it 100% free. Add the link without any kind of block, like asking for an email address or something. That’s why we give these goodies away by email – because we can see which recipients clicked on them anyway – no need for any kind of sign-in.

and here’s a general tip for free…

Always give a reason to come back

This is not just for holiday marketing, but it’s very valuable

Have you ever noticed that when you’re writing one email you get ideas for other emails? Make the most of that. Tell your readers what you will be offering next month and you’ll find your opt-out numbers get lower and lower.

Want more of these tips AND our freebies? Scroll down to the bottom of the page and sign up for that newsletter I just told you about. Until next time… happy holiday prep season!