The holidays are just around the corner and that means one thing for your website: it’s time to deck the halls!
If you’re a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to holiday marketing, just remember that the National Retail Federation projected online holiday sales to total a whopping $105 billion in 2015. And that number is set to increase this year.
Translation: holiday marketing converts into cash. To help you earn a portion of those online holiday sales, here are 50 holiday content ideas to keep your website merry and bright.
Update Your Design
Update your social media cover photos and website design to reflect your holiday cheer. Have fun with your design for Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and more!
Make Your Logo Festive
Of course, you want your logo to still be representative of your brand, but there is no shame in adding a little festivity. Could your logo wear a Santa hat? What about sneaking in a snowflake?
Give the Gift of Holiday-Themed Email Promotions
Every consumer loves discounts from their favorite brands. What better time is there to send out a promo code than during the holidays.
Offer a Free Gift With Your Email Promotions
You can also incentivize your email subscribers to purchase more by offering a free gift with their purchase. Mix it up by making it a fun surprise.
Promote the 12 Days of…
The 12 days of Christmas is a popular holiday concept, and it’s a great way to help your audience get into a festive mood. The best thing about this is you can adapt the idea to almost any part of your content strategy. You can host 12 days of giveaways, email promotions, or featured products on social media. The options are endless.
Share Holidays Hacks
Does your company offer interesting insight? Use the holidays to share it with your audience. Maybe you can share a holiday recipe? A tip for success? A fun holiday life-hack?
Offer Holiday Finance Advice on Your Blog
It can be difficult to get everything done within budget during the holidays. Your audience may love tips on how to make the holidays meaningful on a shoestring budget.
Provide Holiday Safety Tips
Accidents happen. Create a holiday-themed safety guide and share it with your readers.
Create a Gift Guide
Help your customers knock it out of the park this year by providing a list of great gift ideas.
Hand Out Some Freebies
The holidays puts everyone in the giving spirit, so there is no better time to give away some freebies. Offer a free ebook or infographic download. You can even use this as a tripwire to get referrals or more subscriptions.
Give a Holiday Themed Ebook
Not all of your freebies have to be 100 percent related to your business. You can also create and share an ebook that compiles helpful holiday tips (cooking, decorating, gift-giving, etc.) for your audience.
Get Festive on Pinterest
Attract more visitors to your website by creating a holiday-themed Pinterest board. Be sure to pin any holiday content you share on your website!
Make an Advent Calendar on Your Website
Who doesn’t love a good countdown? Add an advent calendar to your website to hype the big day or as a place to share daily promotions.
Help Your Audience Get Cookin’
Does your company have a special culinary delight? Share it with your audience this holiday season.
Send a Thank-You Card
There is plenty to be grateful for at this time of year, including your customers. Create a digital holiday card to thank them for their business. Here’s the one the Bluehost team created to mark Thanksgiving:
Make Them Laugh
Put a little merry into your messaging! Use social media, email marketing, and blogging to get your audience laughing.
Start a Charity Drive
Online sales can skyrocket when you incorporate the spirit of giving into your marketing plan. Create some content around the concept of matching a percentage of your sales with donations.
Share Holiday Trends
This is especially good if you are a B2B business. Every business can benefit from holiday trend data. If you have some, share it.
Write Holiday-Themed Ad Copy
Take a break from your regular ads and spruce them up with some tinsel (i.e. holiday jargon). It might just make the difference in getting a sale.
Coin Some Holiday Hashtags
Do you have a large Twitter or Instagram following? Create a few holiday hashtags that relate to your brand and to get the conversation started.
Run a Facebook Giveaway
Come up with a Facebook contest to get your audience excited. Then, run the giveaway during peak holiday times.
Create a Holiday Meme
Do you have a team of hilarious copywriters? Get them to create some fun holiday memes. While you don’t know if any will go viral, you will certainly make your target audience happy.
Share a Heartwarming Story
Have a heart-melting story to rival Christmas Oranges or The Little Match Girl? Share it with your followers to remind them of the reason for the season.
Send Out Stocking Stuffers
Promotional materials are a great way to advertise your company. Why not take it a step further and send out real stocking stuffers to some of your clients?
Run a Holiday Photo Contest
Attract more visitors to your website by hosting a holiday-themed photo contest. Gift the person with the best photo a big holiday prize.
Make a Holiday Video
Remember when WestJet went viral with their warm-and-fuzzy holiday video? Create one of your own.
At Bluehost, we wrapped our marketing know-how up in a holiday package to create this video for our fans:
Highlight Your Products in Video Form
Dress your products or logo up for the holidays and then make a fun video to share with your followers.
Conduct a Free Webinar
This is another great idea for B2B companies. If you have some great holiday insights, take the time to invite your best clients to a webinar where you share that information for free.
Write a Holiday Song
If you have the talent at your agency and can avoid being too corny, consider writing a fun jingle to make the season merry.
Call for Submissions
Don’t have the bandwidth to create a holiday song or story? Turn it into a contest for your audience and share the winning entry.
Send an Ecard
Personalize your customers’ holiday experience by sending them an ecard.
Surprise Your Audience
Hide a promo code in one of your videos or at the bottom of a blog post. This is a great way to reward your most loyal followers.
Send a Wishlist
Little kids aren’t the only ones with wishlists. Be creative and write a list of happy things you wish your customers in 2017.
Present Your Top Customers With a Physical Book
Ebooks are great, but nothing beats getting a real page-turner. If you don’t have the budget to send a book for free, consider offering it for sale on your website.
Start a “Caption This” Contest
Maybe you have a great holiday picture, but you aren’t quite sure how to meme it. Leave it to your customers and reward the best caption with a holiday prize.
Reward Referrals
Referrals are invaluable to business. Set up a promotion where you give a gift to anyone who sends a referral to you this season.
Sponsor a Voting Contest
Ask your audience to submit holiday photos via social media. Share the photos and reward the post with the most votes with a prize.
Ask Holiday-Themed Questions on Social Media
Great content isn’t always about promotions. Sometimes it’s simply about questions. For example, ask your audience where they would like to be for the holidays.
Surprise Them Again
After you have collected responses from your audience about where they would like to be for Christmas, select one winner and send them there.
Spice up Your Twitter Life
Grow your Twitter following this holiday season by using some trending holiday hashtags.
Pinterest Contest
Create a holiday-themed collaborative board on Pinterest. Notify your followers that one lucky pinner will win a holiday prize.
Blog a Letter to Santa
Consider writing a letter to Santa right on your blog and sharing it with your audience.
Write a Quiz or Two
Everyone wants to know if they are a pumpkin spice latte, hot chocolate, or eggnog. Craft some fun quizzes and release them before the holidays.
Post Pictures of Your Executives as Kids
If you have a well-known executive team (or sponsors), collect pictures of them as kids. Your audience will get a kick out of it.
Recreate the Picture
Take this idea one step further and post a follow-up picture with them celebrating the holidays as adults.
Conduct an Interview
Have you utilized podcasting as part of your marketing strategy yet? If not, record a holiday-focused podcast to share with your followers.
Send a Roundup of Your Best Content as a Gift
If you have a large blog following, consider writing an email that includes all of your best content from 2016.
Post Inspiring Quotes
One of the most magical parts of the holidays is how it reminds us to lift up one another. Use your social media to post inspiring stories or quotes that reflect the spirit of giving.
Release a New Product
Your fans are crazy about your goods and services, so what better time is there to release a new product?
Share Your Resolutions
The new year is the perfect time to talk about how you are resolving to be a better company. Share that information with your customers, so they know what to expect from you this next year.
Consider these 50 ideas our gift to you! We hope they help you develop a winning marketing strategy that’s merry, bright, and, oh, so productive.
Looking for more festive ways to promote your website? Check out our 5 holiday marketing tips for small businesses.
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