8 Tips for Planning Your Christmas Product Launch
For many retailers planning for your Christmas product launch is already in full swing, some may already have had success with promoting for the increasingly popular (thanks Etsy!) Christmas in July. If you’re not quite there, our eight top tips will get you feeling prepared.
As a creative entrepreneur you’ll likely have been finalising your list of makes, investing time into researching and developing your new products, reflecting on what sold well for you over the past few years to continue into this year’s festive range. This is the bit you love, the creation and artistry you put your heart and soul into, but what happens next?
Whether you are just starting out in your first year of trading, or a seasoned store with many years tucked into your belt – our eight top tips for planning your perfect Christmas product launch can help you skate through the process with ease.
1 > Make a Date
Shock fact – it’s not just about Christmas!
There are a number of other dates you need to plan your campaign around. Creating a timeline will allow you to inform throughout your launch planning, with a chronological structure to your campaign.
Here are the key days for 2020 dates to get you started:
– Your Launch Date – TBC!
– Christmas in July Festival UK – 8-9th September
– Black Friday – Friday 27th November
– Cyber Monday – Monday 30th November
– Suggested Royal Mail last posting for International Mail- Saturday 12th December
– Suggested Royal Mail last posting for UK 1st Class – Friday 18th December
– Winter Solstice – Monday 21st December
– Christmas Eve – Thursday 24th December
– Christmas Day – Friday 25th December
– Boxing Day – Saturday 26th December
– New Year’s Eve – Thursday 31st December
– New Year’s Day – Friday 1st January
While these are dates to hang your campaign stocking fillers from, I’d recommend also plotting out what you want to achieve alongside it; your targets and deadlines, for both money and time – so you get to enjoy your Christmas rather than work all the way through it. Don’t neglect to factor in those important dates such as your last shipping date! This will help you stay on track and gives you the opportunity to organise your messaging and offers well in advance.
2 > What’s Your Marketing Message?
Your task is to find a narrative that communicates with, and drives customers towards, a sales conversion.
Simply put – when you are looking at your content creation calendar, how can you sprinkle marketing fairy dust onto each post? Consider:
– The needs of your audience, the problem you solve for them
– Your brand values and mission
– How you differ from competitors
– How you deliver value to your customers
– What you want to make customers think, feel, and do
With the knowledge of these carefully considered points you’ll be able to plan your Christmas campaign message much more simply, for the best effect.
3 > Launch Branding
Once you’ve planned your message, it’s time to consider your theme — launch branding is the creative vehicle by which your message is delivered.
Find something simple that works well across all your social media channels and that will resonate at a glance with your overall brand and speak to your customer. No need for complicated — complex themes can dilute your message – and eat up precious time.
We invited the lovely Jacquie from Bailey and Roo – the luxury brand experts – over to share their five top tips on Christmas branding! Have a read here.
4 > Offers to Appeal
Which offers will you use to appeal to and tempt your customers to spend more throughout the Christmas campaign?
The offers you choose need to align with your message and theme. For example, slashing prices dramatically won’t make sense with a campaign that focuses on luxury. But a free gift above a spend threshold would make more sense.
Planning in a discount or promotional offer, for during and post-Christmas – because of course you can’t forget the December gap before New Year and January sales – will ensure you don’t panic price your products, instead having a clearly thought out cost structure for your carefully chosen and created items.
Planning now will also massively help you when thinking about our next tip…
5 > Creative Content
Now it’s time to get started on content creation!
Map out the content calendar you need – for posting across each social media channel or sales platform you use, and decide what images and text you need to create. Ensure that your copy and design reflect your theme and deliver your message consistently across every channel.
This is likely to take some time and ideally, you should aim to have your planner ready by the end of October. Please don’t stress! This feels like a HUGE task and can be off putting, but putting the work into planning leads to a stress-less time ahead – promise!
We have tried and tasted ways to make content mapping easy for you – get our Inbox R&R for regular tips delivered direct to your email.
6 > Optimise Existing Content
When you’re creating your Christmas content, consider where there is any supporting content already on your website or sales platform that can be optimised, such as blog posts to re-launch. Refreshing stuff you already have is a huge time saver, with just a quick update to keep it on theme for the current year, alongside your launch branding.
Think about which pages your campaign directs people to for additional information, frequently asked questions for example. Make sure their experience is consistent throughout their shopping journey, supporting them onwards through conversion and a sale.
7 > Tweak for Peak
Want a profile or cover photo with a Christmassy element?
Could your basket abandonment emails be updated to fit with your festive theme?
Does your “thank you for your order” email need a seasonal makeover?
Before you launch your Christmas campaign, consider existing areas of your business in need of tweaking, and prepare in advance for a smooth sail into the festive season. Remember to make a note of what you change for a New Year return!
Small details like this enhance the overall customer experience your campaign delivers and will ensure your efforts are fully optimised to drive the best results.
8 > Launch and Learn
By the time October comes around, you should be ready to launch. Post Halloween is the most popular time to go live, from our survey of Etsy sellers, ramping-up towards Black Friday as shoppers increasingly search for gift ideas towards November. If you make bespoke or customised options to order its worth factoring the extra time for these to be produced and reflect this in with an earlier soft-launch date.
Before your chosen launch date arrives, plan how you’re going to respond to any hiccups. Create a clear process to measure results and make changes accordingly.
Be reactive and ready to refine key elements throughout your campaign. As you see engagement responses to certain social media posts and products, learn from what is working and utilise this to fine tune your future approach – it will help you to maximise your seasonal success.
Resourceful Retailer's Round-Up
The build-up to Christmas can be stressful – having a structured strategy to follow will help you regain some headspace and stay in control while you’re selling. We hope that our eight Christmas launch planning tips help to bring clarity to your campaign preparation.
If you’re late to the planning process and are feeling the pressure, our advice is to keep things simple. Focus on consistently delivering clear messaging through a simple theme, across your key channels.
Including personalised elements and fun within your campaign can increase engagement. The ideas we’ve discussed are easy to implement within your business in as much or as little detail as works for you, the key is always to start with structure, for a steady successful season.
If you’re looking for a more in-depth support to planning your Christmas launch, or are feeling overwhelmed with all you need to get done, we’re here to support you through to success.