To maximise their sales at Christmas, brands need to succeed in capturing and holding the attention of consumers. Gamification, incorporating playable elements into sales activities, is already an excellent way of engaging your audience (through interactive mechanisms and the promise of a reward).
But what’s better than an Advent Calendar to give your prospects and customers a daily appointment during December? This format allows you to share a new marketing game every day, giving your community the chance to discover your products and try to win attractive prizes.
In this comprehensive guide, we explain why and how to create an online Advent Calendar. What are the marketing objectives you can achieve with this animation and how can you offer a unique branded experience to boost your Christmas campaign? Find out in this article.
What is a digital Advent Calendar ?
The Advent Calendar is an integral part of Christmas folklore. Before we went digital, we used to treat ourselves to physical versions that usually contained a new chocolate behind each box.
From now on, Advent Calendars can be shared online. While the format has changed, the principle remains the same. Participants fill in a personalised form, click on the box of the day (from 1 to 25 December). They unlock a new mini-game and find out immediately whether they’ve won or lost.
The brand chooses the animation it wants to share behind each box and the surprise it has in store for all participants (or just the winners). This could be a promotion, a product sample, a unique code, loyalty points, exclusive content, etc.
Why create an online Advent Calendar ?
By offering an Advent Calendar game to its community during the festive season, the brand can immerse them in the spirit of the festive season. Above all, it’s an excellent way of capturing the audience’s attention during this important marketing period and multiplying the points of contact by giving them a daily appointment for 25 days.
Once it has captured the attention of its target audience, the company can then move it along its conversion funnel, with the main aim of generating new sales.
The Advent Calendar is an ideal sales promotion format for moving prospects from one stage of the sales funnel to the next:
- Raising awareness: shared on social networks or via an advertising campaign, this marketing game boosts the visibility of your brand with new prospects ;
- Consideration: each new box in the Calendar is an opportunity for the brand to showcase its products. It can also share suggestions for Christmas gifts for friends and familiy, or for yourself;
- Conversion: Advent Calendar games also allow companies to share shopping incentives with their audience. Participants can win vouchers or discount coupons to use directly on the brand’s e-commerce site or in its physical shops;
- Loyalty : the digital Advent Calendar can also be reserved for loyal brand customers. available for post-purhase or for members of its VIP program, this event is designed to reward the most committed customers with surprises and special offers (access to private sales before Christmas, faster delivery times, etc.).
Steps to customise your Christmas marketing campaign
Create your own Advent Calendar is now available to everyone. Brands will be able to set the parameters of the mechanism according to their strategic objectives and choose the design of their animation in just a few clicks. They’ll keep control on their campaign and will be able to offer an original and immersive experience to their audience during this key marketing period.
All they have to do is follow these steps:
1. Configuration
This stage consists of determining the general parameters of the campaign. Here, the brand will choose the design of its Advent Calendar and dress up its campaign so that it respects its graphic universe (choice of fonts, colors and background image, etc.).
2. Setting up the digital Advent Calendar homepage
The company imports the legal documentation for its game (rules, confidentiality policy) to create a 100% transparent experience for participants.
3. Creating the entry form
Thanks to this, the brand organising an Advent Calendar can capture data and enrich its cusotmer base. It will be able to define the fileds on its form according to the information it wants to collect, and also customise the design to maintain a consistent and immersive brand experience.
4. The choice of mechanics
The Advent Calendar works with the Instant Win system. The brand will be able to choose which mini-game it wants to offer each day (Jackpot , Wheel of Fortune or Lucky One) and set the parameters for the visuals. They will then have to choose the number of winners per day using the instant win generator integrated into the calendar creation software (which will designate the winners according to the days and time slots defined by the brand).
5. Distributing the marketing campaign
This is done via simplified sharing options: on the organiser’s website or a dedicated micro-site, the link to which can be shared everywhere, particularly on social networks. Organisers can even generate virality around their competition by configuring a sharing and sponsorship option, so that each participant can invite their friends and family to play.
6. Exporting game data
The organiser can import the customer data collected via the forms, but also via the list of winners. This last stage enables brands to analyse the performance of their campaign, enrich their CRM database and communicate the benefits of the event (by sharing the names of the winners in their networks, for example).
4 tips for a successful Advent Calendar marketing campaign
To maximise the impact of their online Advent Calendar, brands can:
- Collect data in advance of the campaign (particularly at other marketing high points such as Halloween or Black Friday). This data will be used to customise the events, prizes and content of the Advent Calendar to maximise its impact ;
- Vary the content to keep participants’ attention for 25 days. By choosing different game mechanics and prizes to win, the brand will find it easier to engage its audience over time ;
- Distribute the digital Advent Calendar across all its marketing channels to maximise the reach of the marketing campaign. This multi-channel strategy will enable us to reach a wider audience and generate more sales ;
- Rely on co-branding or influencer marketing for greater visibility. Another effective approach for reaching and converting more prospects is to team up with a partner brand or content creator to distribute your campaign more widely. Co-branding also makes it possible to reduce the cost of the event by offering gifts from the partner brand. Influencer marketing can be used to vary the content by offering more authentic tutorials, unboxing or product recommendations.
Create an online Advent Calendar is a great way to boost your Christmas campaign. With Socialshaker, you can easily configure and customise your animation to deliver a branded, immersive experience and achieve your business objectives.
