How to create Christmas campaigns your customers actually want
The festive season is one of the biggest opportunities of the year for businesses. Customers are shopping more, browsing more, and looking for thoughtful gifts, treats, and experiences. But planning a memorable Christmas campaign can feel like an absolute nightmare for founders with way too much on their plate.
Where do you even begin?
To ensure that you don't just slap snowflakes on your regular graphics and call it a day, I say it's time to look at the customer data you have available.
Your data holds clues about what your customers love, how they behave throughout the year, and what might delight them during the festive season. By starting with what you already know, rather than just sign everything with the words "ho ho ho", you can create a Christmas campaign that feels genuinely valuable.
The strategic difference between tactics and campaigns
Before we get into it, let's differentiate tactics and strategic campaigns.
Most businesses get stuck in creating Christmas tactics (a discount code, a social post, an email) when they need a Christmas campaign (a cohesive experience that ladders back to strategic positioning).
A campaign has:
A clear insight about your customer (based on data, not assumptions)
An emotional truth you're tapping into (not just "Christmas is nice")
A consistent message across every touchpoint (not 17 different ideas)
A commercial objective tied to business goals (not just "sell more stuff")
A campaign is planned out so that there's an ongoing conversation with your customers, continuously guiding them towards an offering that's just right for them.
Your data is already telling you what will work.
Before you touch Canva or draft a single festive email subject line, you need to interrogate what you know:
What did customers buy most this year - and why? Not just which products, but what problem they solved. Your Christmas campaign should lean into that insight, not generic "treat yourself" messaging.
When did engagement spike? Which emails or social posts had the highest engagement? If your email open rates jumped every time you shared behind-the-scenes content or founder stories, your festive campaign needs more of YOU in it, not more generic holiday graphics.
What friction did customers hit? Did they abandon carts because shipping was unclear? Did they ask repeatedly about gift wrapping? Your Christmas "offer" might not need to be a discount at all - it might just need to remove the barriers that stopped purchases all year. Look at the questions customers asked you throughout the year and the feedback they gave you, directly or indirectly. These patterns show what they'll actually care about in your campaign.
The key aspects of creating a Christmas Campaign
Focus on emotions
Christmas campaigns work best when they tap into how people feel. This could be excitement, nostalgia, warmth, connection, or even relief at making the season easier.
Look at your customer insights again, but this time ask:
How did customers talk about your product?
Did they use emotional words?
Did they speak about the product making their life easier, helping them feel confident, or making something special?
The emotional tone your customers already use can become the tone of your campaign.
Clear and simple messaging
Christmas can be loud. Every company is shouting. So don't get lost in themes and messaging that doesn't fit your brand. Stay in your brand voice and let your customers know that you are consistent.
Use this message throughout your campaign, and don't get carried away trying to cover everything.
The channels
Look at where your customers engaged most throughout the year. Instagram Stories? Email? TikTok? Pinterest? Your Christmas content should focus on those channels first. Allow them to interact with your Christmas content in an authentic way.
You might use a few different channels but stick to ONE message that resonates with them.
The Christmas data
Following your Christmas campaign, perfectly curated for your customers, it is important that you keep an eye on the data.
Which offer did your customers interact with?
What content worked best?
What did they buy?
Is it something they will need again in a couple of months?
Or is it something you should remember for next year's Christmas campaigns?
Consider the insights you are gathering during this busy period and how they can help create memorable campaigns in the future, too.
If you're reading this and thinking "I know I should be doing all of this, but I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to dig into the data, plan a cohesive campaign, and still run my business" - that's exactly the kind of challenge a marketing partner can help you solve.
Creating memorable campaigns all year round shouldn't mean sacrificing everything else on your plate. I'm taking on new clients for 2026 and would love to talk to you about how to connect with your customers across all seasons, not just Christmas.
