Christmas Marketing Ideas for Venues
In this article we explore different Christmas marketing ideas for venues to implement. Christmas is an exciting time for venues as the festive spirit brings an influx of paying customers.
However, with fierce competition, venues still need to have a robust Christmas marketing plan in place to make sure patrons are attending their venue and not another.
Here are some tips to help you make the most of this very busy month. You can use the links below to jump to the section you’re interested in:
1. Get Creative and Go Festive
2. Create a Christmas Booking Page on your Website
3. Add Christmas Events to your Calendar
4. Create Christmas Packages
5. Up your Email Game
6. Share a Recipe
7. Share Behind the Scenes
8. Start a 12 Days of Christmas Countdown
9. Take the 12 Days of Christmas into your Venue
10. Send Greetings Cards
11. Create Christmas Related Facebook Ad Campaigns
12. Create Christmas Related Google Adword Ads
13. Create a Competition
14. Go for the “Return Visit” with your Christmas Ideas
15. Sell Gift Cards or Vouchers
16. Be Charitable
17. Don’t Forget Print & Traditional Methods
18. Use Bloc to Help Drive People to your Venue
1. Get Creative and Go Festive
Your first task is to turn your venue into a winter wonderland, not just physically in the venue itself, but also online. There are lots of Christmas marketing ideas for venues that can be created without spending ridiculous amounts too.
Change your Facebook and Twitter headers to something jolly and festive and start creating Christmassy content that you can push throughout December.
In your venue itself, keep the décor classy. It’s very easy for it to become tacky, so invest in quality decorations and maybe outsource this to professionals.
You can also go one step further than just simple decorations. If your venue is kid friendly, consider face painters, Santa’s Grotto’s and themed bars.
2. Create a Christmas Booking Page on your Website
It’s very likely people will be using the internet to find venues to attend for the Christmas period.
Create a specific holiday landing page on your website so people can get all the information they need and include a booking system.
You might have a special Christmas menu, change in prices and information on large bookings, so include all of this on this landing page.
You will need to have a special button on your homepage so visitors can easily navigate to your new Christmas booking page. This will make it easier to separate Christmas bookings from normal bookings too.
3. Add Christmas Events to your Calendar
Along with your Christmas booking page you can include a calendar showcasing all of the events being thrown at your venue in the lead up to Christmas.
Christmas is a chance to be creative and is all about spreading the holiday joy.
You want to try and think of different events from your competition to give you a competitive advantage.
Having a clear structure and calendar can make it easy for customers to decide on whether to come or not. For example, you could have a 12 days of Christmas countdown and throw different events on each day.
4. Create Christmas Packages
Future patrons want to be able to book a venue easily with Christmas in mind. You should have Christmas packages made up where it’s a set menu and price for each person.
Different packages should be tailored for businesses, large groups and smaller groups.
Drinks should also be taken into account when creating packages as it removes the pain when it comes to larger groups and could be a deciding factor when someone is choosing a venue.
It’s vital that these packages are easy to book, and you remain flexible with alterations. Numbers can change and people will drop out, so you need to be prepared for this.
5. Up your Email Game
Our Christmas marketing ideas for venues list wouldn’t be complete without email. The holidays are a brilliant time to send relevant emails to customers as it’s easy to add value.
Customers will be in search for venues to book so a perfectly timed email could see an increase in bookings.
Every email should have a ‘hook’ or reason as to why a customer should make a booking with your venue. Without a clear call-to-action or a weak proposition, your email is likely to be ignored.
You also need to be careful in regard to sending too many emails. Remember everyone is trying to scrap for an individual’s time and money, so their number of emails they receive will increase.
If you caught out to be spamming an individual, you will likely be deleted, and they’ll hit the unsubscribe button.
Keep your emails branded with Christmas joy and keep the emails short. December is a busy month, so everyone has limited time.
6. Share a Recipe
If you have special holiday items that you’re proud of, tell your potential customers about them to get them excited.
There are so many channels now so you can reach a lot of people. Instagram is great for sharing visual items such as food, so get snapping and create videos too.
You don’t need to give away your entire recipe but by sharing snippets of your holiday offerings you will see an increase in bookings.
7. Share Behind the Scenes
The lead up to Christmas is equally as fun and as jolly as Christmas itself, so share behind the scenes of your venue preparing for this special time.
It’s an amazing chance to showcase your staff in the holiday spirit and also current customers having a great time.
8. Start a 12 Days of Christmas Countdown
Countdowns are always funs and by including a 12 days of Christmas promotion you can create a lot of content for your marketing.
Remind your patrons how many days are left until Christmas and include this on your social media and inside the venue.
Each day you could offer a different promotion to really get into the holiday spirit.
9. Take the 12 Days of Christmas into your Venue
A great way to make sure you get repeat customers is by offering a loyalty scheme whereby patrons can collect stamps or a gift every day they visit your venue.
Almost like an advent calendar but instead of a tiny chocolate your customers could get something food or drink related. Then on Christmas day those that have completed the countdown can get a big prize.
10. Send Greetings Cards
Greeting cards are traditionally a lovely way to spread the holiday cheers. By sending cards to your regular customers, staff and other stakeholders you can get everyone in the holiday mood.
It’s a chance to show that you care about your customers and they’ll appreciate the extra effort you’ve put in with hopefully a visit.
11. Create Christmas Related Facebook Ad Campaigns
You should start a Facebook campaign and adverts that are specific to holiday and Christmas bookings.
It makes sense for your call to action to be to book on your new Christmas landing page that you create before.
12. Create Christmas Related Google Adword Ads
Similar to Facebook adverts you should be advertising on Google too.
The trick here is to advertise on relevant Christmas venue booking keyword phrases such as ‘best Christmas pub lunches in London.’
13. Create a Competition
People love competitions and free giveaways. By throwing a Christmassy related competition you can generate content, increase your followers on social media and increase the number of people through the door.
14. Go for the “Return Visit” with your Christmas Ideas
There’s no better opportunity to get a repeat customer when someone has just had a good experience in your venue and is about to leave.
Just before they do, before they pay their bill you should be targeting them with your Christmas promotions to tempt them to come back.
You could tell them about your future events or even offer them a discount for their next visit.
15. Sell Gift Cards or Vouchers
The holidays involve receiving and more importantly giving gifts to your friends and loved ones. Gift cards make it onto our Christmas marketing ideas for venues list as they include a kick back for you too rather than sunk costs.
You should sell gift cards or vouchers to your venue; they make for excellent gifts. And they’re great for you because that’s a new customer gained, and you will still receive revenue.
You could also give away gift cards for free in your competitions.
16. Be Charitable
There are a lot of less fortunate people in the world that can’t necessarily enjoy Christmas. By being charitable and helping those less fortunate you can be socially responsible and also gain respect from your customers.
You could even get your customers involved by offering a % of their bill to charity. So, the more they spend, the more you both will give.
Holding charity events around the Christmas time is also a fantastic way to spread the holiday cheer.
17. Don’t Forget Print & Traditional Methods
Digital gets a lot of attention these days because it’s cheap and it’s easy to track. But you shouldn’t forget traditional advertising as it creates an opportunity as not many others will be doing it.
If you have Christmas events, handing out leaflets in your local area could work really well because it’s unlikely many other venues will be doing the same.
18. Use Bloc to Help Drive People to your Venue
You can use Bloc to help drive people to your venue over the Christmas period.
Bloc is a social events app that pays people to attend venues. There is an opportunity for venues to advertise on the platform and they only pay if Bloc brings that venue a customer.
It’s risk free and budget friendly. There is also a free trial that venues can take advantage of to try it out. You can learn more about Bloc at https://business.getonbloc.com.
We hope your venue has a lot of success in the lead up to Christmas and long after.
Merry Christmas.
