Suddenly it is a couple weeks out to Christmas, and you realize you can be doing a lot more to attract customers. If that feeling led you to this blog, then you are in good hands. 

This blog by Kimp will give you the top 8 last minute Christmas Marketing campaign ideas to implement and ace the holiday season. 

No brand wants to miss the biggest gifting and shopping season of the year, and this guide will make it too easy to miss. 

So with no further ado, let’s discuss the last minute Christmas marketing ideas for your brand.

Why do you need last minute campaigns for Christmas?

First off, we are sure you’ve got a few questions whirring away in your mind – “Is a last minute Christmas marketing campaign even worth it? Are there enough customers who have not done their shopping for me to make a decent ROI on this effort? Can I make a difference to my sales and revenue numbers with this campaign?”

The answer to all these questions is a resounding Yes! Yes! And of course, Yes! 

Last minute Christmas shopping is a tradition for many. Even if customers know the holiday is coming up and they have to buy gifts, last minute shopping is built into their routines. In fact, a survey by Klarna tells us that almost 79% of consumers planned to do their shopping in the two weeks before Christmas. 

We saw this happen in 2020 and is most likely to repeat in 2021 as well. So, if you can get in their sight in this timeline, you are golden. You are the last brand they will see, and the conversions will be that much easier. 

Every marketing campaign has one of three major goals:

Your last minute Christmas marketing campaign can tick all these boxes off for you and more. So take the leap of faith and start planning your strategies now. 

The ideas are here for you (Courtesy: Kimp), and there is no reason to delay anymore.

Designing the best last minute Christmas marketing 

Before we dive into the last minute Christmas marketing campaign ideas for your brand, here is a quick checklist on building the best last minute Christmas campaign. They say that the devil is in the details, and with this checklist, you can catch him before things go awry.

Plan your campaigns

Whether it is a month-long campaign or one that will last two weeks, planning is the first step to success. Planning also makes or breaks executing, tracking, and analyzing a last minute Christmas campaign. Identify the products you want to promote, the duration, the budget, and the team that will handle it all.

Identity target audience 

Based on your marketing intent, the products you want to promote, and your most successful target audience, nail down the buyer profile for this campaign. Last minute Christmas marketing is not the space for experiments, it is the time to capitalize on previous knowledge. So analyze all your successful campaigns (or those of your competitors!) and determine the buyer you want to target this time. 

Choose your marketing channels 

You have the products and the buyer profile. Before you craft your message and design your last minute Christmas campaign, you have to pick the primary and secondary marketing channels. While we advocate for an omnichannel presence always, last minute campaigns need focus. So prioritize best-performing channels within Social media, OOH, SEO, PPC, newsletters, and in-store marketing to get started. 

Crafting and Designing 

You have the messenger, the receiver, and the mode of communication. It is now time to bring the message alive. Your copy and design matter the most in last minute Christmas marketing campaigns. By now, customers have literally seen it all. Pick a design style that is appropriate for the holidays and in line with your brand’s visual identity. We cover this extensively in our blog on Christmas marketing ideas, check it out here for more details. 

Repurpose content 

Remember when we told you to pick primary and secondary channels of communication. Now is the time to bring it into action. Your primary channels will be the first to go live with your content ideas. Once the word is out there, enhance distribution by repurposing the content for secondary channels. Your social media ad can go in a newsletter and vice versa. Redesign your print poster for social media and so on. 

Optimize for Mobile 

Almost there, but not quite. Most holiday shopping happens on mobile, and not having mobile-optimized content can lead to a substandard user experience. And no one wants that. So a simple step is to check if the content and design you send are ready for a mobile screen. Make this a mandate in your design briefs, and you will never go wrong.

At Kimp Graphics and Kimp Video, this is our default. But it never hurts to reinforce this in your design briefs. 

Analyze and Repeat 

Factor in space to account for feedback, reviews, and data from third-party platforms. The best campaigns are always those that make room for improvement. And this data will help you push ahead and close the gap in your New Years’ campaigns. Yes, that is coming right up too.

8 Last Minute Christmas Marketing campaigns Ideas 

Getting to the heart of the matter now. What can you create that can make customers abandon all doubt and just swipe their cards for you? Well, as the list will tell you, quite a lot. These ideas are easy to create, quick to launch, and extremely effective. So a lot of value for your brand and your customers, coming right up.

Scroll on to know more!

1) Deck up your Website 

The most subtle way to announce that you are Christmas ready to your customers is to embody the holiday spirit completely. Start with your website and give it a holiday makeover. And Christmas gives you an advantage by being inherently visual. 

All you need is a few candy canes, mistletoe, Christmas trees, a red and green theme, and you are all set. Everyone knows you are ready for Christmas. 

Seeing a holiday-themed website will alert your existing customers to check what your current discounts and offers look like. It will also engage the visitors you get off your PPC and SEO ads. Customers take less than 5 seconds to judge a website, so go all out instantly. 

Kimp Tip: If you feel that a loud Green and red theme for the website’s homepage is not your brand’s identity, it is okay. You can create a holiday-themed exit intent pop-up, a well-designed header image, or just revamp your logo/ brand name with a few animations to grab attention.

Sign up for the Kimp Graphics plan for design assets that marry holiday themes and brand’s style well. 

2) Design Christmas-themed landing pages 

Most advertisements use a landing page for customers visiting their website from advertising channels. So you need a Christmas-themed landing page too. Now, last minute Christmas marketing campaigns may not allow you to run new advertisements, but you can always update the landing page. 

Announce your Christmas-themed offerings here and also source leads to direct your other Christmas marketing campaigns. You can choose from video landing pages, brand awareness landing pages, or even product-specific landing pages for this. All you have to remember is that it has to scream “Merry Christmas” to the customers. 

Kimp Tip: Customers expect branding consistency from the advertisement to the landing page. So your new landing page has to maintain the balance while also displaying your Christmas campaigns. It is a tight walk, but possible. Intrigued? Sign up for Kimp Graphics free trial, and we will demonstrate how.

3) Last minute email marketing campaigns 

Email marketing designs are easy and quick to deliver. And they reach a trusted audience base. As we said before, last minute Christmas marketing campaigns are not the place to experiment. So monetize your existing customer base and engage them via newsletters. 

Some newsletter campaign ideas for last minute Christmas marketing include: 

• Start a Christmas day countdown and announce a cut-off day for Christmas orders. This FOMO technique will make people hurry out and complete their shopping. 
• Launch exclusive discount codes for existing customers. 
• Encourage customers to move their wishlist items to the cart. Remind them why they should get their purchases made before stock runs out. 
• Showcase your best product-centric content. This can be gift guides, animations, GIFs, your video ads, transition videos, social proof, and more. Just keep the product front and center so that the conversion takes less time. 

Repurposing your existing content for wishlist emails and product emails is a good idea in last minute Christmas marketing campaigns. But revamp them with the Christmas theme. Add a few GIFs, animations, and doodles for effect before you go live. 

The Kimp Graphics + Video team can help you make all these additions for just a flat fee. Book a call to learn more.

4) Shoppable Gift Guides

Gift guides are a sale staple. Whenever you launch a sale, you need a gift guide. It makes shopping a lot easier than looking for items on a website or store. On occasions like an office party, gift guides also come in handy for gift ideas for those you don’t know very well. And that is why they make perfect sense for your last minute Christmas marketing campaign. 

Google tells us that “Gift ideas search for ______ “ skyrocket this time of the year. So make it easier for your customers to find these guides. Share your products with them and tell whom to buy the gifts for too.

Gift guides are useful in:

• Christmas email marketing campaigns
• Landing pages 
• Social media content 
• Social media advertisements
• Posters and Flyers for in-store marketing 

Check our detailed guide on holiday-themed gift guides for inspiration. 

Kimp Tip: It is not set in stone that gift guides have to look like catalogs. Experiment with carousel posts and videos too, for an effective and standout campaign.

5) Promote Gift Cards 

Here is what you need to know about gift cards and their significance in last minute Christmas shopping. Odds are a last minute purchase is for an office colleague, an acquaintance, or someone picky. Customers have already combed all the products out there and are at their wit’s end. That is why gift cards are the third-most popular last minute gift idea at Christmas. 

So why wait? Launch a Christmas-themed gift card right now and announce it to the world. Delight your customers by making their shopping 100x easier. 

As we said, Christmas is a very visual holiday. So if you want to attract your customers to your gift card, make it gift-worthy. Design it with all the bells and whistles. Promoting an Instagram-worthy gift card also makes it easier on your marketing team.

Looking for designs to put the holiday spin on your gift cards? Contact the Kimp Graphics team today. 

6) Send a Christmas Card 

In the first section of this blog, we outlined three major intentions for any marketing campaign – brand awareness, engagement, and sales. Well, your last minute Christmas marketing campaign has to be a healthy mix of all three. If a customer only hears from you for selling, they will lose interest in you quickly.

So send them a proper Christmas card with no strings attached. 

Make it personable, attractive, and engaging. Customers remember many brands based on their commercials, and there is no reason it can’t work that way with a Christmas card.

7) Flash Sales 

When you know people complete their Christmas shopping in the last weeks before Christmas, capitalize on it. Launch flash sales on a limited product range and induce that FOMO with the sale, until stocks run out. 

The trick to a successful flash sale is picking the right time. And ensuring that all eyes are on you when it is time for the sale. A few design ideas to promote your flash sale are: 

• Email campaigns for Flash sale announcements and follow up reminders
• Social media announcements on the sale 
• Website banner and home page to announce the flash sale with a countdown 
• Pop-ups on the website reminding visitors of the flash sale 

Go all out and achieve that coveted sold out status! 

Kimp Tip: Flash sale announcements are all about capturing the customers’ attention. So don’t just stick to images. Create GIFs, sale teasers, trailers, animated countdowns, video announcements, and more. 

Work with the Kimp Graphics + Video team for end to end services for your last minute Christmas marketing campaign.

8) Bring the buzz onto Social media 

So it is the last few weeks leading up to Christmas, and you really want to promote your products. The easiest way to do this is to activate your social media handles. Social media is the biggest purchase recommendation tool, so this is where you have to advocate for your products. 

The right outreach here will be a game-changer. 

• Revamp your social media profiles (change your display image and cover photo) to something holiday-appropriate. 
• Post your Christmas sales constantly on Stories and feed. 
• Engage your audience with Christmas-themed puzzles, crosswords, and other gamified content. 

You can also step up the holiday sale interaction by hosting Instagram Q/A story sessions, Snapchat AMA sessions, or Twitter threads on product recommendations. Invite customers to seek personalized gift recommendations and respond with the excerpt from your gift guides. 

Kimp Tip: Instagram stories, Snapchat stories, and Twitter threads can make you go viral with their high viewership numbers. So put your best foot forward and only share branded content. Share shoppable content and generate traffic like never before from these images.

Get your last Christmas marketing campaigns ready with Kimp 

Designing a marketing campaign is hectic in itself. And the stress just goes up 10x when it is a last minute Christmas marketing campaign. But it does not have to be this way if you choose Kimp.

Kimp offers unlimited graphic design services and video design services with the Kimp Graphics and Kimp Video subscriptions. If you need both, you can save big with the combined Kimp Graphics + Video subscription. 

Unlimited design requests, tons of design categories to choose from, and unlimited revisions. 

Your Christmas campaign just got a lot easier. 

So why wait? Sign up for the free trial now and get creating today!