AuthorSally Wootton
LinkedIn
The holidays are coming, and while the most organised of us will have already planned their Christmas to perfection, it’s prime time for millions of people to be drawing up plans, present lists, and more. That means they’ll be turning to brands for inspiration on all things Christmas, so it’s important that your ecommerce site is brimming with the content they need to make the most of the festive season and minimise holiday hang-ups. With that in mind, read on to stock up on Christmas blog ideas to gift yourself some extra website traffic and prep for the most wonderful time of the year.
Gift Guides by Demographic
Gift guides are the first port of call for many a buyer and many a blog, but if you want to stand out from the crowd, it’s important that you get specific. Think about your core target audience, think about your customer personas, and create custom, detailed gift guides for each one. For example: there are plenty of ‘gifts for him’ guides around, but what about ‘Christmas gifts for new fathers’, or ‘gifts for first Christmas in a new home’?
By digging down into the details of your audience, you can create guides that will resonate more strongly, provide better inspiration and help to establish your brand as a provider of content that’s actually considered and curated. What’s more, these longer-tail titles tend to be less competitive, meaning your brand has a better chance of ranking well in search results too.
Gift Guides by Interest
As well as creating gift guides based on who your customers are, another great idea is to create festive guides based on what they’re interested in. You should have a detailed picture of your demographic and what they like, so consider centering your Christmas content around how they use your products.
Say you sell sportswear and equipment - you could create dedicated gift guides for different subsections of your offering, like ‘gift guides for female footballers’, or ‘gift guides for trail runners’.
Festive How Tos
Christmas isn’t all about presents! An awful lot of preparation goes into hosting family and friends for festivities, and it can certainly be a stressful time for the hosts, particularly if they’ve never done it before. For these hosts, first-timers or not, your blog can be a source of invaluable guidance through helpful how-tos, and you can tailor your topics around the nature of your brand.
For example, if you run a homeware brand, you could use your expertise to create practical blogs around how to set the table for Christmas, create centrepieces, or tastefully decorate your home. These are brand-adjacent ways to provide useful information, whilst subtly showcasing your product offering with beautiful imagery and natural internal links to Christmas categories or products. Content like this can establish your brand as a source of knowledge, as well as products.
DIY, Crafting & Wrapping Inspiration Pieces
Maybe you’ve got a gift guide that’s doing its job very well and your products are flying off the shelves! That’s every retailer’s dream, but you can still help people out after they’ve converted. With a wrapping tips and inspiration guide, you can help people wrap their gifts beautifully or advise on those awkwardly shaped gifts - we’re sure most parents would really appreciate some tips on how to neatly wrap a new bike, for example. DIY and crafting blogs can also be popular - perhaps some ideas for homemade Christmas card designs to accompany your gift?
Once you’ve created a post-conversion guide, there’s a novel way to deliver it to your customers to supplement its place on your blog: by linking to it within the order confirmation email. A gift receipt, a note of thanks, and a “now that you’ve bought it, here are some wrapping tips” all packaged in a single email - ideal.
Seasonal Styling & Usage Guides
Whether it’s clothes, cookware, homeware, or gadgets, it’s always helpful to provide styling or usage guides for the products you’re selling. Whether it’s ‘how to style your puffer coat’ or ‘winter recipes for a ceramic casserole dish’ - tips like these not only serve to help the recipient, but they add an extra level of excitement. They will help people to get the most out of their purchase, or may even provide the persuasion to hit ‘buy’ in the first place.
Festive Season Inspiration Pieces
Tap into the festive aesthetic with some inspirational blogs, preferably with lots of enticing imagery. If you’re a homeware brand, think Christmas decorating ideas, complete with photography featuring some of your top products. Outdoor apparel retailers could create Christmas walking guides for different regions, with photography highlighting waterproof jackets and cosy lined trousers.
Harnessing that aspirational feeling around Christmas whilst incorporating your products into your guides can help to create a more natural, less ‘salesy’ approach to converting customers.
UGC Stories, Partnerships & Testimonials
User-generated content (UGC) is often an extremely effective marketing tool across multiple channels, and Christmas presents a fantastic opportunity to use storytelling to highlight your products in your blog. This could take the form of an article about festive traditions or personal stories that incorporate your products, or something more direct, like a paid partnership listicle of products picked out by an influencer.
For higher price point products where buyers may need a little more persuasion, long-form testimonials can be very impactful. The power of reviews cannot be underestimated, and well-written, longer pieces are the ideal accompaniment for items that are a little more expensive than the average Christmas gift.
Extra Tip: Engage Your Audience Across Channels with Different Content Mediums
No matter what type of Christmas blog content you’re going for this year, whether it’s listicles, gift guides, or long-form storytelling, always try and mix up the mediums where possible. Video explainers or reviews, photography, and well-designed infographics are all excellent ways to engage an audience and offer something a little more eye-catching. You can even take the interactive route, with quizzes and competitions to help customers connect with your brand. All of these mediums are versatile, too, so you can use them across multiple channels to make your content work harder for you, and for a more cohesive approach to your festive strategy.
Hopefully these Christmas content ideas have helped to spark some inspiration ahead of the busy festive season. Whether you opt for one of the ideas in this article or you’re combining a few, make sure to keep your content authentic and true to your brand in order to resonate with your audience and drive more engagement and better results.
If you are looking for support building an effective content strategy for your eCommerce brand year round, get in touch.
