Nigeria
Detty December playbook
Detty December campaign playbook
December does not trade like any other month in Nigeria. Returnees land, parties fill the calendar and your team wants leave. This is how to plan the broadcast calendar week by week, from late November into the new year.
Week by week
Templates approved early
Deposits upfront
January follow up
Why December is different
The month your whole year gets decided in
Everything that makes December profitable also makes it hard to run. Plan around these five things and the rest of the playbook makes sense.
The returnees change who is on your list
People who live in London, Houston, Toronto and Abu Dhabi land in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt from the middle of the month. They need hair, food, drivers, photographers, outfits and appointments inside a short trip, so they decide fast and they book on WhatsApp. The quiet number on your list from last December is worth messaging again.
Parties, weddings and end of year events stack up
Owambe season, weddings, carol nights, office parties and concerts all land in the same three weeks. Every one of them pulls demand into hair, catering, tailoring, transport, venues and photography. Almost none of it is booked by phone call, and almost all of it is booked in a chat.
Money moves at the end of the year
Thirteenth month pay, bonuses, contracts settling and money sent home all arrive around the same time. People who have read your broadcasts all year without buying suddenly have a reason to, which makes December the right month to ask the segment that has been quiet since April.
Your own staff want to travel
The people who answer your messages have villages to go to, weddings to attend and families to see. Your busiest fortnight is the fortnight your team is thinnest, so whatever you automate in November is what is actually running in December.
Traffic decides what you can promise
Roads in Lagos and Abuja seize up from the middle of the month. Deliveries take longer, customers arrive late for appointments and riders cannot make the number of drops they make in October. Put the real timing in the message, before the customer has paid, not after.
The calendar
Late November to early January, week by week
Six moves. Each one has a job, and the order matters more than the wording.
01
Late November: list and templates
Clean the contact list, tag by service, branch, city and last visit, and drop anybody who never opted in. Then write and submit every template you will need for the whole month, including the cut-off notices you will not send for another three weeks. A template rejection in December is a delay you cannot absorb.
02
First week of December: the announcement
One broadcast that tells everybody what you are running. Festive hours, the December menu, the party packages, the delivery cut-off. No discount yet. The job of this message is to get replies into your inbox, so the rest of the month can happen as free service conversations instead of paid templates.
03
Second week: the booking push
Now you go for the diary. Send the offer to the segments that bought this kind of thing before, with a button that opens a booking or a payment, and take a deposit on anything that holds a slot, a table or a rider. This is the week returnees start planning, and the week your competitors are still deciding.
04
Third week: last call and cut-off dates
Publish the final dates and repeat them. Last order date for delivery, last booking date for a fitting or a retouch, the day the kitchen closes, the day the shop reopens. Send it to everyone who read the earlier broadcast but never booked, and send it more than once.
05
The quiet week: let it run
Between Christmas and the new year most people are eating, travelling or recovering. Stop broadcasting. Keep the AI agent answering hours, location and availability, keep service replies inside the 24 hour window where they are free, and let your team take their leave.
06
Early January: reactivation
Message the people who bought and the people who did not, separately. Thank the buyers and ask them for a Google review while the visit is fresh. Give everybody else a January reason to come back, in the month when the December spending has left people looking for value.
By channel
What to send where, and why
The same December story, told differently on each channel, with every reply landing in one inbox.
WhatsApp
Approved templates to the segments that matter
This is where the bookings and the orders actually close. Marketing templates for the announcement and the offer, utility templates for confirmations, reminders and delivery updates, and every reply arriving in the team inbox assigned to somebody.
Instagram
Comment to DM on every festive post
Put a keyword under the December posts so people comment PARTY or MENU and get your slots, your list or your price range in the DM immediately. The public reply matters too, because the next reader sees that you answer.
Google Business Profile
Your December hours, before somebody drives over
Update opening hours for the public holidays, post the festive offer, and answer the questions people leave on the listing. Somebody searching for your kind of business at 9pm on Christmas Eve is not browsing.
SMS
The hard dates, for people who are off data
Not everybody has data all month, and not everybody opens WhatsApp on the road. A short SMS for the cut-off dates, the last delivery day and the day you close reaches the customers your broadcast will not.
TikTok and Facebook
Where the parties are being planned
Event, outfit and food content moves in December, and the DMs follow it. Keep both flowing into the same inbox so a comment at midnight still becomes a booking in the morning.
Webchat
Catch the people comparing on your site
Anyone on your website in December is shopping right now, with three other tabs open. A chat widget that quotes, checks availability and takes a deposit is what closes that tab first.
In the thread
What a December booking actually looks like
An example of the exchange that fills a diary in the third week. The deposit is the part that makes it real.
Lead with what is left
In December the answer that closes is availability, not a price list. Two specific times beat a brochure, because the customer is choosing between you and being late to a party.
Take the deposit in the chat
A slot held on a promise is a slot lost. A payment link in the same thread, with a short hold time stated plainly, turns an enquiry into a booked chair.
Set the expectation about the day
Lateness and overrun are the December complaints. Say the arrival time and what happens if it is missed while the customer is still happy, not on the morning itself.
The rush
Handling December volume without hiring
You cannot recruit and train somebody in the second week of December. You can set these up in November.
AI agent
Let it take the first message every time
Feed it your festive hours, your price ranges, your cut-off dates and your delivery zones. It answers at 2am on Boxing Day, in English or pidgin, and hands the thread to a human the moment the question stops being routine.
Saved replies
Stop typing the same six answers
Opening hours, directions to the shop, the deposit policy, the delivery fee, the cut-off dates and your account details, one tap away. Your newest staff member sounds like your most experienced one.
Deposits
Make the diary mean something
A December no-show costs you a slot other customers were asking for. Take a deposit on anything that holds a slot, a table or a rider, and state the reschedule rule in the same message so nobody argues on the day.
Opening hours
Publish them once and let the system hold the line
Set your festive hours and public holiday closures in advance, and let the away message and the AI cover the gaps. Nobody on your team has to feel guilty about not replying from a wedding.
The bill
Know what the month costs before you commit to it
December is your heaviest broadcast month, so it is also your most expensive. Count the templates in the calendar above, sort them into utility and marketing, and price the month before you build it.
January
Do not let the list go cold
The list you built in December is the warmest list you will have all year, and it does not stay warm for long. A thank you and a review request to the buyers, a reason to return for everyone else, and your quietest month does not start empty.
Before you start
December questions, answered plainly
When should I start preparing for December?
November. Templates have to be written and submitted, your list needs cleaning and tagging, and if your number is not on the WhatsApp Business API yet, most Nigerian businesses are live within three to five working days once the documents are clean.
Will a festive promotion be approved?
Marketing templates are allowed to customers who opted in. Write the offer plainly, skip the all caps and the vague urgency, and submit early so you still have room to adjust and resubmit if it comes back.
How often can I broadcast in December?
Once a week to the whole list is a sensible ceiling, with extra sends to small segments that have shown interest. Broadcasting daily is how you collect blocks and STOP replies, and both of those work against your quality rating.
What happens when somebody replies STOP?
They come off future broadcasts automatically and they stay off. Do not add them back in January. A clean list is what protects your number, and your number is the asset.
My whole team is travelling. What still works?
The AI agent, saved replies, booking links, deposit collection, reminders and receipts all keep running with nobody logged in. Set your away hours so customers are told exactly when a human will pick it up.
What will all these messages cost?
Meta charges per message at the Nigeria rate and DMly adds nothing. Utility and authentication messages are from ₦11 and marketing templates are about ₦30. Service replies inside the 24 hour window are free, which is why a campaign that starts conversations costs less than one that only sends.
Build your December calendar now
Most Nigerian businesses are live within three to five working days, so there is still time to get set up, get templates approved and send the first announcement.