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It’s hard to think of Christmas without picturing the paraphernalia that usually pops up at this time of the year: conifers with twinkling bulbs hanging on them; gift boxes in shiny holiday themed wraps; or even Santa Claus in his red and white coat, sitting at his grotto. When we can see these things around us, we get the feeling that Christmas has finally arrived. What isn’t quite as easy to tell is how we can use these images to attract holiday shoppers or new clients to our business at the year’s end. You might say that sprucing things up for the season at your office or business is simply a way to keep with the times. After all, other business around you are putting up fancy lights and giving out pretty cards. What’s the harm in going along with the times? But you can gain a whole lot more from Christmas themed branding and decorations than just identify with the seasonal trend. You can actually raise sales, gain new customers and round up business for the year in style, by deploying imagery for the season in ways that appeal to prospective buyers’ needs, aesthetic tastes and sentiments. Here are a number of ideas you could use to make your business look merry for this time of the year, and engineer an uptake in sales in the process.

Fix up a Seasonal Logo

How about adding on some Christmas icons to your regular logo, just for the season? You may have seen examples of this: logos with images of Santa’s fluffy red and white cap on them, or the logo text on a conifer and snow background (snow isn’t known to fall in our corner of the world, but you get what I mean). These sorts of image changes reinforce the Christmas feeling in your customers’ minds, and gives them the impression that you’re ready to do season-specific business, whatever the details of this could be. At the very least, it keeps you in the public eye, as attention shifts towards holiday shopping.

Create a Holiday Ambience

If you run your business from a physical location, you could put up some nice decorations around it. For example, you may fix up wreaths, special lights, and artificial Christmas trees, to give your location the ready-for-Christmas look. This has a similar kind of effect that changing your logo does. If people are walking into your store and seeing that you’ve got some really great decor up, they might get the following positive impressions:

You’re just as enthusiastic about the season as they are. In other words, your business has a human feel.
You can get things done quite well (if the decor looks very good).

These summations happen at the subconscious level; so it’s easier for you to make such impressions. There’s also the pleasant feeling that customers get when they’re in a space that’s filled with material alluding to the merry season. This by itself could make them more likely to spend than they would if they just got the impression that you were still doing business as usual.

Use Window and Outdoor Displays

Why not take the decorations to the outer reaches of your business location, with window and outdoor displays, signboards and signals? This gets people interested in checking out what you’ve got to offer for Christmas. Again, it tends to have the same sort of effect on would-be customers as do seasonal logos and decorations.

Take Christmas Online

Get your online visitors excited as well. Revamp your website’s look with Christmas themed colours and images, do the same for your social media channels, and make your seasonal logo appear prominently on all of them. This lets your online audience know that you’re in tune with the times, and humane- exactly what physical Christmas decorations convey.

Display Your Promos Prominently

Discounts and giveaways are frequently used Christmas sales strategy. If you’re offering any of these to your clients this season, you’ll want them to know that these deals are available. When you’re having banners designed for this purpose, be sure that they tick the following boxes:

Make it clear that you’re running a promo specifically for Christmas, in the text, colours and images or icons that you use. For example, use the traditional red (and white) for the banner’s background, and have the word ‘Christmas’ or ‘Season’ somewhere in the text.
Have the key words in big bold print. Let them stand out. For instance, the text on the banner publicizing the promo could say,

Get up to 50% DISCOUNTS any pair of shoes you buy from us this season. Or, This Christmas, when you purchase a washing machine from our store, you’ll get one smartphone (name brand) for FREE.

Send Out Christmas Cards

You can distribute holiday cards to your loyal customers. These cards could be physical or digital. If you’re sending out physical Christmas cards, it’s usually a good idea to have a little handwritten greeting from you for their recipients. Your clients will see that you value them as individuals. It might be the thing that makes them stick with your brand, instead of going off to some other similar business. It may be a difficult ask to write messages and append signatures to piles of Christmas cards. This issue could arise when you’re dealing with a large number faithful customers. One way around this might be to send them digital cards with your signature imprinted on them.

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This article was first published on 3rd December 2018

ikenna-nwachukwu

Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.