We’ve finally made it to the halfway mark in the 2014 holiday season. By now you’ve seen your fair share of holiday-themed content, including Christmas commercials that are inevitably aired earlier every year. But there is a good reason for this – for marketers, holiday content simply works.
Like clockwork, B2C companies will be publishing online holiday specials and promotions to encourage consumers to join in the holiday spirit and make a purchase for themselves or that special someone.But B2B companies can also find success by catering to this season of giving and provide their audience with valuable content that keeps them interested and engaged for the rest of the year.
Here are some great content marketing ideas that will not only get your team into the holiday fun, but also deliver some great content for your followers. Creating blog posts, infographics, and even free guides with a holiday twist is a great way to attract big-time traffic to your site and help connect with your audience through 2015.
Gift Buying or Product Guides
Gift Buying Guides make for great content any time of the year – but if you add a big guy with a snowy white beard and red hat – you’ve got content on a huge sugar rush. Make it easy for your readers by posting lists of gift ideas that relate to your target audience. This list can consist of products that your company offers, or not, the main goal here is to provide a resource for people to share with friends and come back to when it’s time to make a purchase.
Try organizing a list by price, theme, or even focus on last minute gift ideas for men/women/or children. If you include just one of your products within the list, it will not come off as blatant self-promotion, but instead a helpful guide that will naturally move the readers down the sales funnel. Even if they don’t make a purchase right away, your trusted and valuable content will be remembered. When it’s time to come back and make a purchase, your brand will be at the forefront of the reader’s mind. This strategy is #1 on our list for a few reasons. These guides are extremely helpful because people actively look for them during the holidays. Although Christmas-themed content may have a shelf-life, the boost you will receive in traffic and sales by creating this content is too big to pass up.
Seasonal Tips
We have said it time and time again: Great content not only tells a great story, but provides value for the reader and educates them on a specific challenge or question. Regardless of your field or niche interest, seasonal tips are a great way to connect with an audience while building trust and establishing your authoritative voice within the industry.
How-to videos, from home winterization tips to new team building ideas for the workplace, the ideas for great holiday tips are endless. Valuable seasonal tips will not only build trust with readers, but connect with them enough where they will share that information with their friends and family – resulting in more traffic and/or sales for your business.
Introduce New Products for Christmas or New Year
For B2C companies, the holiday season is the best time of year to introduce new products you’ve got in the works. Let’s face it, everyone tends to struggle this time of year – whether you are scrambling to finish your Christmas shopping for family, or just can’t seem to find that perfect gift for your significant other – December can be a tough time for buyers if they don’t know what they are looking for. That’s why it’s your job as a brand to deliver content that will entice and attract readers toward your product.
With the entire month of December to build some buzz around your product, create some great content that will showcase and promote a product to get people talking. Once the anticipation for the release is built up, your brand can follow it up with more content that leads up to the big release day. Creating a countdown or building the hype for the product release will keep consumers checking back for more information and help boost sales for your product.
Develop a Holiday Specific Content Strategy
Creating a specific holiday content marketing strategy that includes the ideas listed above can greatly improve your brands traffic, leads and sales. As the most wonderful time of the year, this is your chance to be the storyteller and connect with the audience for the rest of the year.
What type of Holiday-content do you love?
Brad Kuenn is a Content Writer, Editor and Strategist living in Nashville, Tennessee, and he provides research, content topics, writing, editing, and content development expertise to clients. He has a passion for writing as well as art, which shines through in his work. His creativity and attention to detail makes him a valuable asset for a wide range of clients. During his time off he enjoys spending time with his wife, family, and his two dogs Brutus and Kane.
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