The holiday season presents a unique opportunity for digital brands to connect with their audience in a festive and memorable way. Christmas is a time of joy and celebration, especially for stock and crypto traders when the Santa Claus Rally holds true! But it’s also a prime marketing season, so let’s take advantage of that fact and have some fun.
To make the most of this festive period, marketing specialists should explore integrating the following 10 highly effective promotional tools into their holiday campaigns.
A “Year in Review” Article
While not the most original idea, the Year in Review article is highly applicable to any brand. Such articles offer a retrospective on what was done by the company: all releases, deployments, new features, core milestones achieved, partnerships and so on. Also, it’s important to mention key numbers and data; for example, sales volume, amount of registered and active users, their patterns of behavior and more. In this type of article, it’s recommended to integrate infographics and images into the format. For examples, see last year’s 2022 Year Review & 2023 Year Ahead, by crypto app and wallet Crypto.com, and Coudflare’s recently published Year in review 2023, which neatly incorporated valuable industry data and infographics.
Interactive Social Media Campaigns
Develop interactive quizzes, polls, and challenges related to Christmas. Encourage user-generated content, such as holiday-themed photos or videos, and reward participants with exclusive discounts or prizes. You can include long-term campaigns in your strategy, beginning 2-3 weeks before Christmas. This can involve incorporating quest mechanics with various tasks and prizes.
The global search engine giant, Google, commemorates events all around the world. With its Google Santa Tracker, it took its creative ambitions to new heights. The Santa Tracker is a microsite created by Google developers to entertain children. Google’s games, stories, and easy connection with Google Home all serve to create strong engagement with children.
Advent Calendar
This is one of the most favored methods of Christmas promotion, especially by cosmetics brands. It gives a sweet feeling of expectation when customers open a new window each day in the run up to Christmas Day. Consensys recently presented a creative digital version of the first virtual NFT holiday advent calendar.
Design
The simplest way to add some Christmas spirit to your brand is to redesign the website and add some winter items to social media profiles. Start with changing a logo, add some snow, a scarf, or Santa’s hat.
Christmas Web Gifts and Giveaways
Everyone loves gifts, especially Christmas gifts. During the Christmas period, brands might show some generosity and give away digital gifts to loyal users. Social mechanics like “follow”, “like”, and “retweet” will give an extra organic shout-out to the brand on social media. A memorable NFT could make a great gift giveaway. Here is a good example detailing how Venly and Sandbox launched a Giveaway campaign with 120 Christmas-themed NFTs.
Team up with another business
Finding a good partner for a marketing promotion can be a wise idea. It provides an opportunity for cross-promos, exchanging audiences and creating some branded gifts to share. In 2023, Coca-Cola launched Christmas Wearables made by MetaLiveStudio. These NFTs were introduced in Decentraland to those users who completed several gamified quests.
Virtual Events
Digital partying can be a fun option too. Companies sometimes prefer virtual events to offline ones, since they’re more scalable, easy to reach, cheaper - and quite cozy! At virtual events, users can engage in online AMA sessions with the company’s team, participate in contests, win prizes from invited partners, and make funny screenshots for sharing on X (formerly Twitter). In 2022, the blockchain consulting firm Antier organized Diwali celebrations in the metaverse for all employees. The attendees participated in activities such as Christmas carols and prayers, dance and music, jackpot and merriment, firecrackers, tree decoration and more. The virtual church comprised the main center of attraction.
Charity
The Christmas period is a good time for brands to show goodwill and remember those in need. Many ideas can be enlisted but a charity-related campaign can prove one of the best. For example, a certain percentage of company sales during December could be donated to charitable organizations. Heart Research UK introduced a Healthy Heart Christmas campaign. To fundraise for the campaign, Heart Research UK has partnered with card company thortful to create limited edition, hand-illustrated Christmas cards.
Discounts and Special Offers
Why not use the same tool that always works so well during Black Friday periods? Discounts can help to find sleeping or indecisive customers. Besides, special offers and Christmas packs help increase sales and show that the company is taking care of their loyal users. In general, people tend to spend money more willingly, and with pleasure, during Christmas shopping periods.
Gamify the User Experience
Gamification helps to turn website visitor interaction into an unforgettable experience. Even if a visitor isn’t yet particularly familiar with your brand or products, they’ll still be excited to play a game. By incorporating fun-filled popup campaigns, like scratch cards and lucky wheels on your site, you can capture the attention of new visitors and keep them engaged. If you use a holiday season-themed gamified popup, you can create a memorable, enjoyable shopping experience for your visitors and add Christmas flair to your site.
Here’s a Christmas items collector game example that you can use to spread the Christmas spirit. Find here some more inspiring ideas for games.
Conclusion
In the festive marketing realm, digital brands can captivate their audience with these powerful Christmas strategies. Generosity through Christmas giveaways, virtual events, charity partnerships, and gamifying user experiences adds a festive touch. Discounts and special offers amplify the joy of holiday shopping. By integrating these tactics, brands can not only capture attention but create a lasting festive impact in the digital space. 'Tis the season for memorable marketing merriment!