How are personalised Christmas letters and cards significant?

Writing Christmas letters is a yearly tradition for many people across the world and specifically in the UK. 900 Million Christmas cards are sent yearly with each household sending an average of 16 Christmas cards. In 2022 despite e-mail, text and social media becoming the most common mediums of communication, Christmas cards continue to be relevant and widely used. The Royal Mail still continues the tradition of writing Christmas letters to Santa, encouraging children across the UK to write him a letter during the Christmas season. Writing to loved ones and family during Christmas is a UK tradition and there’s no better way to do that than physically with a Christmas card.

Elements of a Christmas letter

An important element of any Christmas letter is the personalisation that each letter or card will have. Christmas cards are usually dedicated to an individual or to a specific group/family. The message contained in the letter is personalised to the receiver in more ways than just containing their name.

Christmas cards are unique in the number of different purposes and outcomes that they can have. Some of the most common and effective purposes include:

Rekindling old or lost friendship

- - Reaching out in a thoughtful and personal way to reconnect with a lost contact

Communicating with close family or friends

- - Letting family and friends know they’re in someone’s thoughts and that they’re appreciated

Promoting a product or service

- Write to your most loyal customers and make them feel appreciated with a personalised Christmas card or offer

The final crucial component of a successful Christmas card is making it personal to the recipient.. Just like the lapsing customer who typically visits your ecommerce website but hasn’t recently it can sometimes be a while before we properly catch up with friends and family. A personalised message making them know you care and think about them is always better than a generic festive greeting or no personalisation at all.l

Carry over to Marketing

A personal handwritten and thoughtful Christmas letter is something that anyone would want to receive, so why shouldn’t your consumers? Christmas letters are all about spreading positive thoughts and enjoying the festive period. It’s the time of year for relaxation and enjoying the fruits of your labour. Consumers will be looking to buy presents for Christmas as well as New Years gifts. However, this could prove to be a slight challenge in 2022.

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With no positive increase in Christmas spending plans, there is going to be more competition for the attention of consumers and likely an increase in marketing costs and spending. In addition, it seems as though overall spending during the Christmas season is going to be down from the previous year.

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Consumers are not only spending less on gifts also less across the board on all Christmas activities. Travel has taken a decline alongside leisure activities affecting spending on food and drink in restaurants. While the Christmas season might see less consumer spending this will make effective targeted marketing even more important. There will be more competition this Christmas season than last year making it all the more crucial to wow your audience and doing so through sending less which is what smart utilisation of data can allow

Holiday Habits (Time at home)

Most people across the UK have time off during this period and likely all the way through to New Year. This means there is more time for consumers to be exposed to marketing. It also means there is more time to be spent on screens and on e-commerce websites shopping. Especially since it’s also an important time for buying gifts.

Power of personalisation

Studies have shown that there is a potential for a 30-50% higher response rate for personalised marketing, with other benefits such as a boost in consumer loyalty and confidence. This Christmas your marketing plan should be focused and personalisation to every customer. The trend of personalisation during Christmas has spread to possibly the most iconic Christmas brand Coca-Cola. The company promises to host a digital gift card service with recorded messages to send to loved ones, additionally producing personalisable drink bottles to purchase across their eCommerce platform to send as gifts.

In the spirit of writing and sending your Christmas letter all marketing during the holiday season should be personalised. Ideally, it should also be well thought out and memorable. It should be appropriately timed. It should feel wanted and welcomed by a consumer.

Digital

Marketing online is a common practice around Christmas. As most people are uploading photos of their time off and browsing other profiles online traffic increases. This leads to more potential exposure for advertising across social media. Video campaigns, banner ads and Emails are all great ways to connect with consumers during Christmas. Email has proven to be very effective during Christmas with consumers spending more when purchasing through email.

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There is a negative to the increase in digital marketing during Christmas and that is the pricing. With 2023 looking to be the first year of economic recession marketing budgets will likely begin getting reduced. Prices for premium ad space only increase during Christmas therefore spending significantly on digital marketing might not yield positive results. Especially due to the competitive nature of online ad space as well as the often over-reliance on email marketing. An economical and more efficient solution would be Paperplanes Automated Direct Mail.

Automated Direct Mail

The spirit of Christmas cards and letters is carried on by Paperplanes’ automated direct mail service. Much like Christmas letters, Paperplanes sends personalised mail to consumers via a physical medium. Sending marketing messages at optimal conversion times to maximise the returns on each piece of mail sent. Sending your audience personalised mail to recover abandoned baskets and win back lost customers is smart automated personalisation in action. Direct mail has the advantage of being extra visible during the holiday period. Mail can sit at home on a coffee table or desk for weeks, being seen on a daily. Paperplanes Automated Direct Mail is also capable of achieving impressive results such as: