How to make your business more Christmassy

Use the festive season to promote your brand

The festive seasons presents a fantastic opportunity to promote your business in a way that is fun and celebrates with your community. No matter what type of business you own, there are plenty of ways that you can adopt a seasonal theme to apply to what you do. Here are some ideas to add some festive spirit to your business.

Choosing what to theme

Your commercial vehicle

If you use a vehicle for work purposes, there are plenty of ways that you can put up decorations to give a Christmas theme. You can decorate your commercial transport, whether you have a small car for your mobile hairdressing business or a large van for your bricklaying business, although you should be careful to abide by UK law when making modifications to your vehicle.

The law states that you should not obstruct the view of your windshield, so be careful if you plan to string tinsel along the bottom of the windscreen, or around your rear view mirror, if you have one.

Image source: Wow Antlers on Pinterest

Shop window

Create eye catching displays to draw your customers in. Tinsel and lights can be used as a border around windows, but don’t be afraid to use some models, such as snow men or Santa Claus to create festive scenes.

Retail and high street windows have become a huge part of the Christmas experience so not adopting this tradition may leave negative perceptions in your potential consumers. The Christmas shopping experience stands out amongst other shopping seasons, with the lights, decorations and late night shopping.

In 2014, the number of worldwide online shoppers sat at 1.32bn, however by 2017, this number had risen to 1.66bn, with Statista projecting that by 2021, 2.14bn consumers will be doing their shopping online. Because of this, shops will need to offer their consumers an alternative to their online counterparts, and a great way of doing this is to add the spirit of Christmas to the festive shopping experience. Try and theme your window on your products, whether this is Christmas clothes or books.

Food options

If you are in the business of selling food, why not introduce some Christmas foods onto your menu. Traditional Christmas meals incorporate turkey, stuffing and gravy. Vegetables include roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and, of course, Brussels sprouts. You could introduce the traditional desserts of Christmas Pudding, mince pies or trifle.

Make sure to cover all bases with a vegetarian option. Offer a popular roast dish, such as a butternut squash roast or a vegetable pie, with vegetable gravy and all the traditional roast vegetables and puddings. If you sell sandwiches and other cold snacks, why not create some new seasonal fillings and flavours.

You could also illustrate your menu using bullet points made of holly, snowmen at the base or snow dotted in the background.

Website

Your website can be one of your first points of contact with your customers, so why not give it a festive feel to let your customers know you’re in the Christmas spirit. This could be something as simple as slightly altering your logo to include festive imagery. Adding a snowy theme or just switching imagery to a festive alternate can let your customers know that you are gearing up for Christmas.

If you use a web design agency, it can be as easy as getting in touch to ask them to give your website a festive theme, as many content management systems have festive themes available. 

Office

Do you have an office based business? Give your staff some festive cheer by putting up some decorations. Why not put up a tree and have a competition to design the best decoration.

Christmas jumper day is on 14^th December this year, so use this opportunity to encourage staff to bring in their jumper and donate money to charity.

Standing out this Christmas

Over the festive period, thousands of companies will be competing for customers, which means you will need to stand out. Why not have a go at some of these tips, designed to bring new customers to your business.

Reach out to loyal customers

Repeat business is huge for any business, so don’t neglect your existing customers in your attempt to entice new ones. If you have your customers’ details on file, you could send them a Christmas card or e-card, maybe with a discount, to encourage them to come back for more.

Encourage customers to visit

Any high street retailer will let you know how fierce competition can be around Christmas. Think about your business and what you can do to encourage people to find out more about what you do. Why not hand out free hot drink samples or pull Christmas crackers with passers-by.

Engage with your customers

Don’t be too shy when talking to new customers. Take the time to start a conversation, perhaps over a mince pie. Not engaging with potential customers runs the risk of losing them to a competitor.

Don’t neglect your online platforms

Having your own website or using Facebook will give you a huge advantage in communicating with customers. Being able to have a direct line makes it easier for someone to contact you, and responding immediately provides fantastic customer service.  A website will also allow any online customers to check out your stock without having to leave the house, although online competition can be tough, with customers being able to easily shop around.

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