liche-Free Holiday Copywriting Ideas & Examples //


An opinion or phrase that is too common and shows a lack in original thought.

This is the definition cliche.

Have you ever used clichés in your copywriting.


You don’t have to worry about it, I’ve done them all and they aren’t terrible. It is not possible or necessary to make every word original. The human brain loves familiarity. However, familiarity doesn’t make you stand out. The consumer brain has been trained to ignore the countless holiday marketing messages that bombard it every year.

How can you really stand out?

This post will share 60+ examples and suggestions to help you create cliche-free copy this holiday season for your ads and landing pages, emails and social posts. These examples are also accompanied by the strategies that underlie them, so you can expand your creative copywriting toolset for all year!

Table of Contents


  1. Tweets are a great way to share relatable humor

  2. Inspiration from holiday greeting cards

  3. Use a slogan generator

  4. View your inbox

  5. Surface forgotten song lyrics

  6. Follow the seven principles of Kwanzaa

  7. Give someecards an attempt

  8. Leave out “holidays” in your idea searches

  9. Get noticed with eye-opening stats

  10. Thesaurus

1. Tweets can be used to share relatable humor

Twitter is a great tool for creating cliche-free copywriting. It’s because good tweets are relatable, and succinct. Isn’t this how great copy should be? While some Tweets can give you inspiration for your own relatable copy, others will be useful for you to use in context (e.g. in a gift guide).

Be sure to ask permission before you post and credit where credit is due. Also, make sure to check the account of the user to ensure that any other tweets they have posted are correct. For holiday tweets, click here

Example 1

This Tweet says: “For Hanukkah gifts, I’m going to assemble my sons birthday present starting in July.”

Ideas:

Example 2

This Tweet says: “Have children so that instead real gifts, you can gift friends and family novelty photo products with photos of your kids they saw on social media six months ago.”

Ideas:

Example 3

This Tweet says: “I’m so happy to have found such great deals on holiday decorations that I won’t even remember what I bought the next Christmas.”

Ideas:


  • Register for our holiday rewards program. Keep track of all your deals.

  • Don’t wait until after the holidays to get amazing deals.

  • Holiday clearance prices so low that you’ll believe time has stopped and you’re living in holiday heaven.

Twitter is not without its problems, but it can be a great source for conversational inspiration and relatable content–holidays and not. Post fun questions to your account and see what your followers come up with.

2. Take a look at holiday greeting cards

Let’s take a moment to talk about the cards at the bottom of any greeting card aisle. These cards can be viewed in a single sitting. Who’s going to do that anyway? This row is actually the second page of search results for greeting cards. Something needs to be done.

Also, the accessibility viewpoint doesn’t allow for access to the bottom and top rows. Online shopping for holiday marketing ideas is an expensive luxury.

Example #4

This card says: “May you heart be full..and inbox empty.”



Source

Ideas:


  • Your heart and wallet will be filled.

  • Your heart will be full and your ads will click too

  • Your heart may be full, but your head will not! These are X sanity-saving holiday ideas.


Looking for more creative copywriting ideas?

Free guide: 36 of the Best Call to Action Phrases Ever

Example #5

One of the most enduring holiday pain points. Picture of tangled Christmas lights with the word “nope”



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Ideas:

Example #6

This card features mittens that represent different cultures. It also says “happy all”



Image source

Ideas:

This card shows you how easy it is to make holiday messaging more inclusive diverse. Consider the icons, colors and examples that you use in your content and designs. Even the smallest details can convey big messages. Make sure you are positive.

Example #7

This card is a menorah that has a word for each candle. It includes peace, happiness and laughter as well as friendship, spirit, lights, holidays, family, and spirit.



Source

Idea:

This image could be used as a model in a guide with eight to nine components. The main topic would be the center candle and the eight strategies/tips/values would be the remaining ones.

3. Use a slogan generator

A good slogan cannot be created from a formula. However, formulaic results don’t mean that creative ideas can’t be inspired by them.

Example #8

First, I entered “Hanukkah” into Shopify’s slogan generator. You can expect to find a lot of ridiculously inexplicable taglines. However, I was able extract some copywriting potential.

Ideas:

Example #9

Next, I entered “holidays” into the slogan generator.

Ideas:

Example #10

Last time, I put “gifts” in the generator.

Ideas:

4. Browse through your email inbox



Queue under “There’s no place like home for the holidays”.

There is no doubt the holiday season is associated with warmth and family.


If you want to feel that comfort this holiday season in a new way, consider catering to people who don’t have families to visit or are unable to travel home.

Example #11

This inclusive email gives subscribers the option to unsubscribe from Mother’s Day email communications.



Source

Idea:

5. Use forgotten song lyrics

Holiday marketing is all about cliché holiday song lyrics. There’s no getting around the positive emotions these songs evoke in us. You can market songs with emotion but still be authentic if you use the same songs but keep the lyrics fresh. Or holiday songs that connect to your value proposition with words and phrases

Example #12

Let’s start with Bing Crosby’s “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas”



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Ideas:

Example #13

Remember Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”



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Ideas:

Two phrases that you can have some fun with in your holiday book are:

Example #14

Let’s also take Mariah Carey’s “All that I Want for Christmas is You”



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Ideas:

Example #15

This Tweet says: After four days of birds, it is impossible to accept gifts from anyone.

Ideas:

Look at lyrics from popular songs to see if you can come up with funny or engaging marketing copy. You might like

6. Kwanzaa inspires you

Many memorable holiday marketing campaigns focus on gratitude and giving. These values are great! These values can be emphasized from many other cultural perspectives.

Example #16

Kwanzaa is an example.



Source

Ideas:

You might consider focusing on the core-related content that you publish during holidays instead.

7. Check out someecards

This is another way to create super-related content. Bigdisclaimer Someecards Content can be insensitive and offensive. Make sure you don’t choose memes that could be considered as a risk.

Example #17

This card reads: “Sorry, your company is not performing well enough this past year to host an office holiday party.”

Ideas:

Example #18

This card reads “May all your gifting go undiscovered this year.”

Ideas:

Example #19

This card reads: “This holiday season in lieu of presents, I’ve decided that everyone will get my opinion.”

Ideas:

8. You can exclude “holidays” from your idea searches

Google for examples is one of the best ways to jumpstart your copywriting creativity.

BUT…

Google is used by 90% of the population. 90% of those 90% don’t even go to the first page. You can be sure that the ideas you receive are not authentic.

The top pages of “best holiday marketing campaign” almost always include the same 10 YouTube videos of commercials by big brands. These videos are inspiring and entertaining, but they are not useful for copywriting. This list is

You can just leave out “holidays” from your search terms. For example, I searched for “holiday facebook ads examples” instead of “holiday Facebook ad samples.” These are the results that I found.

Example #20

This carousel ad is from our facebook ads roundup. It reads: “Learn to keep creative control WITHOUT making Marketing enemies.” Each card in the carousel also has a different version “Creatives & Marketers” like …”.

Ideas:


Example #21:

This Facebook ad copy states: “Time travel. Talking babies. An old man shouting at the clouds. Another day in adult animation. It’s available on Hulu starting at $5.99 per month.



Source

Ideas:

  • With similar copy and creative, capture the holiday chaos for your audience.


    • Gifts wrapped in duct tape. Use CVS receipts for tissue paper. Reduce last-minute chaos by using [your business em]
    • [A photo of] Whiskers sampling the tinsel. Lucky to be able to gnaw the garland. Spot sampling gingerbread house Save your decorations; treat your pets.

Example 22

Two things I love about this ad copy are: I like the first, “Diaper rash, meet you match”, and the second, the use of a testimonial.

Ideas:

  • Check if there are any positive reviews that you can use from someone who received or gave your product as gifts.
  • Rhyme like this ad with “Diaperrash, Meet Your Match” (This is a great example of rhyming).

    Copywriting techniques

    regardless.)


    • Post-holiday crash, meet your match.

    • Meet your match.

9. Use fun (or sad) stats & facts

Although feelings are not facts, they DO trigger feelings. You can go down the rabbit hole that is statistic Googling to find amazing copywriting.

Example #23

Ideas:

  • All 12 Days of Christmas would run you $1,050

    $39,000

    .


    • You could also pay less for a [car model and make].
  • US consumers spend

    15

    Each year, holiday parties are attended by thousands of people.


    • Your go-to [dresses, makeup, wine etc.] This will last you through…

    • There are 15 reasons to join the gym. Get 30% Discount on December Sign up

  • 30% of Americans anticipate taking on holiday debt.

    • Would you like to get cashback this year,

10. Use the thesaurus

There are two ways to use a thesaurus when you’re writing copy. My tips on how to write copy that sells will help you keep your language simple, understandable and comprehensible. Thesaurus will not be used to find more intelligent-sounding words. However, we will use thesaurus to escape generic holiday phrases in holiday advertising.

Example #24

Let’s look at the most common holiday generic: Ring in 2019!

There are other options!

Ideas:

  • Launch
  • Embark
  • Inaugurate
  • Initiate
  • Set [year] in motion
  • Catapult
  • Break into
  • Insist on
  • Put your plough into
  • Get out of your comfort zone.

These examples and ideas will help you create authentic holiday copywriting

Cliches in copywriting are a holiday marketing error. This may be the gift you give to your holiday strategy. It could also be the gift that keeps giving, as you can use these tips for non-holiday copy throughout the year. Remember that cliches and common phrases can be good, but not for the content pieces that truly want to shine. These 10 tips will help you maintain authenticity this season.

  1. Use Twitter to create relatable and funny copy.
  2. Find creative and inclusive holiday greeting cards here.
  3. Use a slogan generator to generate headlines or taglines.
  4. Give your copy to people who have difficulty with the holidays.
  5. To appeal to pain points, you can use forgotten lyrics from songs.
  6. Take inspiration from the seven principles of Kwanzaa.
  7. Someecards can be used to make your emails and blog posts funny.
  8. You can omit “holidays” from your Google search results.
  9. Your copy should be based on eye-opening statistics.
  10. To avoid cliches, use the thesaurus

Looking for more holiday copywriting ideas?

We’ve got you covered! This collection of resources is useful for holiday copywriting as well as non-holiday copywriting.

The first WordStream article was 64 Cliche Free Holiday Copywriting Ideas and Examples.

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