2024 will mark John’s 12th festive season of working with Amazon, so we suppose you could say he’s picked up some tips down the years on how businesses communicate well with customers at Christmas.
Here’s some seasonal musings for any organisations out there who want to create effective and impactful Christmas campaigns as we get ready for fa-la-la-ing!
Make a list, and check it twice
Planning is everything when it comes to Christmas communications. You wouldn’t go to the supermarket and blindly buy your Christmas dinner items – you’d have a list – so take the same approach to your comms.
This doesn’t have to be fancy by the way – a simple one pager will do. What would you like to achieve? Who do you want to see it? When would you like to do it? And, most crucially, why do you want to do it?
The ‘why’ is super important – especially when it comes to social media. Having a why along the lines of ‘we want to reach one million people’ isn’t where you should focus your energy – be more strategic than that. Just because people see something, it doesn’t mean they engage with it. Let’s say you’re doing a social media campaign with an influencer, and you’ve got two options – go with a big influencer with mass follower counts but not much of a vibe with your brand, or a micro influencer with way less followers but is totally engaged in what your brand does.
Hitting 1,000 people who would buy your product is much more impactful than getting in front of 100,000 people who probably won’t make a purchase. Don’t base it all on follower numbers.
I promise you that if you have a plan, your festive comms is much more likely to succeed. Ho ho ho.
Don’t leave it to the last minute
For many people, the Christmas shopping season starts on Black Friday, which takes place at the end of November. In the PR world, Christmas planning starts much earlier than that.
We have meetings about Christmas campaigns in the summer, which is around the same time that a lot of longer lead media start thinking about what they’re going to cover for the festive season.
While we’re not suggesting you get the Christmas decorations out in July, it IS worth thinking about what you’re going to talk about in the run-up to Christmas, especially if your business sells products. Try mapping out your communications plans – a press release, a gift to an influencer, a social media post – whatever it is – as far in advance as possible. Particularly if you’re dealing with long lead print media.
It's the thought that counts
We love working on big budget Christmas campaigns – who doesn’t? But your festive comms doesn’t always need to break the bank. Look around your business – what do you have that people might find interesting? The process of making a product? A special edition of your bestseller that’s coming out in time for Christmas? Trends or sales data?
Most business owners or brand managers we speak to often don’t realise that they have lots of interesting content and stories within their company already. We get it – if you’re working on something every day, then it becomes normal to you – but never make the mistake of thinking it wouldn’t be interesting to other people.
I’ll give you an example. Way back in the 2010s, I was planning Christmas stories for Amazon. One of the tabloids asked for a list of the bestselling female calendars, and when I asked the store team for the data, I asked if they could send me the male list too.
When I got the spreadsheet of data, I scrolled down the list. Number two in the charts was One Direction. Who beat them to the top spot? Cliff Richard. As soon as I saw that, I knew I had a hit on my hands. A press release draft and some pics of Cliff later, and we had a LOT of national press coverage, including a hit on the BBC website.
Regarding Christmas campaigns that won’t break the bank, this cost £700 and got press coverage around the world. You can create great campaigns with big budgets AND small budgets.
Simple, cost effective and impactful. You will have stories to tell. Find them!
In other news…
A final way to get Christmas coverage for your business is, surprisingly, to make the story or campaign not about Christmas at all.
Most journalists I know get a little fatigued by Christmas stories so if you’re doing something in December that doesn’t have a Christmas angle, then get it out to the world anyway. The fact your story might not be about Christmas at all will likely work in your favour. Or, if you’re dealing with media and you want to be strategic about it, do them a favour and send them a story that could maybe run in the gap between Christmas and New Year. They have copy to file, but they also want time off like the rest of us, so you’d be helping out.
Obviously, all these points go with the caveat of the golden rule – always make sure everything you do with your PR or social media is highly targeted.
Don’t send an irrelevant story to a journalist, don’t do a social campaign for the sake of it and make sure you’re always thinking strategically about what you’re doing.
Nothing is ever guaranteed when it comes to success in the communications world, but if you follow these steps, you’re less likely to get a lump of coal in your stocking…
Enjoy stepping into Christmas when the time comes!
