Three Things to do in Christmas Marketing Content

If you're scrambling to put together some last-minute Christmas marketing content and you're short of ideas, here are three great suggestions for Christmas content campaigns.

While it's good practice to have your Christmas content written and posted well ahead of time (after all, it needs to be crawled, indexed, searched and shared to generate traffic to your website), there's no time like the present.

Santa Claus with Alarm Clock, Oleksandr P via Pexels

Even if you miss the holiday season entirely, there's an argument for posting Christmas content in the New Year. You can always backdate it in your CMS so it doesn't show as being published in January, and you never know what traffic it will bring in all year round.

That being said, it's best to get your Christmas campaign up with at least a few weeks to share. So if you're in a hurry to produce some festive marketing materials, what are the tried and tested options?

1. Nibbles and Tipples

Christmas is party time, and that means food and drink. Supermarkets lean heavily into this: a study in the December 2023 issue of Public Health in Practice found that of seven supermarkets' Christmas ads, six featured alcohol.

"In one advert, alcohol content is shown 13 times, including four examples of implied use, showing glasses of alcohol on tables, bottles being shown on screen eight times and wine also being mentioned by the voiceover."

While there are obvious issues with heavily promoting alcohol consumption in the run-up to Christmas, there are plenty of non-alcoholic alternatives. If you can see an angle to bring snacks and treats into your Christmas content, go for it - it's all good in moderation, right?

Brown Acorn Near Clear Long Stem Wine Glass, picjumbo.com via Pexels

2. Christmas Music

People don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing they need... to blast their favourite Christmas tunes and celebrate the season with some great (or cheesy) music. Whether it's hymns, carols or pop songs, we all have certain tracks that hit us right in the feels.

Writing in Harlot in 2008, Daniel Wharton noted "the expanding season during which radio stations play holiday music", adding that "Christmas music puts consumers in the holiday spirit". This in turn puts consumers into a Christmas shopping state of mind and raises the value of advertising around those seasonal tracks.

"In short, there is economic incentive for retailers to pay more money for advertising during the holiday season."

Thanks to the parody exemption under UK copyright law, there's even an argument for creating your own version of a popular Christmas classic - or playing it safe and covering an older Christmas carol where copyright no longer applies at all.

People Dancing At A Party, Ekaterina Bolovtsova via Pexels

3. Historical Events

If you're able to make a connection between your product and a Christmas historical event, you're well on your way to selling to Christmas-minded consumers. If the event is particularly emotional, so much the better.

A great example of this is the 2014 Sainsbury's Christmas ad, a four-minute short film depicting the Christmas Armistice of 1914. Produced to coincide with the event's centenary, the advert shows troops from both sides playing football in No Man's Land and exchanging gifts such as chocolate.

"Even smaller details such as the tin boxes of food and chocolate that Princess Mary sent to the British troops are depicted, which also serves as a clever way for Sainsbury's to advertise their products."

There's a fine line to walk between 'honouring' historical events and exploiting them for commercial gain, but if you go in with good intentions, there's significant brand perception to build.