The holiday season is fast approaching, which means it’s time to start planning ways to engage your audience and spread some seasonal cheer. One fun way to do that? Create a digital advent calendar.
Digital advent calendars are a fresh take on the traditional advent calendars of childhood. But instead of little paper doors with tiny chocolate pieces, these modern versions allow you to reveal different digital surprises and delights every day in the month leading up to Christmas.
Not only are digital advent calendars enjoyable for your audience, but they can also be fantastic opportunities for brands and content creators. Used strategically, these online calendars allow you to boost engagement, highlight products, or simply entertain your audience with delightful content.
If you want to make a digital advent calendar this year, then you’ve come to the right place! As a professional advent calendar printing manufacturer, I am writing this comprehensive guide to teach you everything you need to know to make an advent calendar your fans will love interacting with.
Why Create a Digital Advent Calendar?
Before we dive into the how-to aspects, let’s first go over some of the reasons you’d want to create a digital advent calendar in the first place:
Increase Audience Engagement
Digital advent calendars encourage your followers to come back day after day to see your latest reveal. This daily check-in habit means more overall engagement with your brand.
Highlight Products or Services
Many companies use digital advent calendars as fun ways to showcase offers, sales, or new product drops in the weeks leading up to the holidays.
Entertain and Delight Fans
For bloggers, artists, and other creators, these online calendars are great ways to produce delightful content that keeps your fans engaged and happy during the festive season.
Boost Brand Awareness
The daily social media posts that accompany digital advent calendar campaigns are fantastic for putting your brand on more people’s radar.
Collect User Data
Digital advent calendars often require some type of sign-up or login to participate, allowing you to gather valuable customer data.
Now that you know why digital advent calendars can be so powerful, let’s get into the details of actually building one with this step-by-step guide.
How to Create a Digital Advent Calendar
Step 1: Set Goals and Target the Right Audience
As with any marketing initiative, the first step is to define your goals. Ask yourself:
- What do I want this digital advent calendar to achieve?
- Who is my target demographic?
- What would create value for them?
Once you clarify your objectives and intended audience, you can use this understanding to inform the rest of your creative and strategic decisions. Know exactly what you want before moving forward.
Step 2: Choose the Right Platform
The next big decision? Which digital platform will you use to house your online advent calendar?
You have a few solid options:
- Build a dedicated website – This allows for total creative control and customization but requires more time, effort, and technical skills.
- Leverage social media – Easier and quicker but less room for creativity.
- Use a specialized advent calendar web app – Streamlined option that handles much of the technical aspects for you.
Consider your goals, target audience, and capabilities to decide which platform fits best.
For example, if you’re a small business on a budget looking specifically to promote holiday product specials, using Instagram Stories or Facebook posts for “unboxing style” reveals might suffice.
However, an ambitious online magazine hoping to deeply engage readers for the whole month might instead want to develop a custom, rich media-fueled advent calendar website.
Step 3: Map Out Your Content Plan
The essence of any successful digital advent calendar lies in the quality and planning behind the daily content you’ll reveal.
Map out what surprising or delightful content, offers, images, or other media you’ll “hide behind each door” from December 1st–24th.
Aim for variety to keep people guessing! Possible ideas include:
- Holiday discounts/coupons
- Sneak peeks of new products
- Whimsical illustrations
- Festive recipes or cocktail tutorials
*curated playlists of seasonal music - Cute videos (holiday themed or not!)
- PDF downloads like holiday greeting card templates, desktop wallpapers, etc
- Fun quizzes, polls, contests, or other interactive elements
Look at your audience, brand, products, and overall objectives to craft a content plan full of value and festive charm.
Step 4: Design an Appealing Advent Calendar Interface
No matter which platform you use, taking some time to mock up what the calendar interface will look like is important. Sketch out:
- How the days will visually “unlock”
- What happens when viewers click into each day
- How people navigate back to the main calendar
- Places for branding, links, buttons, etc
Creating this design map allows you to ideate the user flow and ensure technical feasibility. Plus, it serves as an important guide for when you start actually building out the digital advent calendar with developers or using an app.
Step 5: Build, Integrate & Bring Your Advent Calendar to Life
Now for the fun part—actually making your calendar!
- Coding a custom website: If going the custom website route, work with developers to translate your sketches into a slick, well-designed branded calendar built on tools like HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and potentially a CMS. Make sure it’s tested across devices!
- Leveraging social media: Schedule social posts through each platform’s native scheduling tools. Create corresponding images and videos that align with each day’s content.
- Using a specialized app: Companies like Easypromos offer handy templates and tools for launching customizable digital advent calendar apps without coding, integrating fun features like spin-to-win elements, video and music integration, coupons, and polls. Most also easily plug into marketing tools like MailChimp, HubSpot, and Marketo.
No matter which option you picked back in step two, now’s the time to bring your calendar vision to life!
Step 6: Promote Your Advent Calendar
You built an awesome digital advent calendar filled with delightful surprises and valuable content, but now you have to actually let people know about it!
Promote the calendar across all your marketing channels through:
- Email campaigns
- Social media posts
- Paid ads
- Website banners
- External media partnerships
- Word-of-mouth marketing
Share fun teasers about your calendar in the weeks leading up to launch. Then keep momentum and interest going by reminding fans daily to unlock the latest treat.
Driving an excited, engaged user base to participate each day should be a key focus of the promotional side.
Step 7: Track Performance & Listen to Feedback
Part of running a successful digital advent calendar means keeping a close eye on metrics like:
- Daily/monthly user visits
- Clickthrough/conversion rates on special offers or downloads
- Social shares and engagement
- Email open/clickthrough rates
- Survey feedback
As the month goes on, track this data daily to see which types of content resonate best with your audience. Apply those learnings in real-time to optimize the remainder of your calendar.
You can also solicit direct feedback through polls and surveys to guide future content adjustments. Use this data to improve your digital advent calendar strategy in the years to come!
Unwrap Oodles of Holiday Engagement
Launching a polished digital advent calendar is no small feat—but the effort pays off through increased engagement, brand-building, lead generation, and audience growth.
Use this guide’s step-by-step instructions to conceptualize, build, and promote an online advent calendar that leaves fans eager to unlock more holiday magic.
With strategic planning and creative content, your calendar can become a coveted part of your community’s new December traditions for years to come.