I do realise that we’re in the hottest week of the year and to be talking about Christmas is probably going to get me lynched, but if you sell a product or service that might be suitable as a gift, then you need to be thinking about Christmas right now.

Izzy and I spent a fantastic day at the Sheer Luxe Christmas conference yesterday in Fulham and have come away fully inspired from the wonderful speakers and delegates at the event. And once I’ve trawled through my twenty-odd pages of notes I’ll be sharing many of the gems that came out of yesterday’s conference. But the theme of the event was getting ready for Christmas and for retailers and e-tailers, the time to start thinking about Christmas is now, particularly if you want to get some PR in the glossies.

So if you run a gift or retail business, what sorts of things should you be thinking about in preparation for Christmas?

Start by thinking about your Christmas objectives. What do you want to sell? What are your bestsellers and what will you focus on this year? What lessons did you learn from last year and what resource do you have to throw at this?

How do you need to adapt your tone of voice to the Christmas market? If you sell Pashminas you’re probably selling to women most of the year, but come Christmas you’ll be selling to men. What do they need to know about how your product will make the perfect gift?

When will you start your Christmas campaign and what collateral do you need? Consider a microsite or adapting the design of your homepage to attract the Christmas shoppers. And don’t overlook the importance of printed literature. E-marketing makes promoting your product or service much simpler, but add a catalogue into the mix and you’ll see your success rate shoot through the roof – by up to 40%.

Plan ahead – all of this takes time. And a lot of it. Get planning now while you still have time, because as soon as the children go back to school Christmas will be in the air.

Bear in mind that pay per click search terms will cost you a lot more during the Christmas season as the keywords become more competitive so try and come up with creative ways to promote your business. Consider improving the content of your site to attract and retain visitors.

Email marketing is going to be essential in maximising your chances of success – and now is the time to start building your list. Pop-ups offering incentives to visitors who leave your their email and first name are a great way to add quality data to your list – especially if you offer money off a first purchase and ask them to double-opt in.

And finally plan some tactical campaigns to add into your strategic marketing mix. Don’t stop doing the brand awareness marketing you’re already doing, but think as well about how you can promote your Christmas offering. All of this takes time, but it will be worth it.

Have a fantastic weekend. I think I know what I’m going to be doing…

I arrived back from my holiday to find this book on my desk. Overwhelmed by my to-do list I put it to one side until lunchtime. How generous, I thought, someone’s sent me a book!

The back looked good. Great title on the front. And wow! They’re on their 16th edition! Come lunchtime I thought I’d have a quick flick through, so imagine my surprise when I opened the book and found this!

There’s a lot of talk about the “death of direct mail” in favour of new media techniques. And there’s no doubt that there is less “stuff” coming through the post than there was ten years ago. But I see that as an opportunity. There is less clutter for your piece to cut through, and if you can create something that grabs attention and gets your message across and galvanises the action that you want your audience to take, then what’s not to like?

Sue Llewellyn runs Many Hands Media, a company which works with companies and individuals to help them communicate confidently. She's a sparkling personality who really knows her stuff, and we were keen to create a postcard for Sue that really did her justice.

I wrote some simple (and short, for me!) copy that Sue and I honed together, chopping bits out, sculpting sentences and bravely chopping out more until we had words which powerfully communicated what she does. Now this is much harder than it sounds, because Sue's scope is very broad. She works with all sorts of clients on all sorts of projects, so creating copy that people would want to act on was no easy task.

Caroline used these fab images from a colleague of Sue to create a striking, engaging and confident font, and then created a very simple, clean design for the back to compliment the look.

What do you think?

Well the ‘average’ direct mail
response rate is 1-2%, so most people see that as a good return, but I don’t
think that tells the whole story. Your response rate, in general, will be as
good as the effort you put in.

We’ve run campaigns for clients who
have gained a 24% response rate – it’s all about getting six key variables
right. Send it to the right target audience – don’t take the ‘throw enough mud and
hope it sticks’ route – take the time and trouble to work out who you need to
speak to. Secondly, think about the timing. When are people most likely to
think about buying your products or services. Are there any no-go times (if
you’re targeting working mums, or work at home mums for example, don’t plan a
mailing to land in the middle of half term – they’ve got other things on their
minds!). thirdly the offer has to be right – compelling and appropriate to the
target audience. Your copy needs to be powerful and your design needs to
attract and build trust. Finally, for maximum results, integrate with other
marketing activities – a telemarketing campaign, email marketing or PR.

Absolutely,
but you’ve got to use them properly. Chucking your logo at the top of a piece
of paper and banging on about how brilliant your business is won’t cut it. Your
clients and prospective clients are overloaded with information and for your
leaflets to work, you’ve got to inspire people to take action. And that means
talking about how you solve your customers problems.

It’s worth
bearing in mind that no business should rely on just one method of promotion.
You have got to use multiple methods to reach your target audience. And just as
I wouldn’t advocate a business relying on leaflets alone, I think it’s
dangerous to assume that social media and emarketing are the only promotional
methods a business needs.

There’s
always going to be a place for printed literature. Sure, people are printing
less than they were ten years ago, but they’re still printing. Clients like to
take ‘stuff’ away, to read it, touch and feel it and ponder it in a way that’s
very difficult to do with e marketing.

When you're writing a sales letter you need to be incredibly focused on what you want people to do. Want to write a letter to introduce your business? Great, go ahead! But don't be surprised when you get no response. Why? Because you haven't asked for a response.

When you send out a piece of direct mail you never quite know how many people were interested in what you had posted them and opened the envelope, and how many went straight in the bin. One of the joys of email marketing is that if you use the right piece of software, you can monitor the 'open rates' (how many people opened and read your email as opposed to putting straight in the trash).

Just how effective are the leaflets, brochures and flyers you use to promote your business with? 

A couple of weeks ago I had an email from a client asking me to quote on some leaflets. And as always, I couldn't resist having a quick read through her copy. It's like an addiction for me. I simply cannot stop reading copy and thinking about how I might improve it. Some people choose drugs, others alcohol, mine is copywriting!

The copy that Amanda had written was very typical of a piece of copy any client might send to me. Take a look at what she'd written:

BEFORE