It’s that wonderful time of the year once again! Christmas is one special season that transcends age, religion, and race. This is the perfect time for family life to grow much closer in love and affection embraced fully with children’s glee and sound laughter. To businesses, however, this is also a season of headaches and stress. Finding the right campaign to make your business more appealing in this season of giving requires careful thinking.
When strengthening your business appeal, here are some noteworthy tips to remember:
1. Prepare the business “spirit of giving” all throughout the year. Yes! The most effective way of creating a culture of purposeful giving is done not just when the situation demands but each day of the year. Do not wait for the Christmas countdown or the beginning of the Yuletide season. Make it a habit to set the mood all the time to make your efforts constant and consistent.
2. Let your company vision include the sense of purposeful giving. Let it be part of your business advocacy to give back to your employees, to company stakeholders, and the community where your business is thriving. These efforts will lead to a mutually inclusive relationship leading to trust essential in building a sound reputation.
3. During the festivities, it is essential to not just focus on your business efforts in delivering a positive appeal for your business or brand. It is also essential to reflect such efforts in your company’s actions. So why not learn to export your Christmas gift-giving efforts to where it matters most—to the people serving round-the-clock. It may be doctors and nurses at a nearby hospital or senior caregiving facility, a subway toll-free collector who works even on Christmas Eve, or your own employees who had to be at the plant to meet store requirements on time.
4. When planning a Christmas lunch or dinner for the company, you may want to integrate your humanitarian efforts as well. Invite seniors from the home for the aged, the homeless, or orphaned children. Loneliness can be brutal to these people during what others call the “happiest time” of the year. Share the joy of your business to them even with a simple meal. This builds strong values for the business and for the people behind its success.
5. Give thanks to the people who have done service to the community all year round. Provide discounts to trash collectors, firemen, police, emergency servicemen, postal workers, and the like. If you are running a restaurant or café, consider offering free meals or free goodies.
6. Promote the essence of volunteerism in your company. Take time off to show care to the orphaned and the elderly by organizing a local visit, bringing fun and free meals with you. This will create a paradigm shift in your employees which will eventually raise a more aware and conscientious workforce.
7. Engage in a “Secret Santa” program. Survey families in need in the area and come up with the necessities, delivered to their doorstep without them knowing where these came from. Let employees do the deed to give them more hands-on experience and make them more aware on such endeavors.
Celebrate the season of giving with a pure vision in mind. Conscientious businesses do not just strengthen their business appeal with superficial action plans. Let it reverberate to your daily endeavors, to your employees psyche, and to the community’s awareness to make Christmas—and everyday of the year—worthwhile.