Want to boost activation in the run up to the holidays? Why not try setting up a holiday calendar? This is a fantastic way to engage your contacts in the run up to the holidays and has proven to be a fun and easy way to boost activation.
You can use this guide to set this up for yourself or alternatively you can reach out to your Customer Success Manager for assistance. In the bottom of this article we have added som calendar designs and content ideas for 24 days - easy for you to download and start building your Holiday Calendar.
In this scenario we will build a 24 day Christmas Advent Calendar. This is the most advanced type of holiday calendar and you can set it up with fewer days. For example, a weekly advent calendar with one box for each week.
You will need to create a frontpage for the whole calendar, and a landing page for each day.
This will allow you to create content for each day of the calendar counting down towards Christmas.
Follow these four steps below to create your calendar in Actimo:
Step 1: Create a Landing page for the your Calendar Frontpage
The first thing that you need to do is to create a landing page with a grid for the whole calendar. In this case, we will base this on an advent calendar where the placement of each day is chosen at random. For the calendar frontpage, you can use a grid module with 24 tiles where each tile navigates to each day.
Create a message and add a grid module with 3 tiles per row and add 24 tiles
Create a graphic to use as a background for the entire grid that includes a tile for each day. Please note the following dimensions:
Single tile 300x300 px minimum (recommend 600x600 px)
3x1 tiles 900x300 px minimum (recommend 1800x600 px)
Minimum 900x2400 px for the full background image for 24 tiles, or minimum 600x600 px for the full background image for 4 tiles if you are doing a weekly calendar.
Here are some examples with and without numbers, daily and weekly:
Upload a graphic as a background Image for the entire grid. You can include numbers on each tile in the background image itself, or exclude them and add the numbers as titles in the grid instead.
If you have uploaded a background image with no numbers, name the tiles “8”, “14”, “1” etc. until you have named all 24 tiles:
Click save
Add a grid module with 3 tiles per row and add 24 tiles, and upload background image for the module:
Step 2: Create landing pages and content for each day
The three key steps to creating a holiday calendar in Actimo are:
Create the Content – Prepare the messages for each day.
Disable Deeplinking – Ensure deeplinking is disabled on each message to prevent access before the scheduled date.
Schedule Messages for Later – Set the messages to be published on their specific dates, so they unlock automatically for your employees.
Create a landing page for each day.
The landing pages for each day can be formatted however you like. Each landing page will need to be created as a new message.
The idea is to keep the content light and fun, but you can also make it informative. Here are some ideas for content:
A quiz where everyone with the highest scores are entered into a prize draw
A social feed where you ask people a fun question to kick things off like ‘what is the WORST Christmas gift you’ve ever received?’
A video or pictures from a holiday themed event.
A brief academy about Holiday traditions around the world
Here is an example of a simple landing page for the first day that includes a quiz:
On page one we have an introduction text module, a Gif added in an image module, and a button that links to page two of the message:
Page two includes a text module, a quiz, and a button that links back to the calendar landing page:
To set this up:
Create a new message
Add an text module and add your introductory text
Add an image module and upload the GIF or image that you would like to use.
Add a button at the bottom of the message (add your text to the button, but do not add an action yet.
Add a second page by clicking on the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the message editor.
Add a text module to introduce the quiz
Add and create the quiz
Add a button that redirects to the Calendar Front Page.
Go back to page one, edit the button and create an action that redirects to the second page.
You can find instructions about how to add text, image, and quiz modules here:
To set up the buttons you simply add the text that you want to appear on the button and add an action that directs either to the page with the quiz, or the calendar homepage:
You can find further instructions about how to add a button here.
Disable deeplinking on each message
Ensure deeplinking is disabled on each message to prevent access before the scheduled date.
In the Publish section of the message > Click 'Advanced Settings' and tick 'Disable deeplinking'.
Disabling deeplinking ensures the message won't be accessible before the scheduled date. If an employee clicks on one of the tiles linked from the landing page (the guidelines on how to link each message to the tiles are below in the article), and the message isn't yet available, they will see a 'No access. You don't have access to this page' message.
Scheduling Messages for the Holiday Calendar
It’s important to note that the messages should be unlocked each day. You can schedule all the content for the hatches in advance, and they will automatically become available to employees on the specific dates they are set for.
This is what you will need to set this up:
Select the contacts to whom the message should be published:
Tick 'Schedule For Later'.
Set the message to be published on the specific date it should become available to the contacts:
Leave the notification methods unticked.
Click on 'Schedule for Later' > 'Confirm'. The content will be queued and published on the specified date.
Create 24 messages, one for each day of the calendar.
Step 3: Connecting the Calendar front page to each message.
Now that the Calendar front page and the landing pages for each day are set up, we can connect it all together. When you launch the calendar, you would typically have the landing page for December 1st connected to the tile for the first day on the front page. Each subsequent day will follow the same structure, with its respective landing page connected to the corresponding tile.
Pro tip!
If you do not want to send notifications over a weekend, you can change those settings under Notifications & Reminders in the publish section. Here, you can schedule messages notifications for Monday, allowing you to publish ahead of time and not notify people over the weekend.
Go to Calendar Front Page message
Edit the Grid Module
Find the tile for the first day of the calendar. (If you have chosen a background image that includes numbers, you will need to count the tiles from left to right to find the correct tile while editing).
Click the settings icon for that tile
Click add an action
Select Go to Message
Select the message for December 1st.
For all other tiles, follow the same process.
Click Save
Go back to the Calendar Front Page message and publish with the desired notifications and messaging.
Congratulations! You have now set up your holiday calendar 🎄🎅🏻🎉
Content for building your Holiday Calendar
We know that it takes a lot of resources to build a Holiday Calendar - but we don't think that this should stop you from creating a fun and engaging Holiday Calendar for your employees.
Therefore we have prepared an early Christmas gift for you - a couple of Calendar designs and content for a 24 day Holiday Calendar - easy for you to download and get started building your Holiday Calendar!
Merry Christmas 🎄🎅🏻💫