The holiday season is one of the most festive — and busy — times of the year, and it offers businesses a golden opportunity to connect with customers in meaningful, memorable ways. For small businesses, a well-thought-out “12 days of Christmas marketing” campaign can boost sales, enhance brand loyalty, and spread holiday cheer. And we don’t mean one of those chocolate-filled advent calendar sets; instead, strategic Christmas marketing ideas in the lead-up to the holidays can boost your business during this festive season.

By starting early and putting a creative twist on holiday marketing campaigns, businesses can make the most of this special time of year. Let’s explore practical ways to gear up for the holidays and make your Christmas marketing ideas count.

Preparing for the Holiday Season

Before the holiday rush begins, it’s essential to get your marketing strategy in place. By planning ahead, you’ll set yourself up to engage with customers in ways that are organized, impactful, and stress-free.

Ultimately, the best Christmas marketing ideas are the ones that work for your unique business, the ones you’ll stick with and be able to execute during this hectic time of year.

Develop a holiday marketing strategy

Creating a holiday marketing strategy is the foundation of a successful holiday campaign. Your plan should encompass a variety of holiday marketing ideas that will resonate with your brand’s identity. 

That’s why a 12-day holiday marketing campaign can be a helpful tool, building excitement day by day, whether through themed promotions, daily social media posts, or holiday emails. Tailor your strategy to showcase what makes your business unique so customers remember you amid the holiday noise.

Plan ahead for the holiday season

Planning early is crucial to staying on top of holiday trends and avoiding last-minute stress. Use a holiday marketing checklist to stay organized and cover all bases, from content creation to scheduling social media posts. 

Align your holiday marketing strategy with your business goals — if you’re aiming to increase website traffic, focus on SEO-optimized blog content or holiday ads that drive clicks. The more prepared you are, the easier it will be to bring your Christmas marketing ideas to life without a hitch.

Building Holiday Spirit

Creating a warm and festive brand image sets the stage for an inviting customer experience. This next Christmas season is the time to show off your brand’s personality and make customers feel part of your holiday celebration.

Create a festive brand image

Just like you need to put Christmas decorations in your house to feel the spirit of the holidays, a little festive decoration for your website goes a long way. Add a touch of holiday cheer to your website and social media channels with colors, images, and branding that capture the Christmas spirit. For example, you can try using holiday-themed versions of your logo or add some snowflakes and lights to your website. Even a simple “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” banner can be a small but meaningful touch.

Even subtle and simple changes, like seasonal product photos or a holiday banner, can help create a cozy and inviting atmosphere.

Focus on emotional connections

The holidays are a time for heartwarming stories and fond memories. Connect with your customers on an emotional level by sharing stories that highlight the values and traditions that resonate with them. 

A heartfelt ad featuring a family celebrating a cherished holiday tradition can make a lasting impact. Music, nostalgic visuals, and heartfelt messages create an emotional connection, encouraging customers to feel part of your holiday story.

Creating Engaging Content

Keep your audience engaged throughout the season with well-planned holiday content that’s both informative and fun. Creative content will not only attract more customers and boost holiday sales but can also foster long-term loyalty.

Develop a gift guide

A holiday gift guide featuring your best products makes shopping easy for customers and shows off what your business has to offer. Include items at various price points. You can even consider special holiday discounts to make your guide even more enticing. 

Share your gift guide across social media and email to maximize its reach. Consider creating themed guides — like “Gifts for Him” or “Top Stocking Stuffers” — to appeal to different customer segments. This can be especially appealing to buyers who are running behind on their holiday shopping lists. 

Create engaging holiday content

Building a content calendar for your Christmas marketing campaign is a great way to ensure your messaging stays consistent and timely. Include blog posts, videos, and social media posts that capture the festive spirit. 

Depending on your industry, fun, interactive content like quizzes or “find your holiday style” games can help to engage your audience. Holiday-themed language and visuals bring a festive feel, while the added interaction makes your brand memorable.

Using Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool for reaching customers directly. With personalized holiday messaging, you can keep your brand top-of-mind and encourage customers to come back for more — during the Christmas shopping season and beyond.

Launch a holiday email campaign

Sending out a holiday email campaign can boost your holiday sales by promoting your products and services in a festive way. Personalized emails make customers feel special, so use email marketing automation to segment your audience and send relevant offers. 

As a thank you for their loyalty, include exclusive discounts for email subscribers and use festive templates to make your emails stand out.

Build your email list

A Christmas campaign is a great time to grow your email list. Use your website and social media platforms to encourage customers to sign up, offering small incentives like discounts or holiday freebies. 

Once customers are on your list, you’ll be able to keep them informed about your latest deals, events, and holiday content. Be sure to follow email marketing best practices, such as ensuring clear opt-ins and providing value in each email.

Utilizing Social Media

Social media is one of the best ways to get the word out about your holiday promotions. With the right strategy, you can boost engagement, attract new followers, and make a real impact on your Christmas marketing goals.

Partner with influencers

Consider teaming up with influencers to extend your reach. Choose influencers who align with your brand values and appeal to your target audience. This partnership can be mutually beneficial: influencers get valuable content for their followers, and you get access to a wider audience. 

Where possible, incentivize your influencer team with free products or commission-based deals to increase brand visibility.

Run social media ads

Holiday ads on social platforms like Instagram and Facebook are an effective way to drive traffic to your website. Target these ads to specific audience segments based on demographics, interests, or shopping behaviors to increase conversions. Sweeten the deal with exclusive holiday discounts for customers who click on your ads, making them feel like they’re part of something special.

Running Promotions and Contests

Everyone loves a good holiday deal or contest. By offering limited-time promotions and hosting giveaways, you can keep your holiday shoppers excited and engaged throughout the season.

Host a holiday giveaway

A holiday giveaway is a fantastic way to build excitement around your brand. Offer a prize that resonates with your audience and aligns with your brand values. This Christmas promotion could include a bundle of your most popular products, a new release, or even a collaboration with other brands. 

Promote the giveaway on social media to increase reach, and consider requiring participants to follow your page or tag friends to enter. An advent calendar of special deals on certain items can also be a fun way to promote specific products and bundles; the urgency of the one-day sale might even prompt quick online sales. This will not only build brand awareness for your brand but also increase your follower count.

Offer limited-time deals

Limited-time holiday deals create urgency, encouraging customers to act fast. Use countdown timers or “flash sale” announcements on your website and social media channels to build excitement. Make these deals exclusive to your email subscribers or followers to make them feel valued, which can lead to repeat customers.

Optimizing Your Website

During the Christmas shopping season, a smooth website experience is critical to securing sales and keeping customers happy. Make sure your site is user-friendly, fast, and accessible to avoid any unnecessary holiday headaches.

Optimize for mobile devices

Many customers will shop on their mobile devices, so ensuring a mobile-friendly site is essential. Use a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes, making it easy for customers to navigate. Features like click-to-call and mobile payment options streamline the online shopping process, making it easy for customers to complete purchases on the go.

Offer free shipping and returns

Free shipping and easy returns can be major selling points during the holiday season. These perks not only attract more customers but also improve overall satisfaction, as customers feel they’re getting more value. Consider offering exclusive shipping options to your email subscribers or loyal customers as an added perk.

Measuring Success: Track Your Results

To understand what worked (and what didn’t) during your Christmas campaign, take time to track your results. Use analytics tools like Google Analytics to monitor website traffic, conversions, and sales. Social media analytics also provide insights into which posts performed best, helping you refine your strategy for next year. By measuring your success, you’ll be able to make data-driven improvements for future holiday campaigns.

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The holiday season is a time of joy, connection, and opportunity. With strong Christmas marketing campaign ideas, you can make the most of this festive period by spreading holiday cheer and building customer loyalty that lasts beyond the Christmas marketing season. So start early, be creative, and enjoy the process.

1. What is brand identity?
2. Building a Strong Brand Foundation
3. What makes an effective brand identity?
4. Crafting a Compelling Brand Voice
5. What communicates my brand identity?
6. How to Create a Smart Brand Strategy

Just like your views, habits, and beliefs make up your unique personality, brand identity is a “secret ingredient” that distinguishes your company from multiple competitors, and it includes various brand assets such as logos and design templates.

What is brand identity? What does it have in common with design? How do you create a memorable brand identity that will make a difference for your business? In this article, we’ll address these and other important questions.

What is brand identity?

Brand identity refers to unique designs created by a company to build a certain image in the eyes of its customers and partners.

Brand identity is often confused with branding. Branding refers to marketing techniques and methods that are used to build a unique brand. To maintain a consistent brand identity, companies often create comprehensive brand guidelines that document the do’s and don’ts of their branding elements.

Let’s take an example to see the difference between these two terms. Imagine that you’re a teenager who goes to school every day. You want your schoolmates to think you’re cool. You want to be invited to parties. You want others to respect your opinion. However, you can’t force other people into thinking you’re cool. You need to work hard to create a certain image that will be appealing to others.

For example, you need to watch trendy YouTube channels, know the latest memes, take up a sport, and so on. Branding refers to all these efforts to build the right image.

Also, you need to take care of your appearance. This means buying the new pair of Adidas that half the school dreams of, doing your hair in a new way, becoming the captain of a school football team, etc.

All these tangible items (sneakers, hairstyle, team membership) make up your identity.

Why do I need a brand identity?

A brand identity has several important functions that can make a difference in your company’s success:

1. Develops a visual language. A strong visual language enhances your brand recognition and boosts your reputation in the industry.
2. Evokes associations with your company. Elements of your corporate style evoke direct associations with your business.
3. Sets you apart from the competition. Branding can be a powerful tool to distinguish your products and services from those that other companies offer.

In short, a brand identity helps tell everyone who you are and why your brand matters. In addition, it shows how your brand values align with your visual and communicative elements.

Building a Strong Brand Foundation

A strong brand foundation is the backbone of a successful brand. It’s the starting point for building a brand that resonates with your target audience and sets you apart from the competition. In this section, we’ll explore the key elements of building a strong brand foundation.

Defining Your Brand’s Mission, Vision, and Values

Your brand’s mission, vision, and values are the core of your brand’s identity. They define who you are, what you stand for, and what you want to achieve. A clear and concise mission statement, vision statement, and set of values will help guide your brand’s decisions and actions.

• Mission statement: This is a statement that defines your brand’s purpose and goals. It’s the reason your brand exists and what you aim to accomplish. For example, Patagonia’s mission statement is “We’re in business to save our home planet.” This clearly communicates their purpose and commitment to environmental responsibility.
• Vision statement: This statement defines your brand’s desired future state. It’s a forward-looking declaration of where you want your brand to be. Patagonia’s vision statement, “A love of wild and beautiful places demands participation in the fight to save them, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet,” paints a picture of their long-term goals and aspirations.
• Values: These are the principles that guide your brand’s behavior and decision-making. They reflect what your brand stands for and influence how you interact with your customers and partners. Patagonia’s values include environmental responsibility, sustainability, and transparency, which are evident in their business practices and communications.

Analyzing Your Target Audience and Their Challenges

Understanding your target audience is crucial to building a strong brand foundation. You need to know who they are, what they want, and what challenges they face. This will help you create a brand that resonates with them and meets their needs.

• Identify your target audience: Start by defining who your target audience is. Consider their demographics, interests, and behaviors. For instance, Warby Parker’s target audience is young, urban, and fashion-conscious individuals.
• Analyze their challenges: Understand the problems and pain points your target audience faces. Warby Parker’s audience, for example, struggles with expensive eyewear and limited access to stylish options.
• Develop buyer personas: Create detailed profiles of your target audience, including their goals, challenges, and behaviors. Warby Parker’s buyer persona might be a 25-year-old urban professional who values fashion, sustainability, and affordability.

By defining your brand’s mission, vision, and values, and analyzing your target audience and their challenges, you’ll lay a solid foundation for a successful brand.

What makes an effective brand identity?

For starters, let’s examine the main building blocks of brand identity design. The most common aspects include typography, color palette, shape, and, of course, your business name. While these aspects sound simple, they’re essential to building a reliable, trustworthy brand identity.

Typography

The world of fonts is big. To come to terms with it, let’s split all fonts into four main categories.

• Serif fonts (e.g., Times New Roman, Garamond) have tiny ”feet” at the end of each character. These are classic typefaces that stand for reliability, loyalty, and traditions.
• Sans serif fonts (e.g., Helvetica, Franklin Gothic) have a more smooth, modern feel to them.
• Handwritten fonts (e.g., Allura, Pacifico) imitate a written text. (Why did they bother to teach us how to write beautifully at school?) If your brand sells luxurious items or products for women, you can’t go wrong with a font from this category.
• Decorative fonts make up a special group of typefaces. Each of these fonts has a unique characteristic, whether it’s an unusual shape, shadows, or a handwritten element. If you’re dreaming of a spectacular brand identity, pick a decorative font and let it speak on your behalf!

Remember that a font is not just a set of letters and digits written in a certain way. It’s a design solution that has a voice. A typeface will become a visual representation of your brand, so be sure to choose it wisely as it is one of the key visual elements of your brand identity.

Color Palette

Now, let’s move to a color palette, a crucial component of your brand’s visual identity. The first thing to understand here is that each shade has its emotional connotations and meaning. It would be stupid not to use such a powerful tool for promoting your business! By mixing different colors, you can shape the way customers perceive your brand.

Take a look at what meaning is hidden behind the seven primary rainbow colors and a few other hues.

• Red is all about passion and emotions. If you’re a bold, energetic brand, be sure to paint your logo and other designs red.
• Orange is another powerful color that emanates friendly vibes. Businesses use orange less often than red, so your emblem is likely to stand out.
• Yellow is the color of the sun. This shade translates to joy and happiness. If you position yourself as an inclusive and accessible brand, yellow could be a good choice.
• Green is, hands down, the most versatile shade in the rainbow palette. This hue could become a great choice for any brand, regardless of its industry. However, if your company has to do with the environment or finance, you may want to incorporate green into your color palette.
• Blue is a universally appealing color and an established color code for solidity and stability. It’s an ideal choice for building trust with your clients, affiliates, and partners.
• Violet is associated with luxury, royalty, and exclusivity. This magnificent shade is a common choice among companies that work in the premium segment.
• Pink is traditionally associated with delicacy and femininity. If your target audience mainly consists of women, you may want to consider including pink in your color palette. Also, this delicate shade is loved by businesses that produce or sell luxury items.
• Brown is a rare guest on logos. If you choose this color, your brand identity may stand out. Plus, brown brings forward the power behind your business.
• Black is a way to craft a sophisticated, appealing, and mysterious image. The best thing about this hue is that it combines well with any color.

Shape

Besides fonts and colors, another important element that shapes your brand image is geometry. Geometric shapes have the power to enhance the impression you want to make on your audience. For example, when looking at a circle emblem with smooth lines and square logo, you’ll be experiencing different emotions and thinking about different things.

When creating a logo, you need to consider the emotional connotations that go with different geometric figures.

Circle shapes (circle, oval) communicate warmth and create a welcoming atmosphere. It’s a great choice for companies that want to show their clients that they care about them. Also, rounded corners and flowing lines emanate femininity and elegance.

Geometric shapes with straight or sharp angles (square, rectangle, triangle) are associated with strength, stability, and trust.

Straight lines also have their own meaning. Vertical lines stand for masculinity and power, while horizontal lines convey serenity and delicacy.

Your Business Name

Text components, such as a brand name and slogan, aim to characterize your business in a smart and concise way, contributing to your overall brand story. Make sure your name and slogan contain only essential information about your company.

Of course, you want to create a cohesive and catchy name and slogan so your identity is not only visually appealing but also sticks in people’s minds.

Crafting a Compelling Brand Voice

Your brand voice is the tone and language you use to communicate with your target audience. It’s a critical element of your brand’s identity and can make or break your brand’s success. In this section, we’ll explore the key elements of crafting a compelling brand voice.

Defining Your Brand’s Personality and Language

Your brand’s personality and language are the foundation of your brand voice. They define how you communicate with your target audience and what tone you use.

• Brand personality: What personality traits do you want your brand to convey? Think about whether you want to be seen as friendly, professional, humorous, or something else. For example, Dollar Shave Club’s brand personality is humorous and irreverent, which appeals to their target audience of young, urban men.
• Brand language: Decide on the tone and language you want to use to communicate with your target audience. This could be formal, informal, sarcastic, or any other style that fits your brand. Dollar Shave Club uses an informal and playful language with a touch of sarcasm, which resonates with their audience and sets them apart from more traditional competitors.

By defining your brand’s personality and language, you’ll create a compelling brand voice that connects with your target audience and strengthens your brand identity.

What communicates my brand identity?

The components we’ve covered above help create your brand identity. But now you need to communicate it to your customers. That means you’ll need your logo, business cards, letterhead, emails, and even your packaging to include your brand assets.

Logo

It won’t be an exaggeration to say that a logo is the key element of your brand’s visual identity. When working on your corporate emblem, heed the following guidelines.

1. Your logo must be simple and minimalist.
2. Avoid using multiple colors and fonts. It will distract a viewer and make your design look amateurish.
3. Forget about trends unless you want your logo to look irrelevant in a year.
4. Your logo must meet your industry standards. (If you choose to ignore established design solutions and go your own way, do that carefully.)
5. Your logo must make a strong impression and stick in the memory.

It’s best to create several versions of your logo and then pick the best option. For multiple uses, you must have your logo in different formats (raster and vector) and sizes. Also, it won’t hurt to create a black-and-white design.

Business Cards

If you’re going to grow your business, you can’t do without professional-looking business cards as part of your brand assets. An original business card will amplify the impression you’ve made on your potential clients and partners. Your business card must have a minimalist design and only contain crucial information about your company. Bold design solutions are not welcome here.

Letterheads

Letterhead is one of the main brand identity elements. This document is used for selling propositions, orders, applications, and other business correspondence. Letterhead with your corporate logo on it becomes a powerful promotion tool, especially when it adheres to your brand guidelines. It’s not uncommon for a potential client or partner to start their acquaintance with your company with your letterhead.

Emails

Email remains a widely used channel of communication. How do you make your business emails stand out among hundreds of other messages? Think about what goal you’re pursuing with your email. To build a bond with a recipient, you need to be friendly, polite, and welcoming. Make sure your email is straightforward and easy to read. If, for example, you want to tell your audience about your new clothing line, it’s a good idea to add a few photos to hook your customers and communicate your brand story.

Packaging

If you’re producing tangible items, make sure they have appropriate packaging as part of your brand assets. The right packaging can make a good impression on your customers and encourage them to make new purchases. Don’t miss the opportunity to showcase your brand identity in such a smart and unobtrusive way!

RELATED: How to Create a Corporate Envelope Fast and Easy

How to Create a Smart Brand Strategy

There is more than one way to create a beautiful and catchy brand identity design for your business. You can find a seasoned freelance designer, commission a design studio, or use online logo makers. Let’s focus on each method one by one.

Design Studio and Brand Guidelines

Hiring a design company is a great option for medium and large businesses with big budgets. They can help develop a cohesive brand strategy that includes visual and messaging elements, fostering recognition and loyalty among consumers.

Pros:

• Professional designers.
• Big choice of studios.

Cons:

• Costly
• Long waiting times

Freelance Designers

If you’re stretched for money, you can hire a freelance designer. A freelance designer can help with specific aspects of your brand positioning. Finding a designer whose price fits your budget is a doable task. Plus, there’s no lack of freelance websites where you can easily find the right person for the job.

Pros:

• Big choice of designers
• High-quality logo (if your designer is experienced)

Cons:

• Finding a professional designer that works for a small fee is hard.
• The designer may take your advance payment and disappear.
• You may not like the design.

Final Words

Brand identity can help you stand out from the crowd and introduce your company to your target audience, especially when developing a new brand identity. To get an impactful visual style, prepare to invest a lot of time and money into developing a unique brand identity. Your efforts will eventually pay off! If you already have some ideas for your future visual image, don’t hesitate and get down to work without second-guessing.

RELATED: Eco Branding: Why Your Business Needs It

For many customers, color is the key motive behind a purchase. As an entrepreneur, you need to use the power of colors to drive users to your blog, online store, or landing page. In this article, we’ll reveal why you need to study the psychology of colors, how color perception depends on age and gender, and how to combine main, background, and accentuate hues to create a cohesive color palette.

Understanding the Importance of Website Color Schemes

A website’s color scheme plays a crucial role in its overall aesthetic and brand perception. The colors used on a website can evoke emotions, convey messages, and influence user behavior. A well-designed color scheme can create a positive and memorable first impression, while a poorly designed one can lead to a negative user experience.

Aesthetic and Brand Perception

The aesthetic of a website’s color scheme can greatly impact its brand perception. Colors can be used to convey a brand’s personality, values, and message. For example, a website with a bold and bright color scheme may be perceived as energetic and playful, while a website with a more muted and pastel color scheme may be perceived as calm and soothing. A website’s color scheme can also influence its brand recognition, with consistent use of colors across all marketing materials helping to establish a strong brand identity.

Conversion and User Experience

A website’s color scheme can also impact its conversion rates and user experience. Colors can be used to draw attention to specific elements, such as calls-to-action or promotions, and can influence user behavior. For example, a website with a prominent red call-to-action button may be more likely to encourage users to take action than a website with a more subtle button. A website’s color scheme can also impact its usability, with clear and consistent use of colors helping to create an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

Emotional Associations

The human brain transforms colors into emotions. Understanding color theory is essential as it provides the principles and framework for creating harmonious color schemes, which helps in understanding these emotional associations. This makes color the quickest way to create a first impression and evoke specific associations. Corporate shades have the power to boost brand recognition — and, therefore, customer loyalty.

What hue comes to your mind when you’re thinking about Coca-Cola? It’s for a good reason that the multinational giant picked red as its flagship color. Red is a globally recognized symbol of love and joy. Used by 29% of global brands, red is among the top popular shades in the business world. The first place belongs to blue (33%), while the third place goes to black and grey (28%). Take a look at the connotations behind the basic colors.

Warm colors:

• Red — Dynamics, emotions, passion, power, love, joy (McDonald’s, CNN, Netflix, Pinterest, H&M);
• Pink — Sweetness, romance, warmth, compassion (Barbie, LG, Victoria`s Secret);
• Orange — Success, determination, friendliness, delight (Amazon, Firefox, Fanta);
• Yellow — Youth, freshness, optimism (DHL, Shell, IKEA, Nikon).

Cool colors:

• Green — Serenity, relaxation, trust, peace, hope (Animal Planet, Starbucks, Android);
• Blue — Comfort, reliability, honesty, loyalty, integrity (Samsung, Skype, Ford, Facebook);
• Violet — Glamour, strength, will, ambitions (Hallmark, Yahoo, Cadbury).

Achromatic colors:

• White, black, and grey — Elegance, style, luxury, modernity, wisdom (Nike, Apple, Chanel, Puma, Toyota).

When choosing the optimal hues to represent your brand, think about what feelings and associations it evokes.

How do I pick the right color scheme?

The visual part of your brand identity suggests a dialog with your audience. To compose the right palette, analyze your business and outline the message you want to communicate to your clientele by selecting an effective color combination. Forget about your personal preferences; think about how your customers might perceive different colors and their combinations.

Let’s walk through some of the branding questions you need to ask yourself to establish your color scheme, including what your niche is, how your target customers perceive colors, and key demographics like age, gender, and location.

What is your niche?

Each industry tends to have its established colors. Primary and secondary colors serve as the foundational hues for creating a harmonious palette, emphasizing the importance of contrast for visual appeal. For example, while pharmacies traditionally stick with green, hotels prefer a black-and-white palette. Think about what shades characterize your business. If you’re selling healthy food, it’ll be only logical to use green, brown, and other earthly hues. If, however, your product is lemonade or bubble gum, be sure to get armed with screaming neon colors!

How do your customers perceive colors?

Analyzing your audience is the key to success. Does your product target younger or older people? Do they have a medium or high income? Are they rather conservative or open to new things? Another important factor is what colors they associate their lifestyle with. For example, young and optimistic customers choose vibrant colors like yellow, while older people gravitate towards black and blue.

Where do your customers live?

Are you going to promote your product in your country or globally? While many colors have universal connotations (yellow = sun, green = nature), some hues may have different meanings across cultures. Be sure to educate yourself on this issue before promoting your brand overseas. 

Which gender do you target?

It’s a known fact that men and women perceive colors differently. According to a survey, both genders like blue but don’t like white, yellow, and brown. At the same time, men hate violet, which is the second most popular color among females. 

How old are your customers?

It’s no secret that a person’s preferences and interests are changing over the course of their life. As we’re getting older, we tend to develop a particular liking toward short-wave shades (blue, green, violet) while staying indifferent to long-wave hues (red, orange, yellow). The least popular colors among teenagers are violet and brown, while senior people detest yellow. 

Lifehack. We recommend that you take this test by Grasshopper. Answer seven simple questions and find out what main colors are right for your brand! 

Creating a Website Color Palette

Creating a website color palette involves selecting a range of colors that work well together and align with the website’s brand and message. A website color palette typically consists of a primary color, secondary colors, and an accent color.

Choosing a Primary Color

The primary color is the main color of a website’s brand identity and is often used consistently across all marketing materials. When choosing a primary color, it’s essential to consider the brand’s values, personality, and message. For example, a brand that values energy and passion may choose a bold and bright primary color, such as red or orange, while a brand that values calmness and serenity may choose a more muted and pastel primary color, such as blue or green.

A primary color can be chosen using a color wheel, which is a tool used to determine which colors work well together. The color wheel can be divided into primary colors, secondary colors, and tertiary colors, and can be used to create a range of color combinations, including monochromatic, complementary, and analogous color schemes.

Once a primary color has been chosen, secondary colors can be selected to complement and enhance the primary color. Secondary colors can be used to add depth and interest to a website’s design and can help to create a cohesive and harmonious color scheme.

An accent color can also be chosen to add a pop of color and create visual interest. Accent colors can be used to draw attention to specific elements, such as calls-to-action or promotions, and can help to create a sense of energy and excitement.

By choosing a primary color, secondary colors, and an accent color, a website can create a cohesive and effective color palette that aligns with its brand and message. A well-designed color palette can help to create a positive and memorable first impression, influence user behavior, and establish a strong brand identity.

How do I match colors?

Now that you’ve outlined the message you want to convey to your target audience, you can get down to setting up a neat color scheme for your website, blog, or landing page. A popular choice is to use bright blue as an accent color, which enhances visual interest and attracts attention, contributing to a sense of reliability and modernity. Read on to find out how to do that hassle free!

Three Types of Colors

You need to distinguish three main types of colors.

Main color is a dominant shade your company will be associated with. Use this color for the key elements on your web page.

Accentuate color creates a contrast with the main color. Use it to highlight the vital elements on your website, e.g., CTA button, headlines, etc.

A bright yellow accent color can be particularly effective in drawing attention to important elements like titles and call-to-action buttons, enhancing visual appeal and guiding user navigation.

Background color shapes the background of your website. The choice of a background shade depends on your niche. For example, solid e-commerce websites (Amazon, eBay, Zara, etc.) are using a white background so as not to distract customers from the products. If, however, your brand has to do with art and creativity, feel free to exploit bold color solutions.

Use the color wheel

The color wheel is an indispensable tool for matching shades. Color combinations fall into the following categories:  

• Monochrome: Different tones of the same color (from light ones to dark ones, or vice versa).  
• Analog: Adjacent colors (yellow and orange, light blue and dark blue);
• Complementary: Opposite colors (red and green, yellow and violet);
• Triad: Colors forming a triangle with two equal sides (red, yellow, and blue);
• Tetrad: Colors forming a square or rectangle (blue, green, orange, violet). 

Lifehack. Check out the color wheel from Adobe Color. Enter your main color, pick the right scheme, and get a turnkey solution!

Some other helpful tools include Paletton, Colorbook.io, or Coolors.co.

Respect proportions

What are the optimal proportions for mixing colors? Designers have come up with the 60/30/10 rule. In a color scheme, the main, background, and accentuate colors must account for 60%, 30%, and 10%, respectively. Creating your own website color scheme is crucial as it can significantly impact your website’s overall design and user experience. This kind of a composition appeals to the human eye; it’s especially important if you’re building your own website.

Logo Colors

Be sure to place your business’s logo in the most visible part on your page, which is the header. Here are a few tips for painting your emblem:

• Your logo must match your background image without getting lost on it.
• Feel free to adjust contrast and brightness to find the optimal balance.
• Leave enough free space around your logo to make it easily noticeable.
• Consider using royal blue in your logo design for a sophisticated and eye-catching look, especially when paired with gold or other vibrant colors to convey elegance and exclusivity.

Learn from the global brands and see how they’re adjusting their logos for their websites. Here are a few examples:

• While Airbnb has a red emblem, the company uses a white logo on its website to make it noticeable against the background image. At the same time, the red logo is still used as a favicon.
• Apple is good at creating achromatic versions of its iconic logomark.
• IKEA and Starbucks never change the traditional colors of their logos. These brands tend to place their emblems against a white backdrop, with plenty of blank space around.

Choose the best color scheme

Compose 3-4 color palettes and test them by asking friends and subscribers for feedback. This might be through in-person conversations or even social media surveys.

Different color schemes evoke different emotions from different people, so it’s helpful to ask a variety of individuals. If one person doesn’t care for your colors, it might be a non-issue (and you can write it down to personal preference). But if lots of people hesitate about your choices, you might want to reconsider your options.

Another thing to keep in mind is that different color schemes look slightly different on different devices and in different lighting. Depending on the circumstances, different colors might skew warmer or cooler. Often, this won’t make or break your color choices, but it’s still important to consider.

Conclusion

A corporate color palette can help you shape your company image, promote your brand, set yourself apart from the competition, and build customer trust. Let’s sum up the highlights of this article.

• When choosing a color palette, consider the preferences of your audience rather than your own. Before making the decision, be sure to run a marketing analysis.
• With all the advanced tools and constructors out there, creating a neat website by yourself is pretty easy — even for a complete newbie!
• Stuck for ideas? See what color solutions are used by other brands in your niche. Pick the ones you like most and use them as a “guiding light” when working on your own color scheme.
• A cohesive color palette, typically consisting of 3 to 5 colors, ensures visual harmony and branding consistency, affecting user perception and engagement.
• Understanding color theory helps in creating harmonious color schemes, enhancing both the aesthetic appeal and practical application in web design.

Email marketing is a crucial startup tool. Your email list is one of your biggest assets — are you using it right? Have you got what it takes to sell to these people? A shift in tone and strategy is required to convert passive readers into active customers. How can you get people to truly engage with your content and products a little bit more? Here are five ways you can bring people closer to your brand through the power of great email content.

1. Offer value

People are more likely to buy from you if they’re invested in a relationship that offers value.

• Learn how to send sales emails that offer genuine value through targeting, personalization, and knowledge sharing. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes — would that email make you go “ick”?
• Get people to look forward to your emails thanks to all the great insight and commentary you offer. Become “the expert” in your niche and use your expertise to give timely and on-point product or service recommendations.
• Give people things for free so that they start to trust you. You can’t go in and hard sell to an email list and expect a return immediately. Give people personalized offers and incentives in order to engage with you, but only send them out once you’ve established a rapport or a relationship.
• Help your readers answer key questions they have about what they’re doing by openly addressing a common pain point. Being open, vulnerable, direct, and cutting through all the “BS” shows your customers that you are genuinely invested in helping them out. You’re better off coming across as a friendly place for recommendations than someone who just sends out sales updates.

2. Entertain and delight

Humor and entertainment sell, too. Having a quirky personality really works for some brands, and it gets customers involved in the buying process in a subtle way. Emails are a great place to loosen up and try a more relaxed tone of voice for your brand.

Entertaining emails are especially good at driving traffic to your website, but you will need to work on what you want people to do next once you’ve got them there. Always include a call to action at the end of a post or infographic for people who want more. Here’s what you can do to increase the open rate of your emails:

• Make sure that the content keeps bringing people back to the products and services you offer. You can go completely off-topic every now and then, but don’t veer completely off-course for good. Remember: you want to be able to calculate the return on investment of what you’re doing.
• Humor is all about context, so make sure you’ve got it right for your list. Get to know your audience’s content habits and the kinds of sites that they spend time on. Monitor what results you get on social media when you “try” to be funny.

3. Be professional and data-driven

Always take time and care when sending out emails to people. A sloppy email will look bad for your brand and won’t sell anything effectively. Don’t fall into the trap of approaching your emails too casually.

• Make your emails look nice. Don’t get sloppy with your brand just because it’s in someone else’s inbox. That email is still part of your branding.
• Use good email templates, have a clean email list, and always proofread religiously. People are merciless when it comes to dismissing brands based on errors and mistakes in an email.
• Test your emails. Before you hit “send all,” make sure that all the links and affiliate links are tagged up and working correctly.
• Use correct email list segmentation to help you send out more targeted and effective emails. Irrelevancy is one of the biggest email turn-offs.

4. Tell brand stories; don’t broadcast

People are busy when they open their inboxes, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t have time to get caught up in a good narrative. If you want to tell people something, make it about storytelling, not broadcasting.

• What brand stories should you be sharing? What do people care about? Is there a feel-good story lurking in your product line? Are your products about triumphing against the odds? Before you begin emailing, be clear on what stories you want to tell to your subscribers over the course of the year and why.
• Make sure that the stories you tell are real and compelling, not thin and misleading. You will need to invest in good copywriters and designers in order to nail brand storytelling on your website and your emails (but it’s worth it).
• Always bring your stories back to the reader and ask them to get involved in a further conversation with you. Don’t end the story on a low — always include an opener for the next bit.

5. Shift your mentality

A shift in focus from content to sales doesn’t mean foregoing all the online relationships you’ve built up with people so far. It just means taking advantage of all the opportunities out there and being savvy with the emails you send.

• See your email list as a valuable commercial asset and treat it with respect and care. Always plan and test sales emails meticulously.
• New to selling products or services online? Do some proper market research into online selling and make sure you select a niche in which you can compete and stand on your own two feet. Think about whether dropshipping and order fulfillment can help you get started faster, and don’t neglect the potential of digital products like webinars or worksheets, either.
• Set up an online store with a free trial on your domain to start with, and explore different ways that you can monetize your site. You have ads, affiliate income, and many other great money-earning options open to you besides ecommerce.
• Be aware of the legal implications of sales emails, and never fall afoul of these or any other guidelines set up by your email provider. (This is especially true if you decide to rapidly monetize your site and email list).
• If you decide to offer sponsored spots on your email newsletter, make sure you hold veto rights so that you can pull content that doesn’t feel right for your readers.

Selling to people should be fun —– not a chore. If you’re not feeling confident in what you offer, you won’t be able to sell well. What do you think makes for a great sales email, and why?

Who hasn’t written advertising copy that we thought was great, only to find out it flopped big time? Why? When you wrote it, it seemed very persuasive. You included lots of benefits and even gave a money-back guarantee. It got you up and moving, so why did your customers turn their heads?

The reason is usually quite simple. They are not you. While one thing might motivate you and excite you enough to open your wallet and buy, there are other personality types who respond to different motivational factors. If you know the factors, you hold the key to copywriting success.

There are several names for the different personality or behavioral types. Myers-Briggs labels them with letters (E = extrovert, I = introvert, etc.). Some psychologists label them with types (“A-type” personality, “B-type” personality, etc.). The DISC model (which I find the easiest to follow) labels the different personalities with descriptors (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness). Regardless of what they’re called, I encourage you to get to know them. Once you decipher the inner workings of your customers, you can write copy that will motivate each and every time.

Let’s look at a few of the descriptors used within the DISC model, and I’m sure you’ll see what I mean.

Dominance

The Dominance behavioral style is usually described with the following attributes:

• high egos
• problem-solver
• likes challenges
• drives hard for results
• positive
• loves power and authority
• motivated by direct answers

Influence

The Influence behavioral style can be described like this:

• socially and verbally aggressive
• optimistic
• can see the big picture
• people-oriented
• fast movers
• motivated by praise and strokes

Steadiness

Those who fall into the Steadiness behavioral style usually are described as:

• loyal to those they identify with
• good listener
• patient
• loves security
• wants to see benefits
• oriented towards family activities
• motivated toward traditional procedures

Compliance

The last of the four styles is Compliance. These people usually have the following attributes:

• critical thinkers
• high standards
• well disciplined
• accurate
• motivated by the right way to proceed

As you can see, these simple hints already open new doors for copywriting effectiveness. From what’s written above, you’re probably getting some good ideas about how to adjust your copy to fit your target audience.

For example, when writing to people with a Dominant behavioral style, you’ll want to be direct and to the point, focus on the business at hand, show them how this will help them get results, and offer a win/win situation.

Influential people will want to allow time for socialization (so include some “chit chat” when possible) and to have fun. Offer new and innovative ideas, give a way for them to respond quickly, and offer praise and strokes for them for making a good decision.

Steadiness types make up the majority of the population. Over 40% of Americans fall into the Steadiness category. These people need to see a logical approach to your product or service, they need time to think before buying, they want to see how your solution will benefit them, and they need a sense of security about buying.

This explains why most copywriters will tell you to write long copy that is full of benefits and offers a money-back guarantee. However, while this does work for 40% of the population, the other 60% has an issue with it. This is why I continually preach that you should know your target audience. If you’re marketing to a group of CEOs (which most definitely fall into the dominance category), you can’t provide long copy… they simply won’t read it. They’re looking for the bottom line and may ask for more details later if they feel they are necessary. If you have lots of information to provide, you’ll have to break it up into sections to suit a “dominance” type.

It all boils down to giving the customer what they want, even in your copywriting techniques. If you don’t, you’ll lose the sale — plain and simple. As an example, I’ll tell you about a real estate agent I once worked with. I was looking for a house and had specific criteria for the exterior and interior. Rather than scheduling an appointment with the realtor every other day to view houses, I wanted to be given the addresses and view the outside at my own pace. If the outside didn’t have specific features, there was no need for me to see the inside.

One realtor emphatically told me, “Mrs. Thackston, that’s just not the way I sell.” To which I responded, “That’s a shame… that’s the way I buy!” He wouldn’t give me what I wanted and therefore lost the sale.

I encourage you to learn as much as you can about your target audience. Their likes, dislikes, personality traits, and behavioral traits. When you do, you’ll be able to write motivational copy that creates a desire to buy.

Most buying decisions are emotional. Your ad copy should be, too!

Written by Karon Thackston.

Want to know how you can get more sales? Ask the people who aren’t buying from you. Learn how to increase your customer base and build your business.

As I look at my calendar, I see that many retailers are preparing to attend another buyer’s market. However, many retailers forget to ask themselves one question as they plan their next buying trip: Have you asked your customers what they want?

Business is never great; it can always be better. Very rarely do I hear a company say that business has never been better or that it’s fantastic. In our ever-changing economy, making ends meet is a struggle more than ever before.

I am a firm believer in 80/20 rule of customer service, which is not the same as customer pampering. However, I see so many businesses overlook some of the most obvious rules and lose customers. These are the same retailers that complain that their traffic is down or that customers are just not buying.

I have yet to hear a retailer ask the customer who did not buy, unless they’re one of my clients, “Excuse me, to better service our customers, I noticed that you did not find what you came in for. I am planning our next buying trip and would like to know what you didn’t find. Maybe it’s something we should be carrying.” It’s not a hard question.

It’s always important to thank the customers who buy, but talking to the person that did not buy can be even more important.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your sales ratio is 1 in 5 — for every five people you see, you make one sale. What about those other four? Why didn’t they buy?

Maybe it was the selection, your tips to improve sales productivity, or your pricing. By not asking, you will never know. By not asking, you hand that potential customer over to your competition on a silver platter.

The purpose isn’t to turn that sale around, although that could happen. It’s to learn what you can do next time. Don’t go overboard. Let’s look at an apparel store.

You had 10 customers come in, and you made two sales. You thank those customers and ask the others why they did not buy (tell them you’re going to market and you want their input). You get eight different reasons. What do you do? Nothing. You do not have enough of one reason to make an informed decision.

Now let’s look at it this way. Out of the eight, you have six who say they can’t find their size or the prices are too high. Now you have something to go on. If you have the same problems coming from six of the eight who did not buy, this will tell you that you need to make some changes.

Meeting your customers’ needs can’t be accomplished just by looking at what you’re selling. It’s what you’re not selling, what you’re marking down, and what you’re not giving your customers that counts.

People love to give advice. All you have to do is ask. It’s what you do with that information that counts.

Copyright (c) Elements of Success, David Wing and Retail Advisors. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact David Wing at success@retailadvz.com. Visit the Retail Business Resource Center at http://www.retailadvz.com. Retail Advisors, Helping Independent Retailers Since 1988.

Here are seven low-cost but highly effective marketing tips to help any small business find customers and generate sales quickly.

1. Don’t advertise like a big business

Big businesses advertise to create name recognition and future sales. A small business can’t afford to do that. Instead, design your advertising to produce sales… now. One way to accomplish this is to always include an offer in your advertising — and an easy way for prospective customers to respond to it.

2. Offer a cheaper version

Some prospective customers are not willing to pay the asking price for your product or service. Others are more interested in paying a low price than in getting the best quality. You can avoid losing sales to many of these customers by offering a smaller or stripped-down version of your product or service at a lower price.

3. Offer a premium version

Not all customers are looking for a cheap price. Many are willing to pay a higher price to get a premium product or service. You can boost your average size sale and your total revenue by offering a more comprehensive product or service or by combining several products or services in a special premium package offer for a higher price.

4. Try some unusual marketing methods

Look for some unconventional marketing methods your competitors are overlooking. You may discover some highly profitable ways to generate sales and avoid competition. For example, print your best small ad on a postcard and mail it to prospects in your targeted market. A small ad on a postcard can drive a high volume of traffic to your website or generate a flood of sales leads for a very small cost.

5. Trim your ads

Reduce the size of your ads so you can run more ads for the same cost. You may even be surprised to find that some of your short ads generate a better response than their longer versions.

6. Set up joint promotions with other small businesses 

Contact some non-competing small businesses serving customers in your market. Offer to publicize their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicizing your services to their customers. Cross-promotion usually produces a large number of sales for a very low cost.

7. Cater to your existing customers

Your customers already know and trust you. It’s easier to get more business from them than to get any business from somebody who never bought from you. Take advantage of this by creating some special deals just for your existing customers… and announce new products and services to them before you announce them to the general market.

Also, convert your customers into publicity agents for your business. Develop an incentive for them to tell associates and friends about the value of your products or services. An endorsement from clients is more effective than any amount of advertising — and it’s much cheaper.

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Each of these seven marketing tips provides a simple, low-cost way for any small business to find customers and generate sales quickly.

Written by Bob Leduc

Christmas is big business.

The holiday season is the busiest shopping time of the year, and your company deserves to share in its riches, no matter your industry or preferred holiday — Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, or New Year’s. Here’s how to market your company during Christmas.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) noted that retail sales for the 2023 holiday season hit a record $964.4 billion despite continued inflation and high interest rates. Sales for the full year grew 3.6% over 2022 to a record $5.13 trillion.

Every business type, not just retail or online stores, can profit from increased holiday spending by using a little creativity, some preplanning, and one or more of the Christmas marketing ideas below.

Included in each idea are specific examples by industry including restaurants, salons, services, and business to business (B2B). These are proven ways to promote your company that are budget-friendly and doable, too. These holiday campaigns can delight your customers and turn browsers into shoppers.

Let’s get busy making merry and making cash with a successful Christmas campaign!

What is Christmas marketing?

Traditionally, Christmas marketing has been considered advertising campaigns focused on standard Christmas purchases such as toys and gifts. Today, Christmas marketing has dramatically expanded in all ways, including themes, time frames, holidays, and holiday marketing campaigns.

The six months of September to February of the following year encompass holidays including Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, year-end tax savings, school break, and New Year’s.

Promotional themes have gone way beyond standard family gift-giving to include treat-yourself gifts, community relationship building, public relations, charitable causes, and year-end tax savings.

Why launch Christmas marketing campaigns?

The most important reason to create your own Christmas marketing campaigns is to profit from consumers’ and businesses’ increased spending habits during the holidays.

People are out spending a lot of money, so you want to present your company’s products and services attractively to boost Christmas sales.

Consumers are expressing their love for family members with gifts, traveling to relatives, entertaining friends, decorating their homes, and buying new fashions for holiday parties.

Businesses are taking advantage of holiday deals to outfit their offices and stores, while many firms are planning end-of-year purchases to take advantage of tax savings.

In addition to the sales opportunities, Christmas marketing offers customer relations-building options. This is a time of year when you can strengthen existing client relationships, create new customer connections, and support employee and vendor associations.

Also, there are great ways to publicize your company to get free media coverage for your charitable endeavors and creative marketing programs.

Plan your Christmas marketing strategy

Planning a Christmas marketing strategy is crucial to making the most of the holiday season. It’s essential to set clear and achievable goals, understand your target audience, and create a cohesive plan that aligns with your brand’s identity and values.

Set clear and achievable goals for the holiday season

Before diving into your Christmas marketing strategy, it’s essential to set clear and achievable goals for the holiday season. Whether you aim to increase sales, boost website traffic, or enhance brand awareness, having specific targets will help you create a focused and effective marketing plan.

For instance, you might set goals like:

• Increasing sales by 20% compared to the previous year
• Boosting website traffic by 30% during the holiday season
• Enhancing brand awareness by 25% through social media engagement

By setting these specific goals, you can tailor your marketing efforts to drive the desired results and make the most of the festive season.

Focus on understanding your target audience for Christmas shopping

Understanding your target audience is the cornerstone of any successful Christmas marketing strategy. Knowing who your customers are, what they like, and what they’re looking for during the holiday season will help you create campaigns that resonate with them.

To get a clear picture of your audience, consider:

• Conducting market research to identify demographics and interests
• Analyzing customer data to understand shopping habits and preferences
• Creating detailed buyer personas to guide your marketing efforts

By focusing on your target audience, you can craft personalized and effective marketing messages that drive engagement and sales during the Christmas shopping frenzy.

Holiday Design Contests 

Every year, Starbucks asks their customers to submit designs for their holiday coffee cups. It’s a big success and gets customers interested in their holiday menu.

You could ask customers to help design some of your holiday items, including seasonal logos, window displays, Christmas cards, limited edition Christmas tree ornaments, packaging, slogans, ads, holiday menus, and Christmas decorations.

Have some fun, and use your social media accounts and website to solicit contest entries and create brand engagements. Award the winner some cash or gift certificates, then publicize their name and design.

Christmas Giveaways 

Everyone loves giveaways, and they’re a key part of effective Christmas promotion ideas. You can give all sorts of things — discounts, information, upgrades, exposure, warranties, promotional items (pens, pads, etc.), accessories, special access, future bundle packages, and prizes! Use the number 12 — as in 12 days of Christmas — for a series of 12 days of giveaway items to both new and existing customers.

Giveaway Ideas for Your Industry:

• Restaurants: Give free dessert with dinner.
• Retailers: A fashion styling session with a designer and coupons for the whole year on the 12th of each month!
• Services: Upgrade a service to include additional items such as expanded coverage or quicker response.

Use social media and email marketing to contact your customers and promote the campaign on your website.

Gift Guides 

Using a comprehensive gift guide, you can help your customers answer the age-old holiday question, “What gift should I give to them?”

Create interesting gift guides on your website and share them on your social media, website, email marketing, and texts.

Focus your guides on categories of people, such as gift guides for husbands, wives, bosses, employees, service providers, neighbors, teachers, mail carriers, house cleaners, and significant others.

Service providers, you also can create gift lists that include gift certificates, special services for mom and dad, and perhaps a subscription service for your boss.

Don’t forget stocking stuffers. People love to buy inexpensive and fun items like these. Create a list or display in your store and include small items.

Last-Minute Holiday Deals and Flash Sales

The majority of holiday shoppers procrastinate until the last minute to buy Christmas gifts. Help those shoppers finish their buying needs by offering last-minute holiday deals, discounts, coupons, personal shopper services, and quick shipping schedules.

Launch a flash sale — a previously unannounced and super attractive deal for a limited time (days or hours). Notify your customers via text message, email, website pop-up, and social media. 

Holiday Decorations

Festive holiday decorations are not just whimsical; they can be money-making, especially when paired with the right Christmas gifts!

One of my clients, a dental clinic, always wins the local town Christmas tree contest with their original and beautiful decorations. This is a huge boost for their community relations and brand awareness, and it gets lots of local publicity in the newspaper and on the radio.

New patients have booked appointments saying that they learned of the dental office while reading the newspaper article about the holiday decoration contest. They were impressed with the dentist’s community spirit.

So be sure to decorate your business place, even if it’s only an office. Examples of tasteful decorations include simple Christmas trees, white lighting, and interior decor. One of my business consulting clients does a nice job in their office entry by switching out the area rug to a solid red one and adding masses of red poinsettia plants. It’s simple but effective and elegant.

Decorate your website

While you’re busy decorating your physical business, don’t forget your digital real estate.

The same dental office I described above also decorates their website. During the Christmas season, they update their website with a flurry of snowflakes and playful elves to make their pediatric dental patients smile.

Social Media

Have fun on social media by seasonally decorating your profile accounts and sharing helpful holiday tips. 

This is the best time of year to share interesting winter visuals, heartwarming stories, and holiday tips that directly relate to your business and customer needs. For a restaurant, examples would be sharing tips on how to cook for large groups, easy recipes for holiday entertaining, resource guides on how to buy hard-to-find ingredients (like roasted chestnuts), and a small number of coupons for announcements and sales promotions. 

Use your social media platforms for contests, coupons, surveys, giveaways, and just plain old fun. Post your ugliest Christmas sweater and worst singing of Christmas music. 

Here are some more social media marketing tips for the holiday season from the experts at Sendible:

Buying for Yourself: One for Me, One for You 

A large majority of Christmas shoppers buy gifts for themselves while shopping for others.  

Use this buying habit by offering two-for-one deals — one is a gift for someone else, and the other is a gift for the shopper to keep for themselves. This can quickly double your sales by appealing to your buyers’ personal desires. 

My fashion boutique clients sell many double gift sets — two scarves, two handbags, and two sweaters bundled as one product — one to give and one to keep. 

Decorate your fleet for the holidays

While you’re decorating your store and restaurant, don’t forget about your trucks, vans, and company cars. 

Vehicles (boats and planes, too!) can be decorated with holiday greetings on magnetic signs, seasonal lights, or a festive wreath. These make your vehicle stand out and bring attention to your company, brand, goods, and services. 

Holiday Food Creations 

How about asking your customers to create a special holiday dish for your restaurant menu? 

If you own a pizzeria, how about asking your patrons to submit ideas on Uncle Nick’s favorite pizza pie?  The winner could win local fame, his photo on the wall, and a few pizza pies.

Another idea is to create special holiday-themed dishes, such as all-red, all-green, or traditional holiday fare. Mexican restaurants could serve red chili and green chili dishes or Santa’s favorite chili. 

Charity Fundraising 

Showcase your philanthropic side by staging promotions that help raise funds for charities. 

These could be local charities or your customers’ favorite charities. Consider staging an event such as a Christmas tree decorating contest where people submit design ideas for your company tree. The winner gets to pick their favorite charity for your corporate annual donation. 

Commemorative Ornaments 

Your attractive, limited-edition holiday ornaments can be appreciated and displayed in your customers’ homes. 

Consider designing your own ornament as a customer gift, which would include your (tasteful) branding. Everyone likes to receive free gifts, and this one could be retained and used annually.

Holiday Edition Products and Packaging  

Use the holidays as inspiration for special edition products and packaging. One of the most successful holiday-only products is Yankee Candle’s seasonal fragrant candles, evergreen, cinnamon, and snowflake.  Being in limited supply increases consumer demand and buying urgency. 

Consider different packaging colors and designs as limited-time options. Photographers could offer holiday family portrait sessions with seasonal backgrounds and props. Coffee shops can debut special edition menu items such as pumpkin-spiced baked goods. Fitness studios can offer a series of “New Year, New You” workout classes. 

Use online notification messages and banner bars

Let technology be Santa’s helper. Use online devices on your website, such as push notifications. These little messages pop up when people visit your website and remind them of your special Christmas promotions. Use them to give special coupons, introduce flash sales, or extend holiday shopping hours.

Another tech marketing tip is to use a brightly colored bar across the top of your website with a rotating set of holiday promotions.

Holiday Mobile App

Perhaps your business type is well suited to the creation of a helpful mobile app. Help your customers keep track of their holiday information shopping list, recipe collection, gift budget, and holiday card contact information. 

The goal is to make it a fun, easy-to-use app that your customers will find truly useful. Your brand messaging and links to sale pages can appear in the footer and sidebar of the app.

You can make the holiday app available on your website for free download and promote it in your email marketing and text messaging campaigns. 

Host a holiday community event

Support your community and local charities by hosting a breakfast or lunch fundraising event. Consider hosting the event at a senior center, school, or food bank to support their charitable efforts. If you own a restaurant, you could host the event at your place, which will give you extra brand promotion.

Partner with other businesses that can donate food and door prizes to share the work and community goodwill. 

These types of heart-warming events often attract media attention, resulting in positive business publicity while spreading holiday joy to those in need. 

Partner with other businesses 

Double your Christmas marketing success by partnering with a complementary business to create innovative promotions. You can bundle deals and promote each other’s offers.   

One of my fashion clients partners with a trendy nightclub that their customers frequent. The retailer promotes the nightclub concerts while the nightclub both displays fashion merchandise and distributes boutique discount coupons. 

The best partner promotions are when you both share a similar customer demographic but are not directly competitive. Examples of good partners include Christmas decoration installers and caterers or hair salons and fitness gyms.

Small Business Saturday Program

In the U.S., Small Business Saturday is the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The National Federation of Independent Businesses has hosted the event for the past decade. Check with your local chamber of commerce to find out how you can join and benefit from the “Shop Local, Shop Small” promotion. 

Mail Christmas cards

At first glance, this may seem old-fashioned advice, but that is exactly why it is so effective.  Because so many businesses have completely switched over to digital communication, people are receiving very few holiday cards, so your card wishing a Merry Christmas will stand out.

Times may have changed, but humans still enjoy receiving beautiful Christmas cards to display in their homes and appreciate that you thought of them during the holidays.

Today, email messages are often considered more of a burden than a joy. Also, most emails are viewed by only one person and then deleted instantly. Compare that to an attractive printed Christmas card that is displayed in the office for lots of people to enjoy.

Select cards that are self-referential for your business. This means that the cards communicate your selling points in addition to holiday greetings. I selected trendy, artistic cards from museums to communicate that our design agency was on the cutting edge of fashion.  My cards stood out from other boring, more generic cards. Check out our guide to the best business Christmas cards.

Display impulse items near the register

Smart retailers always have low-priced items near their cash registers for quick impulse purchases, such as snacks and phone charging cords. Recently, when I was shopping at a luxury department store, they had mini boxes of Godiva chocolates near the register.

Use this time-tested technique for your business. Your restaurant could display gift cards near the register or at the bar, where there is lots of customer interaction. You could also have a rack of flyers with your holiday catering menu.  

My cafe client gets lots of office breakfast catering jobs from her morning coffee customers who see her flyers when they pick up their drink orders. You may be surprised at how many of your restaurant customers are unaware that you offer catering (even though you have told them and advertised before).. Help them with their holiday celebrations, meetings, and home parties.

Gift Certificates

Every business should have gift cards or gift certificates available and prominently displayed throughout the holiday season (and all year long, too!). 

People are looking for interesting gifts to give their family and work colleagues. Put up prominent signs inside your establishment and on your website about your gift-giving options. 

Recently, I attended a wedding and purchased a gift certificate at the couple’s favorite local restaurant. I bought this gift because I knew that this couple — who had both been married before and had all the toasters they needed — would really enjoy spending time together having a romantic meal.

Send an email marketing series

Email marketing is a powerful tool for driving sales and engagement during the holiday season. By sending a series of targeted emails, you can keep your customers informed about promotions, new products, and exclusive offers.

To create an effective email marketing series:

• Segment your email list to target specific groups of customers
• Craft eye-catching subject lines and visually appealing email templates
• Offer exclusive discounts and promotions to entice your audience

A well-planned email marketing series can keep your brand top-of-mind and drive significant sales during the holiday season.

Remember the rule of four for email marketing success. For every one sales message (promotion, discount, or deal) that you send, be sure to send three (or more) high-value, information-based emails your customers will find truly useful. 

Here are some examples for a fitness studio series of emails: ways to add exercise to a busy holiday season, how to avoid fattening holiday party fare, and healthier versions of seasonal dishes. On the fourth email, you mention your gift certificates and discounted New Year’s membership packages. 

Text message reminders

Yes, you can use text messaging to send special deals, coupons, and gift-buying reminders. 

But some of the more customer-appreciated (and thus more effective) texts are heartwarming holiday stories, inspiring quotes, suggested travel destinations, funny Christmas videos, beautiful seasonal photos, and fun holiday activities.  

The very best way to sell is not to sell! I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. 

Instead of always selling, give value to your customers and fill their needs by using your expertise. A good rule of thumb is three helpful info-only messages and one sales message.

Here are a couple of text message ideas for your industry: 

Hair Salons

Text links to hair styling video tutorials for holiday parties. Then you could mention that you’re open for in-salon styles if they don’t want to do their own hair.  

Fashion Retailer

Text tips on how to style outfits to look great at holiday parties. 

Design festive visuals for your Christmas marketing campaign

Festive visuals are a crucial part of any Christmas marketing campaign. By incorporating seasonal imagery and design elements, you can create a cohesive and engaging brand identity that resonates with your target audience.

Here are some tips for designing festive visuals:

• Use seasonal colors and imagery, such as red and green, snowflakes, and Christmas trees
• Create custom graphics and illustrations that reflect your brand’s personality and style
• Incorporate festive typography and fonts to add a touch of holiday cheer

By designing festive visuals, you can capture the Christmas spirit and make your marketing campaigns more appealing and memorable.

Create a Santa wish list to encourage gift-giving

A Santa wish list is a fun and interactive way to encourage gift-giving during the holiday season. By creating a list of popular products or services, you can help your customers find the perfect gift for their loved ones.

To create an engaging Santa wish list:

• Identify popular products or services that make great gifts.
• Design a visually appealing list that showcases products in a fun and engaging way.
• Offer exclusive discounts and promotions to drive sales and encourage gift-giving.

A well-crafted Santa wish list can simplify the shopping experience for your customers and boost your holiday sales.

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My fellow entrepreneurs, I encourage you to try at least one or more of the Christmas marketing ideas discussed above. 

Don’t worry if you can’t implement or afford all of these holiday promotional ideas. Just pick a few that you think will be most meaningful to your customers, relevant to your industry, and showcase your business’s unique selling points best.  

Restaurants can stage charity events showcasing their tasty dishes, consulting companies can send Christmas cards with industry-specific graphics, and fashion boutiques can email 12 days of fashion styling tips for holiday parties.

Use Christmas marketing to spread holiday cheer, make your customers smile, and make your bottom line sparkle. 

Good luck with your holiday promotion campaigns. 

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According to a recent study, 80% of sales usually require an average of five follow-up calls after the initial meeting. If you’re a small business owner and you’re only doing one or two follow-ups, imagine all the business you’re losing. Not following up with your prospects and customers is the same as filling up your bathtub without first putting the stopper in the drain!

But don’t be disheartened if you’re among the 90% of business owners I talk to who don’t do any follow-up. The good news is you have ample room for profitable improvement. Consistent follow-up creates a predictable and profitable stream of prospects and customers who buy. Small businesses that capture leads and follow up with them enjoy higher conversion rates and a higher percentage of referrals than those that don’t.

After asking many small business owners the reason they don’t follow up, I often hear responses such as, “I don’t have the sales staff to chase down all our leads” or “We’re usually too busy to do a lot of follow-up.” These responses automatically set off red flags that tell me that they lack a systematic process for following up. The problem isn’t that they don’t have the capacity to follow up with prospects, it’s that they don’t have the systems in place to do it.

RELATED: How to Get Your Customers’ Attention

What does a good follow-up system look like?

A good follow-up marketing system should have three attributes:

• It should be systematic, meaning that the follow-up process is done the same way every time.
• It should generate consistent, predictable results.
• It should require minimal physical interaction to make it run, meaning it should be able to run on autopilot.  

It sounds like a dream come true for most small business owners, doesn’t it? Not only can it be done, it’s being done every day. The secret to “follow-up marketing” is to make it automatic so that you don’t have to lift a finger, but the job still gets done. With today’s technology, it’s simpler than ever. Automating your follow-up processes gives you more time to work “on” your business rather than “in” your business.

Three Types of Follow-Ups

There are three types of people you should be following up with: suspects (people in your target marketplace), prospects (people who have responded to your marketing but have not purchased), and customers (people who have purchased something from you.) Each follow-up message and offer will be different for each type of person. With suspects, you’ll want to entice them to call you or visit your store/office. With prospects, you need to persuade them to make their first purchase. And with customers, you want to convince them to come back and do more business with you and give you referrals.

Obviously, the hardest type of person to follow up with is a suspect because they haven’t shown any interest yet in your product or service, and you usually don’t have their contact information. But that’s not true with prospects and customers. You not only know who they are, but you should already have their contact information. And if you follow up with your customers consistently, you’ll find that they will help you turn your suspects into prospects and prospects into customers for you through referrals.

RELATED: 5 Effective Ways to Let Your Customers Know You Care

Your Follow-Up Marketing Tools

Your principal follow-up marketing tools are the telephone, direct mail, and email. Many pool and hot tub business owners make the mistake of jumping right on the telephone to follow up; however, most prospects don’t want a pushy sales message right away, and most prospects have been trained to consider anyone who calls up to be a pushy salesperson. Instead, you should try to develop a relationship of trust with your prospect by quickly sending informational items such as special reports, audio CDs, or videos before you make a phone call.

Remember to always include a “next-step offer” to accompany your educational materials. If the next step is to visit the store, then entice them with an appropriate offer, or if the next step is to call you, entice your prospect to call you immediately. People move through the buying process in baby steps, especially when considering buying high-ticket items. Your offer should always help them take the next step.

Your Follow-Up Sequence

The power of your follow-up will lie in your follow-up sequence. Your follow-up sequence is a series of communications with your prospect that are “linked” together, with each communication building on the previous message.

For instance, you might start your second letter by saying, “10 days ago, I sent you a letter…” You might also consider stamping the message “2nd Notice” on the envelope to let people know this is the second time you’ve contacted them. Referencing the previous communication links what you’re saying with what you’ve already said and reminds your prospect that you care enough to continue the conversation.

Usually, when doing get attention with direct mail marketing, you should include three to five mailings spaced out about seven days apart. When using a sequential autoresponder, you can have as many follow-ups as you want because using email is basically free (that’s why you always want to get a prospect’s email address). One of my clients has over 20 follow-ups in his autoresponder sequence that go out over a six-month period.

Each sequence should follow a logical argument, and you might consider bolstering the offer with each communication using a deadline as a motivator to act now. As an example, in the third communication, you could say, “I’m surprised you haven’t taken me up on my generous offer. What’s holding you back?” Or consider saying, “I’ve written you three times, and you still haven’t taken me up on my offer, so I’m going to pull out all the stops and make you an offer you simply can’t refuse.” Notice how the language always links the previous communication and increases the boldness of the offer. It’s the same type of conversation you might have in a regular sales conversation.

RELATED: 6 Ways to Get Lost Customers to Start Buying Again

How to Put Your Follow-Up Marketing System on Autopilot

What I’m about to reveal to you is the key to developing a powerful follow-up marketing system because it overcomes the number one reason most businesses don’t follow up. You must automate your follow-up system as much as possible so that there are few, if any, physical interactions from your employees with the system. It’s the required physical interactions (for example, printing letters, sending emails, inputting leads, etc.) where 99% of all the breakdowns happen in well-intentioned follow-up marketing systems.

To automate your follow-ups, you might want to consider using robotic marketing systems and outsourcing any manual interactions to a dedicated service. For instance, to capture your leads, you could consider using a toll-free automated recorded message system that captures your prospects’ contact information, automatically transcribes it, and sends your leads to you in a spreadsheet every morning via email.

If you’re using a direct mail follow-up system (and you should be), find a fulfillment house to do the mailings for you. To find a fulfillment house, simply go to your local printer and ask them to refer you to one in the area.

Now, step back for a moment and see the power of what I’ve just revealed to you. Imagine running an ad, having your prospect call up and give their contact information via your recorded message system. Then imagine having your leads automatically sent to your fulfillment house via email, after which your prospect receives a five-sequence direct mail package containing your most persuasive marketing message — without you lifting one finger!

You can set up the exact same type of “hands-free” follow-up marketing system using an email autoresponder system. Your prospect will not only receive your direct mail messages, but you can insert your email messages between your mailings.

What about calling to follow up?

You’ll notice that I didn’t say anything about calling your prospect. That’s because you want your prospect to have already received your educational marketing messages and have most of their questions answered before they call you. An educated prospect is your best prospect.

They already know why you’re different, what your identifying your unique selling proposition is, and how you’re uniquely qualified to meet their needs. In essence, they’ve pre-qualified themselves before you ever have to spend time physically speaking to them. This drastically reduces the sales cycle and increases your conversion rate because you have positioned your small business to be their only logical choice.

Conclusion

Follow-up marketing can boost your closing rate and dramatically increase your customer satisfaction. Following up with systematic processes allows you to better utilize your salespeople’s time and enhance their productivity, which will result in more sales with less effort. Isn’t that what you want? Start winning more sales today by implementing your own follow-up marketing system.

Happy follow-up marketing!

Written by David Frey, Marketing Best Practices Inc.

Grabbing attention in our super-distracted world is a struggle, and keeping audiences engaged over time is even more challenging. Consumers today are bombarded with bombastic content jostling for public attention at every turn, making it trickier than ever for brands to connect with potential customers. 

Despite the glut of content on social media, experts still generally see it as the best way to get your business’s message in front of the right audience, and social video and video ads are among the most popular ways to do so. 

According to DataReportal, the number of people using social media climbed at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12% to 4.62 billion over the past 10 years, and video-focused platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are among the most popular channels. 

1. What is brand awareness?
2. Why Social Media Video Is Useful for Brand Awareness
   
3. How to Build a Good Video Strategy
   
4. 7 Tips for Creating Great Video on Social Media
   

What is brand awareness?

Every relationship is based on trust, and consumer relationships are no different. Trust can be built in a number of different ways, including past experiences with the brand, recommendations from friends, and researching a brand’s reputation. For example, in 2021, 77% of consumers said they either regularly or always read reviews before shopping somewhere new. 

But trust can also be built simply through brand awareness. A Google study found that people are more likely to buy from a brand name that they’re familiar with, concluding that brand awareness makes up more than one-third of the purchase decision. 

Perhaps that’s why marketers placed growing brand awareness at the top of their list of goals for content marketing. See more on content marketing definition.

Why social media video is useful for brand awareness

Social media video ties in neatly with this need to increase brand awareness, with 93% of marketers saying corporate video helped attract new customers and fans to their business brand.

Let’s take a look at a few of the key reasons why this is the case.

Consumers are eager for video content

People watch an average of 2.5 hours of video per day and 19 hours a week, far more time than they spend on other content types. 

Video content is shared twice as often as other media types, and almost three-quarters of consumers say they’d prefer to learn about a product or brand by watching a video than by reading text. 

Video content outperforms on algorithms

Both search engines and social media platforms prioritize video content. Recently, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, told viewers in a live session that video is a key focus area for the platform, “driving an immense amount of growth online for all major platforms.” 

Even on X (formerly Twitter), a more text-oriented platform, statistics show that tweets with video are 10x more effective at driving engagement than those without video. 

Video is highly engaging

Consumers will continue watching a video for more time than they’ll spend on other types of content, which means they spend more time engaged with your branding. 

In 2022, 54% of viewers watched a video all the way through to the end, compared with 45% in 2020, even though average video lengths have risen from around 6 minutes to almost 10 minutes in the same timeframe. 

Video builds connections

Video is one of the best storytelling media around. 

It offers an opportunity to talk directly to the consumer and convey an authentic voice, fleshing out your brand into a distinct personality that people can relate to. 

How to Build a Good Video Strategy

Now that we’ve reviewed some of the reasons that video formats make such effective assets for driving brand awareness, let’s take a look at the process you’ll need to undergo for getting started with a solid video strategy.

1. Define your audience

Different audiences are receptive to different voices, styles, and types of videos, so you need to define your audience before you can produce a video they’ll like. 

@mtv

The only thing on my mind are these iconic duos from last night’s #MTVAwards 🥰

♬ original sound – MTV

For example, MTV, which typically targets teens and young adults, featured the D’Amelio sisters and other youth-favorite social media stars in its recent recap clips from the MTV Movie & TV Awards. 

2. Set clear goals

Every marketing campaign needs to be driven by a goal, and that’s true for social media video, too. With a clear goal, you’ll be able to tailor your video choices appropriately, whether it’s to raise brand awareness, drive conversions, or boost your reputation. 

For example, Lego made a series of videos with the hashtag #RebuildTheWorld to polish up its brand reputation for sustainability, diversity, and creativity. The videos star a diverse range of influencers to ramp up Lego values. 

3. Choose the right platforms and video types

Even once you’ve defined your audience and goals, there are still so many different kinds of video to choose from, such as live video, asynchronous video, behind-the-scenes video, explainer video, and more. 

Your choice of digital platform feeds into the video format you choose. Each platform has its own video formats, like Facebook Stories and Facebook Live, Instagram Reels and IGTV, and TikTok’s portrait feed videos. 

4. Create great content 

It might be stating the obvious, but if your videos are boring, they’re not going to drive positive brand awareness. Think of the famous Dollar Shave Club videos — they are often outrageous and over the top, but they are certainly memorable.

Thankfully, content production is easier than you might think with video maker apps. Filters, special effects, masks, templates, chroma key editor, and mixers can help you turn mundane video content into something astonishing. 

5. Schedule and promote your videos 

Making the video is only half the challenge. Even the best content is unlikely to go viral unless you plan to schedule and promote it. 

That includes researching the best times of day and week to post your new video, cross-posting to other sites like Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, and encouraging employees and loyal fans to share your content so it reaches more eyes. Likewise, using a social media calendar can help keep you organized with your cross-channel efforts.

6. Analyze and adapt

Successful video promotion requires dedication to data. You need to keep track of video analytics so you can optimize for metrics like:

• Watch time
• Viewer counts
• Shares, likes, and comments
• Conversion rates 
• Viewer demographics

Use these stats to tweak your next video accordingly. 

Most social media platforms include video analytics as a service, but they’ll each track slightly different metrics and display the results in slightly different visualizations, so it’s important to inform yourself about the options. 

7 Tips for Creating Great Video on Social Media

The above steps should be enough to get you started with a basic process for driving brand awareness with social media video. As you embark on this process, though, it can be helpful to keep the following “best practices” tips in mind.

1. Keep video quality high. That includes removing any buzz or static from the audio, using HD for visuals, and keeping that camera steady.
   
2. Tell a story. As we already mentioned above, your video needs to have a coherent narrative, even if it’s just a few seconds long.
   
3. Ensure your video gives value to the viewer. Even if your video is a short paid advert, people want to be entertained and/or informed.
   
4. Include subtitles. Many viewers watch videos on silent, and subtitles make your video accessible to everyone.
   
5. Begin with a bang. Viewers make a decision about your video and form an opinion about your brand sometimes in less than a second, so you need to grab them from the get-go.
   
6. Put emotions on display. People respond emotionally to emotional video, so don’t be afraid to show vulnerability, joy, or anxiety in your video content.
   
7. Keep it short. People prefer short videos, with most under one minute and fewer than half exceeding two minutes.

Social media video can be your bridge to success

Social media might be crowded with video, but that’s testimony to its effectiveness for brand awareness. By investing in producing social video that’s the right length, tells a story, and engages the viewer; defining goals, audiences, platforms, and video types; and tapping into analytics to keep improving your decisions, you can boost brand awareness and drive more revenue to grow your business.