The festive season is often the busiest time for businesses – particularly those in retail and hospitality. It’s crucial that smaller enterprises know how to boost their visibility and compete with larger brands. 

According to a recent survey of 5000 people globally, support for small businesses has never been higher with 80% of UK consumers expected to shop with a new small business they’ve never bought from before this Christmas.  

Erika Robinson, UK General Manager of digital marketing platform Constant Contact, shares four ways that British SMEs can elevate their festive campaigns and get in front of the right customers this winter.

Harness the power of social media

Maximising your use of social media is a must as the holidays draw closer. It provides the ideal opportunity to be playful, fun and embrace the spirit of the season while maintaining visibility with your ideal customers.

Creating engaging content will keep your brand at the forefront of customers’ minds, whether that be promoting products and services, using popular seasonal hashtags, creating behind-the-scenes content or festive-specific giveaways and contests.

Scheduling posts ahead of time through a dedicated platform is a great way to ensure that content is timely and reaches your desired audience, while also freeing you up to do what you do best in your business.

Collaborate and co-create

Being an SME is truly a superpower, thanks to the ability to adapt quickly and easily collaborate with other like-minded independent businesses and influencers. Christmas is an ideal time to combine your efforts with other small brands that are aligned with your values and purpose.

As well as combining your brand power, collaboration with other small businesses enables you to tap into each other’s customer bases, spreading the word about your brand to a whole new audience.

Joining forces with relevant influencers is also a great way to boost brand visibility. Reaching out to influencers for sponsored posts or sending them curated festive gift packages can be an easy way to get on the radar of a whole new group of potential customers.

Don’t sleep on email marketing

The festive period is one time of year where email campaigns can really shine – you can bet your best competitors will be all over their email marketing – and be the difference between sales slumps and seasonal success.

By creating relevant holiday-themed newsletters and solus e-shots, you can easily and effectively share product highlights, seasonal discounts, and festive greetings with your customer base.

Using a dedicated email marketing platform can enable you to create segmented lists based on demographic and previous customer purchase history. This allows you to offer personalised and tailored deals, which can increase engagement and conversion rates.

Build community through physical (and virtual) experiences

During the festive period, many customers look to incorporate their purchasing habits into a celebratory experience within their communities, such as going Christmas shopping with friends or making trips to dedicated seasonal markets.

Tapping into this desire for experiential and community-led consumption can elevate your brand and generate interest and sales that you might otherwise miss by simply operating from a static ecommerce platform.

A pop-up store, whether in a local community venue or at an online event, boosts visibility and gives customers the opportunity to experience your products in a festive and limited-time setting in a uniquely personal, direct, and accessible way.

By investing time and energy in marketing efforts and looking at creative ways to raise brand awareness, small businesses really can cut through the noise and flourish this festive season.