Christmas is a magical time when we want to please our loved ones and ourselves. Consumers are more inclined to interact with brand content, especially when it inspires them to buy gifts.
For companies, Christmas represents an average of 20% of sales. It is therefore crucial to create distinctive Christmas marketing campaigns to capture audience’s attention and boost their sales.
In this article, we’ll be sharing ideas for interactive formats and games to help you achieve your objectives and energize your Christmas marketing campaign.
Anticipate the festive season to optimise your campaigns
E-commerce is booming. At Christmas time 75% of French people buy their gifts on the Internet.
They are inclined to spend online and to plan their purchases so as to spread them over several months. They also want to take advantage of the promotional periods that precede this time (such as Black Friday).
For brands, this means anticipating marketing campaigns as far as possible. They can multiply the points of contact with their audiences, and the opportunites to make purchases on the website (or in-store).
The highlights leading up to Christmas (Halloween, Black Friday, etc.) are opportunities for collecting leads. Companies will be able to activate them by creating marketing campaigns that are effective in converting prospects.
Speaking out in advance allows you to position before everyone else. Brands can boost their visibility and reduce their media budget by communicating when competition is less intense and consumers are less affected by ‘advertising fatigue’.
5 trends to boost your Christmas marketing campaign
To create a Christmas campaign, it’s important to take account of your audience’s expectations, and market trends. Whether linked to advertising, marketing or new habits, these trends will enable companies to engage consumers during the festive season.
These include :
- Made in France. 1 consumer in 2 would prefer local products, Made In France, for Christmas presents. Brands can capitalise on this trend to offer competition prizes that are in line with their customers’ values;
- The end of third-party cookies and proprietary data collection. Brands need to focus on implementing zero-party data collection and opt-in tools to maintain contact and refine their customer knowledge.
- Influence marketing remains a powerful lever for engagement. Consumers are sensitive to partnerships between brands and content creators. These campaigns are effective to generate new conversions.
- Short content is recommended to effectively captivate your audience. Companies need to take account of consumers’ attention spans and offer animations that will encourage users to stop scrolling.
- Native advertising (i.e. that respects the format and codes of the channel on which it is broadcast) is crucial to optimise your presence. It makes for a smoother, more immersive experience.
3 ideas for Christmas marketing campaigns to stand out from the crowd
By capitalising on these trends to capture consumers’ attention, brands can create Christmas marketing campaigns, targeting their objectives.
To inspire them, here are 3 ideas for animations and interactive campaigns to engage and convert your audience.
An engaging speed game to boost brand awareness
Gamification (i.e. incorporating playful elements into sales promotions) is a way for brands to capture and hold consumers attention. One of the most effective formats is an engaging mechanic like Tiny Wings.
This speed game was used by household appliance brand Electrolux for its ‘A Swedish Christmas’ campaign. The aim was to highlight the company’s Swedish origins through a fun, viral game, and thus raise its profile over the festive period.
The addictive nature of the marketing game enabled to capitalise on the interaction to collect opt-ins. With an engagement rate of 92% and sessions lasting 1 minute and 18 seconds. This activity helped to strengthen the brand’s appeal to consumers over the period.
SFR Réunion also relied on this mechanism for its Christmas campaign. Focused on lead generation, this was a great success during the recruitment, thanks to a media strategy based on native advertising.
Thanks to an attractive prize fund, the company was able to attract more than 10k new visitors. And with more than 7 games played per subscriber and a playing time of over 3 minutes, this activity generated support for the brand.
2. Instant win for Christmas coupons
Instant winners are also effective during the Christmas period, when users are looking for deals and discounts to save on their purchases.
The 100% winning Claw machine, enables companies to distribute coupons to participants. Showroomprivé.com banked on this Christmas game during the festive season. 7,000 vouchers were distributed, helping to convert prospects and boosting the brand’s sales.
This animation is part of a drive to store campaign during the Christmas period. McDonald’s franchisees in the North of France have chosen to set up a campaign combining a Flappy and a 100% winning claw machine. These events enabled users to win discount vouchers to be used to purchase a Maxi Best Of menu in participating restaurants. This was a way of boosting traffic in the brand’s points of sale.
3. An omnichannel Christmas campaign to engage consumers
It takes an average of 8 interactions between a brand and its prospect before they are ready to buy. If brands want to to boost their Christmas sales, they need to multiply the incentives to buy with their audience.
This is what brands can do by implementing an omnichannel Christmas campaign. Companies will deploy a marketing game (such as the Shopping List ) across their communication channels. Adictiz’s customisable form can be used in interactive formats across 4 distinct channels: the e-commerce site, blog articles, live shopping sessions and native advertising.
Brands will be able to engage their audience across their channels, multiplying interactions to convert prospects and boost their Christmas sales.
Conclusion
To create a Christmas marketing campaign, your brand can rely on engaging game mechanics that will capture consumers’ attention. Create differentiating experiences to boost your brand awareness, collect leads and generate conversions during the festive season thanks to our interactive marketing activities!
