12 Days of Christmas Marketing Campaign Ideas
Thursday 28th November 2024
by Beth Perrin
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The holiday season is the perfect time to create compelling social media content that will engage your audience, raise brand awareness, encourage conversions and spread festive cheer - and one of the best ways to achieve this is via a 12 days of Christmas campaign.
Traditionally, the 12 days of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and end on January 5th, so if you want your campaign to take place during the official event, these are the days you should choose. However, nowadays, it’s not uncommon for people to describe the days leading up to the 25th as the 12 days of Christmas instead, giving you an opportunity to present your campaign more like an advent calendar or countdown to the big day. Alternatively, if you’d prefer to spread your campaign out across the whole of December, you could simply pick 12 days throughout the month with gaps in between to build anticipation between each post.
Let’s take a look at some of the best ideas for your 12 days of Christmas campaign.
12 Days of Giveaways
Gifts are of course one of the best parts of Christmas, so your 12 days campaign could involve a series of giveaways or contests with fun and exciting prizes. As well as benefiting your audience, giveaways are great for your business too - they have a 3.7% higher conversion rate compared to other CTAs, plus over 34% of new customers are acquired through competitions.
Depending on the nature of your brand, prizes could include products or product bundles, gift cards, a meal, a hotel stay or a free ticket to your location. Don’t forget to include a campaign-specific hashtag, such as your brand name followed by ‘12 days of Christmas’ or a fun festive wordplay relating to your brand name.
🎉 Our 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway is BACK! 🎄✨ Win HUGE prizes from major brands. Here are ALL the details... https://t.co/VhxY9bNMK3
— UnderTheXmasTree (@underxmastree) November 19, 2024
🎅 Spread the cheer & gain extra entries by: ✅ Following us on ALL our socials ✅ Sharing our posts ✅ Using #12DaysOfChristmas pic.twitter.com/ctkITQKkHS
Daily Flash Sales
Posts about discounts and sales are the most valued type of social media content for 72% of consumers, so sharing daily offers will help to inspire urgency and encourage shoppers to grab a deal before each item goes back up to full price. Your 12 days of offers could include:
• A discount on a specific product or range
• Free or reduced shipping
• A free gift with each order placed on that day
• Exclusive savings for members/loyal customers
• Buy one get one free
You’ll need to be on standby with excellent customer service in case customers need any assistance entering discount codes or applying vouchers at the checkout, or if they want to double check what’s included in an offer. Make sure to train your team on the details of each day’s deal before the campaign starts so they know how to handle a wide range of potential enquiries.
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Promote Your Seasonal Products
If your brand has launched a limited edition product collection or menu, especially for the festive season, you can use your 12 days of Christmas campaign to promote a new item each day, with a series of eye-catching images or videos to showcase them. Make sure to let your customers know that these products will only be around for a short period of time, so they need to be quick and treat themselves before they’re gone. This is especially impactful for hospitality brands, with 70% of diners agreeing that they enjoy seeing seasonal menu offerings at restaurants.
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Influencer Partnerships or Brand Collaborations
Consider partnering with 12 different influencers, brands or organisations to share collaborative content each day throughout your festive campaign. 69% of consumers trust what influencers say and recommend, and 71% say that they enjoy co-branding partnerships, making collabs a powerful and effective strategy for your business.
Macro influencers
These influencers are just a step down from traditional celebrities (mega-influencers). They typically have between 100,000 and 1 million followers and have a fairly broad audience because they cover a range of topics instead of just one niche.
Micro influencers
These influencers have between 10,000 and 100,000 followers, and their content usually revolves around a specific niche.
Nano influencers
These influencers typically have less than 10,000 followers and operate within a super niche community, but as a result of their smaller audience size, they’re able to generate lots of engagement.
Complementary brands
Consider joining forces with another brand that ties in well with yours, such as a luggage brand if you’re in the travel industry or an accessories brand if you’re in the clothing industry.
Charities/non-profit organisations
45% of consumers say they are more likely to buy from a brand that donates a portion of its profits to charity, so partnering with an organisation that matters to you will not only bring you closer to the causes you care about, but can also increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Christmas Gift Guide
The majority (55%) of UK adults expect to spend most of their Christmas budget on gifts for others this year, so why not give your customers some inspiration for presents for their friends and family by assembling a handy gift guide? Use the 12 days to outline 12 of your top products, and suggest which items to pair them with and who they’re suitable for. Don’t forget to take advantage of product tagging and other shopping tools on social media which can facilitate direct sales and make it even easier for your followers to purchase items without having to leave your page.
Daily Festive Activities
A fun way to encourage UGC - and to also get your own team involved - is to share 12 days of festive activities for everyone to participate in. These could include Christmas craft projects, recipes, or as seen in the example below, dress up ideas. Find ways to tie in your product or service with each activity, ask your followers to submit photos and videos of themselves trying them out, and humanise your brand by sharing pictures of your employees taking part.
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Christmas Marketing: Do’s and Don’ts
• Do focus on building long-term customer relationships. Flash sales and giveaways may attract temporary traffic to your social pages, but it’s important to give these newcomers a reason to stick around and continue using your brand once the festive season is over.
• Don’t spam your audience with excessive content - focus on creating genuine value and avoid repetitive messaging.
• Do use holiday-related keywords and hashtags to boost your social SEO.
• Don’t go overboard with holiday clichés! Showing festive spirit is of course a fun and positive thing, but posting irrelevant content just because it’s Christmas can deter and irritate followers.
• Do use a mix of both paid and organic content to optimise your budget, target the right audiences and drive website traffic.
• Don’t forget to respond to comments and DMs from your customers and followers - remember to carry out Community Management around the clock.
Summary
Whether you’re planning to run your 12 days of Christmas campaign during the traditional event or as a countdown to the big day, we hope the ideas we’ve shared today have sparked some inspiration for your posts. The festive season is undoubtedly the most important time in the marketing calendar, so make sure to take advantage of the opportunities it presents for both sales and community building.
Need some more pointers for the holiday period? Check out our previous posts to discover more December marketing ideas and learn how to prepare your customer service for Christmas.
