We’re getting our holiday giving started a bit early this year. Our first gift to you? This 12-day blog series designed to help you get through your seasonal marketing without a hitch. If you’re just joining us, you can start at the beginning here.
The last stop on our tour of the marketing North Pole is the video. This is a tactic that really allows you to have a little fun with your brand and invite your audience to do the same. While you might choose to feature your services or products in some regard, holiday videos are no place for the hard sell especially for brands with a longer sales cycle.
Videos that leave the salesy message behind can also serve in and of themselves as an entertaining gift for your audience. WestJet created a video that had very little to do with outlining the benefits of their brand and the results were viral. They managed to achieve great things for their brand simply because they connected with customers on a joyous and emotional level.
So how do you create this connection for your own brand? As in all things marketing, you’ll have to consider your audience and what matters to them. But, with distracting carolers and celebrations in the background, you need to dig even deeper into the person behind the sale to capture their attention. Consider writing an industry parody performed to the tune of a widely popular song. Or make it a commentary on the persistent, light-hearted struggles of the holiday season. Your video should hook your audience immediately with familiar themes that draw viewers in and leave them wanting to pass it along.
Which brings us to our next point, you need get your video out there and make it easy to share. Embed it on your landing page and in emails, promote it through all your social channels. You may even consider ascribing a conversation starter and a hashtag like Target did with #MyKindofHoliday.
Don’t be afraid of bringing the wall down. Humanizing your brand can establish trust among your customers, so have fun with it and reveal the personality behind the logo. You might consider including your staff in the video and encouraging them to show a sillier side. This is especially effective if they aren’t afraid to take one for the team and don a pair of bunny ears…
This concludes our 12 Days of Multi-Channel Holiday Marketing series. It should be enough to set you on the path toward a merrier season, even if you think it’s too early to get started (it’s not). If there’s anything we can do to make your festive strategy even easier, we’d love to partner with you this year. Contact us to learn more about how we can help.
