What is your marketing strategy this holiday? If none, it’s the best time to develop a cohesive plan that drives results. On this blog, we provide some ideas to boost your sales!
The COVID-19 pandemic has shaped the general consumer’s purchasing behavior tremendously. While many families and individuals spend more time at home, e-commerce revenues have increased by 30 percent in 2020. With the holiday season approaching, Americans are expected to spend nearly $1000 on gifts and other items. To help you prepare for the holiday rush, we wrote some helpful online marketing strategies you can integrate into your business.
Let us dive in!
HOLIDAY DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES CHECKLIST
- Organize Your Approach
- Maximize the Benefits of Social Media
- Show Your Appreciation for Your Loyal Consumers
- Write Client-Centered Emails
- Give Back to Your Community
- Run a Contest
- Tell a Story Through Videos
- Get Started with Native Advertising
- Upgrade Your E-commerce Website
- Work with Trusted Influencers
- Tweak Your Customer Service Approach
- Be Generous and Offer Rewards
- Develop a Webroom for Your Products
- Provide Space for Interactions
- Make Use of Hashtags
- Reflect the Holiday Festivity on Your Ads
- Follow up Your Prospective Clients
- Appeal to Holiday Shoppers’ Emotions
- Create a Sense of Urgency
- Add a Live Chat Feature to Your Website
Organize Your Approach
What’s included in your holiday marketing campaign? Well, you can refer to the plans that have worked in the past. Or, design a new scheme to garner a new consumer base. Regardless of which direction you are leading, make sure to keep track of your marketing’s progress and apply changes right away as needed.
It is also worth noting that some holiday shoppers buy gifts way earlier. By developing your marketing approach early, you can capture these types of consumers while building your brand through the holidays.
Also, you will need to prepare your team members in advance so that you can pay more attention to the promotion. Remember that the success of your campaign largely depends on the amount of work you put in the preparation.
Maximize the Benefits of Social Media
Meet your target audience on their social media platforms, such as Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, or YouTube. Post compelling content that attracts and drives your prospects to your product. But if you need help, advertising agencies like Proweaver are sure to help you!
On the other hand, publishing coherent content across all your social media pages can be a real headache. Thus, we suggest adding social media management tools to your resources to manage your social posts in one place. You can get started with easy-to-use software like Buffer or Hootsuite if you do not have any experience handling social media marketing tools.
Show Your Appreciation for Your Loyal Consumers
“Retaining a current consumer is much cheaper than getting a new one,” they say.
One of the best ways to retain your customers is to make them feel valued. As a dedicated business partner, you can offer holiday gift certificates to your loyal followers. Think of them as a part of your family or friends. Your expression of appreciation for your consumers will go a long way for your business. If they do not feel any value from working with you, they will likely shop elsewhere.
After all, a sense of gratitude is a key part of the holiday spirit!
Write Client-Centered Emails
Yes, emails are still proving to generate leads.
However, everyone’s inboxes are starting to get stuffed as the holidays are approaching. You do not want your email to be among those ignored by your recipients.
Plan laser-focused content that resonates with your customers’ curiosity. An ideal email contains a strong subject line that hooks human attention. If possible, personalize the content using the addressee’s name through shortcodes. Furthermore, just like social media, there are various management tools to help you organize your emails in one place like Mailstrom and Boomerang.
Another tip is to add a link to your website or a specific product for easier purchase. You may also tailor your content to encourage your readers to share their reviews, opinions, or testimonies.
For those who are new to email marketing, these tips might help:
- Add some emojis.
You can fully incorporate the spirit of the holiday season into your email with emojis. Use holiday-related ones like a snowman, a Christmas tree, or a snowflake to add a more engaging flair to your emails. But avoid putting too many emojis to highlight your holiday offer. - Include power words.
Be straightforward in communicating what the email is about. Are you promoting a discount or offering limited hot deals? Readers need to know what you convey in the first few words. Also, try adding holiday terms, such as “12 Deals of Christmas” or “greetings for the seasons.” - Personalize a gift guide.
During the holidays, many families are still thinking about which presents to buy. With the current data you have about your consumers, send out some gift ideas like toys or a new kitchen set. And be sure to link your email to your product page for convenient purchasing.
Give Back to Your Community
With the holiday season, now is the time to give back!
Corporate social responsibility is now a popular factor when consumers decide where to shop. With that, they often resort to businesses that align with their values. The bottom line is modern buyers prefer doing business with an organization that makes a difference.
Partner with a local charity group to turn your business into a vehicle for social change. By letting your consumers know about your goals, you also communicate your brand’s values with them. If you like to take a step further, engage your customers in your humanitarian efforts through donations or spending a portion of your profits on a cause.
Nonetheless, keep in mind that customers nowadays can look into your brand’s genuineness. If they feel like you are true to your commitments, they will likely end up in your loyal customer base.
Run a Contest
Organizing a contest proves to engage followers and consumers alike. Especially during the holidays, contests with cash prizes may turn more heads and promote your brand. Nevertheless, going this way may require a bigger budget on your part. So, make sure to plan the entirety of the contest thoroughly to arrive at your desired holidays marketing and branding goals.
Depending on your financial capacity, these are some holiday contest ideas you might want to try:
- Essay contest
Whether you would want it to be funny or inspirational, some people are willing to share their holiday stories. You can also customize the criteria to reflect your brand ─ for instance, humorously writing product testimonials. - Photo contest
Try a contest that allows your consumers to share a photo of them with your product. No photoshopping! This may help increase your sales while lucky winners enjoy exciting prizes from you. - Referrals
The “refer a friend” campaign has always offered significant growth for many businesses. You can run this contest according to your liking. But bear in mind that some people may shun away if they feel they have fewer chances of winning. So, provide at least a small discount for all entries to encourage more referrals.
Tell a Story Through Videos
In just a few years, YouTube has influenced the purchasing behavior of the public. Hence, marketers also adapt to the rise of video marketing to gain leads. One survey shows that around 90 percent of consumers say videos affect their purchase decisions.
Not only on YouTube can you add videos but also on your website, social media pages, and emails. Make your message clear to entice your audience to learn more about your business. Avoid making the video too sales-oriented as it can turn people off. Instead, develop various types of short videos from the customer’s perspective. Capture the essence of the holiday spirit and define your story in a way that tells the audience what they can expect from you.
Get Started with Native Advertising
If you opt for paid ads this holiday season, we recommend native advertising. This digital marketing approach requires your ad to match its form, appearance, and function with the platform on which it appears. For example, you can work with an established blog site and customize your ads to harmonize with the site’s look.
But why native advertising?
More than half of consumers say they pay closer attention to native ads than other types of advertising. This does not only convey your storytelling effectively, but it also engages your target audience. Post your ads to as many platforms as possible for bigger chances of lead generation.
Upgrade Your E-commerce Website
In the third quarter of 2021, revenues generated from e-commerce businesses rose by 6.8 percent. That number is estimated at over 200 billion dollars. As the new forefront of retail amid the pandemic, your e-commerce website is now the face of your business.
From a technical point of view, prepare your site for a possible surge during the holiday rush. Is it ready to accommodate more users? How about the loading speed? Is it responsive to mobile users? Make sure to address these and other related issues on your site. You may work with expert web developers and programmers, such as Proweaver, to help you support your customers’ needs.
Work with Trusted Influencers
The popularity of social media has paved the way for influencer marketing. As the name suggests, this strategy involves working with a famous personality to promote your brand. Do you know someone in your local area or industry that has an army of followers? Do not hesitate to send them an invitation to your online party or for an advertising collaboration.
As soon as this collab blows up, you can guarantee a surge in your sales, email lists, or inquiries. So, plan it out carefully and pay attention to details to maximize your influencer investments.
Tweak Your Customer Service Approach
Of course, the best customer service in the industry will leave a mark on customers, making them loyal to your brand.
While the holidays are known for their festivity, they can also trigger overwhelming stress, especially when shopping. But as a business owner, you can help relieve your consumers from stress by simply providing helpful tips. For example, write a blog about the best and easiest recipes to prepare for this holiday. This will eventually guide your readers to buy the necessary ingredients for that recipe from your store.
However, ensure your content addresses your customers’ needs. When writing your blog, ask yourself how it can resolve consumer problems or benefit the shoppers. And remember to promote goods that make sense for your target audience; otherwise, you will likely lose a customer.
Be Generous and Offer Rewards
Come on! It’s the holiday season after all.
Many holiday shoppers buy items not only for their friends or loved ones but also for themselves. Thus, offering some rewards can be a compelling strategy
to increase your sales. I mean who does not like free shipping? Or a “but one, get one” promo?
There are multiple ways you can offer your rewards. If you need ideas, here are some:
- Free items for a minimum amount of spending
A lot of stores have taken advantage of this because it works! For instance, a free item will be given to shoppers that spend at least 100 dollars. This will make it more likely to spend up to $100 rather than buying a product whose worth is lesser than that amount. - Giveaways
If you feel generous this holiday, you might consider providing bigger and more exciting giveaways. Perhaps, shoppers that spend a minimum amount will get a slot for the giveaway. Through a random draw, the winner will be announced every week or day.
Develop a Webroom for Your Products
You might be familiar with how Apple showcases its newest iPhones. That is what a webroom should look like.
A webroom will help your prospects explore your product from different angles. If done right, this could be a very powerful marketing tactic during the holidays, especially for expensive products.
On the one hand, creating a webroom requires the right resources and time. Launching a successful webroom needs professional web developers, photographers, copywriters, and other key digital marketers. Another thing: webroom development can take a few months depending on the product details you would want to present.
Provide Space for Interactions
Social media can be utilized for many business purposes. It allows you to connect with your followers and loyal customers on a more personal level. On the holidays, encourage discussions among your consumers through your social pages, blogs, or website. (Note that you still need to establish discussions with your audience year-round.)
For one, you can post on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook about what makes your followers excited about the holiday. Then, a team of social media specialists will respond to the comments in a personalized manner. When using this strategy, marketers suggest also responding to negative feedback professionally and carefully. Leaving a negative comment unanswered on your post might leave a wrong impression on other users.
Make Use of Hashtags
If you are familiar with social media, you already know how hashtags work. Adding trending hashtags to your posts will help you reach a wider audience and attract prospective clients. This also supports your branding efforts as more people will remember your company name.
Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram seem to have the most useful hashtags across social media platforms. Though a hashtag is still recognized on Facebook, it may not be as useful as the other sites.
Be consistent in using hashtags in your social media posts and maximize them in pitching your products or services. The right and witty posts with the right hashtags can even create a buzz for your business, which can lead to more sales.
Reflect the Holiday Festivity on Your Ads
Whether on your pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media, blog posts, or website, make it festive and fun! For social media, you may have to change your profile photo and post pictures of holiday gaiety. Your blog posts may contain tips for the season, including the best fashion for winter, Christmas recipes, and more. PPC ads can also be customized to transcend the holiday spirit to your audience. Lastly, your website might need some design changes for the season.
If you have a creative idea of your own, be free to integrate that into your marketing campaign!
Follow up Your Prospective Clients
Multiple sources say that only four out of your 100 website visitors will end up making a purchase. That means more people will leave your site without dropping a penny. But you can turn this around.
Retargeting your customers comes in many ways. If they have left an email on your list, send them a follow-up email to remind them of their pending cart. They might continue the purchase upon recalling their visit to your site.
Some marketers have also created a campaign that targets individuals who visited a website. Although that seems like a load of people, professional marketers will focus on visitors that have left a footprint on a particular product page.
Before infusing this into your holiday marketing strategy, be sure to understand why your visitors left your site in the first place. They could have been annoyed by the website’s slow loading page. Or, they might have initiated a purchase but were unable to complete it due to a site crash.
Appeal to Holiday Shoppers’ Emotions
For many, the holiday season is, indeed, one of the best and most memorable times of the year. This strikes various types of emotions for many buyers, such as joy, nostalgia, or excitement. Evoking these powerful feelings can help your brand set itself apart from the crowd.
Share some pieces of inspiration across your online platforms. You can also post how you celebrate the holidays with the team members in your company.
Create a Sense of Urgency
You have probably seen how people rushed to gather the things they need before the major COVID-19 lockdown. A lot of households even expressed disappointment over tissue hoarding. The incident tells us that when there is urgency, people shed money on items they need.
This holiday season, you might want to add a little sense of urgency to your campaign. For example, place a countdown timer to a specific product page to indicate its offer limit.
Moreover, avoid creating a false sense of urgency. This means your ads should be relevant and useful for your customers. Your content should highlight the reason why consumers should acquire your product, such as its benefits.
Add a Live Chat Feature to Your Website
During the holiday rush, you should expect more queries from your customers. “How long will it take to ship the product? Do you offer refunds? Tell me more about the product?” If they do not get the answers they need quickly, they may lose interest in your product. If you have limited staff members to address these concerns, an AI live chat feature might help. The AI will be programmed to respond to basic frequently asked questions and link the clients to your website.
We understand that doing so can be difficult for those who are unfamiliar with the technology. Hence, work with professional website developers and programmers, such as Proweaver, to help you integrate this feature into your site.
READY TO LEVEL UP YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON?
Modern consumers have become more tech-savvy and reliant on digital platforms for most of their needs. Heavily affected by the global health crisis, the holiday rush in 2021 seems largely digitized. If you want your business to successfully strike a chance in holiday shopping, work with an experienced digital marketing team. Proweaver has been in the industry for 16 years and continues to provide unparalleled online solutions for our clients across different industries.
Start gaining more holiday sales! Give us a call at +1 (877) 300-6564 to speak with our representatives.
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