As Bing Crosby once sang, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas marketing season. Pretty sure that’s the line. For many small businesses, the summer holidays are their busiest time of the year. It’s also the time for Black Friday (November 25th) which has become a huge sales driver in Australia, gradually overtaking the traditional Boxing Day retail anxiety attack.

But when everyone’s buying, and everyone and their dog are selling, it can be hard to cut through the noise. We sat down with two online business gurus, Peita Davis from homewares retailer Gingerfinch, and Hayley Barrett, the founder of picnic powerhouse kollab, to get their tips on making sales over Christmas.

GET YOUR TIMING RIGHT
This bit is crucial. Start your Christmas campaign too early, and you’ll probably piss people off – no one wants to see reindeers in September – but start it too late and postage becomes a problem. “The Christmas sales period has become a lot shorter, because of shipping deadlines,” says Peita. “You have to call last orders in mid-December, so timing is everything. You want it to be close enough that people are in the Christmas mindset, but not so late that you miss the boat.” November seems to be the sweet spot. Peita recommends starting with soft promos, like gifting guides, before moving into hardcore product-focused ad campaigns.

TRY SOMETHING NEW
Hayley says kollab releases a new collection every summer to coincide with the Christmas rush. “It’s a great time to try something new, because people are shopping anyway,” she says. “We like to introduce a new line or segment every year. Something fresh to catch people’s attention.” You can also combine this with a product giveaway, to generate traction on socials. For kollab, this strategy tends to work better than straight-up discounts. “We don’t do a lot of sales,” Hayley admits. “Last year we gave away a bell tent and a barbecue, and this year we’re doing a gift with purpose instead.” By partnering with other companies, or launching social giveaways, you can boost engagement without cheapening the brand – or your products.

TO SALE OR NOT TO SALE?
This brings us to holiday sales. Should you do them? Well, yes and no. Both Hayley and Peita say they’ve basically ditched the traditional Boxing Day Sale (Peita: “That’s more for sheets and towels, isn’t it?). But Gingerfinch and kollab are definitely active during Black Friday, when customers basically expect a brand presence. “Customers are really hanging out for that sale, now more than ever,” Peita says. “So you have to be there.” Still, you can always mix it up. This year, kollab did a sneaky 48-hour sale in October, to get ahead of the Black Friday crowds. “From the last few years, we know customers are purchasing earlier and being more organised,” Hayley says, “So that sale worked really well for us.”

PRETTY AS A PICTURE
One of the biggest challenges for small businesses during the holidays is simply standing out. Everyone’s feed is flooded with campaigns and sales and retail froth. So how do you cut through? “It’s really hard,” Peita admits, “but imagery has a lot to do with it. You need to invest in beautiful campaign images that stop the scroll. We try and mix it up for Christmas – do something visually different from our typical style.” If you’re stuck, try this: take a look at your competition and your industry. Does everyone look kind of the same? Plan a campaign that deliberately subverts what customers expect. That surprise factor might generate a few more clicks.

PICK YOUR PLATFORM
All businesses have the same problem: you have a finite number of dollars to spend and dozens of ways to spend them. So where do you put your money? This is especially true for digital marketing. Every dollar spent on Facebook is a dollar not being spent on Instagram, or Google ads, or TikTok. Peita says it’s all about knowing your market. “You need to figure out your customers first,” she says, “where they sit, their age and gender. We don’t do TikTok marketing, for example – it’s not really our crew.” And what if you’re not up to speed with Google Analytics and audience segmentation data? Hayley says this is where team building comes in. “You can’t be an expert on every part of the business. Channels and conversion metrics aren’t my strength, but that’s okay, because I’ve got good people around me.”

ALWAYS BE PREPARED
A good Christmas campaign should be plotted in August, built in September/October and rolled out in November. That means you need everything ready ahead of time. It’s kind of like Christmas shopping. When D-Day rolls around, you should already have your product photography, copy, campaign assets and holiday marketing budget ready to go. But Peita says it’s also important to stay flexible. “We do our Christmas shoot in September. It just makes the campaign go so much smoother,” she says. “But you also need to pay attention to what’s going on in the world. Don’t rush out your Christmas stuff on the same day they announce a massive interest rate rise! If you have all the assets ready ahead of time, it makes it easy to do last-minute tweaks.”

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