A lot of people will be venturing to the internet this holiday season to track down the best deals. Just like putting up the tree and stringing up lights, you can give your website a festive vibe to get your online shoppers full of Christmas cheer.

You can choose to either go all out or just a quick makeover, it is completely up to you. Even a few changes can make all the difference to the shopping and browsing experience of your customer.

Here at Zeald, we make our own Christmas advent calendar that we share with our customers. While we have some fun making it, we hope that they enjoy it too and choose to visit more often. 

A Christmas quick fix

• Add a Christmas vibe to some of your main images. This can be as simple as changing out a few images to include your products or models wearing Christmas hats. Have a look at PicMonkey for a few ideas, you can add in a Christmas feel to any image!
• Change your display picture or cover photo on Facebook or Twitter to include a festive image. Anything that helps attract attention to your brand helps!
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A more intensive Christmas do over

• Change the colour scheme of your website home page to include green and red. People will quickly get the idea that your business is celebrating the approaching holiday.
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• Dress up your logo with a Christmas theme. Add some fairy lights to your logo, or a gift box. It may seem silly, but it will help your logo stand out from your competitors.
• Add some Christmas specials. A ‘Christmas only’ deal creates urgency, and people feel like they are getting a good holiday bargain. People often look for Christmas deals around the big day, as financial pressure mounts; so make sure you can ease this burden for your customers.
• Add a countdown to Christmas on your home page. People love a good countdown, it also helps to add a bit of urgency to their shopping. If you have deals going, a countdown could be just the thing to help move a stuborn customer along. 
• Send out an email marketing campaign. You can center this around wishing your clients a Merry Christmas, and add in some of your one-off deals.

If you own a restaurant or sell any food related goodies, Instagram is the place to be. I’m sure everyone has seen people taking more and more photos of their food as of late. So why not make the most of this, instead of thinking it is weird. Encourage people to take photos of your food and drinks!

What better way to get it out there that you make the best chocolate mud cake, than have someone post it on Instagram with your company tagged in it. Not only will it just go onto Instagram, but it has the potential to make its way to Facebook and Twitter as well.

Of course this is not just for café, restaurant, and bar owers; but anyone with a product that can be dressed up. While this may not be a strategy for plumbers, Instagram is a great platform for getting beautiful images of your product out in the public in a natural way. This also acts as a testimonial of sorts, as customers are recommending your product or service to people like them.

So what are my tips to get your customers snap happy?

• Pay attention to the details. Instagram is all about looks, it may be the best cake in the world, but if it doesn’t look nice, chances are that it won’t make it to Instagram.
• Set the scene. Put some nice decorations on the café table, or set up your store so it looks like stepping into a magazine. People will be only too happy to start snapping away.
• Create your own #hashtag. This could be something like #Coffeekickstart@Jennys,  #Notguiltydessert, #cutestbabyclothes. It should be something short and memorable so that everyone knows that it is your company. Preferably, something that can also be spelled right. 
• Let people know your shop is Insta-friendly. Put up signs with your Instagram name, and hashtag.

Businesses that should be on Instagram (in my opinion at least)

• Cafes, restaurants, bars
• Homeware 
• Furniture 
• Jewellery/ accessory 
• Clothing and shoes
• Stationary and craft 
• Gifts
• Beauty
• Design
• Athletic and sporting goods
• The entire travel industry
• Charities 
• Plants and outdoors
• Music & Arts
• Entertainment
• Wedding
• Builders (photos of the great houses you have built!)

 As people begin their Christmas present hunt, you want to showcase how you can meet their needs and now.  A great way to get your name circulating is to set up a contest. People are always looking for ways to tighten the belt around Christmas, so a contest that saves some money will always be a winner.

As Facebook changed its rules on contests lately, this would be a great medium to generate hype around your contest. Have a good read of the rules first!

 What's in it for me?

• Sales
• Leads
• Referrals
• Social media ‘likes’ or followers
• Increase of social media presence (i.e. more people interacting with your page/profile)

Vital information:

• Where is the contest being held? I.e. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest
• Start date and end date
• What people actually have to do to enter? Buy your product, spend a certain amount, like your page, comment on a post, retweet, pin, submit a photo or post to your page
• Contest conditions
• How winner will be drawn
• How and when winner will be notified by
• What happens if winner is not able to be reached
• How long will the prize last for? - is there an expiry date?
• What your prize is- your product/service, or a product/ service that you don’t sell i.e. overseas trip or car

Once you have these sorted out, get your best copywriter to come up with an amazing spiel that will capture your audience’s attention. You really want to sell your idea and business, while also getting people excited. Linking the contest to your website is also a great way to create a flow on effect from the contest, to your website.

After kick starting your contest, it is important to keep the buzz up- remind people that it is going on, and what they can do to enter. Social media is great for this, as people interacting with the post or your page, will keep your page at the top of other people’s timelines. 

When the contest draws to a close, make sure to make a big deal out of the end result- this is your last contest post that *hopefully* a lot of people have become invested in, so make the drum roll a good one!

After the contest is over, don’t go quiet on the social media platform, hopefully you have got some more likes, so keep people talking by continually posting new things to bring people back.