‘Tis the season! With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, it’s time for brands of all sizes to get their online holiday marketing in gear. Whether shopping, killing time while on vacation, or gaining inspiration for the new year, online traffic will be abundant and we want your brand to get in front of these eyeballs.
To bring you the must-know secrets for the season, we asked our team: What must brands do now to be prepared for the holidays?
Clean Your Email List
Nick Westergaard, Chief Brand Strategist — Shopping assistant robots like Lowes! Seriously, my answer may not be super sexy but one of the best holiday marketing tactics is to do some email list hygiene early on. Most marketers send more email this time of year and, if you keep your content relevant and holiday themed, most customers won’t mind the extra messaging. If they’ve put off their holiday shopping they may welcome a few reminders that help them cross someone off of their list or utilize some of that remaining year-end budget. However, your email marketing is only as good as your list. Take these moments before Black Friday/Cyber Monday to spend sometime weeding, pruning, and appending your email subscriber list.
Retargeting to Remain Top of Mind
Macy Koch, Director of Digital Strategy — Shoppers are already hitting the internet searching for the perfect gifts for loved ones. The biggest value for marketers this season lies in the ability to retarget consumers based on these shopping habits. Whether you retarget via social media or display advertising, these ads deliver consumers engaging messages, reminding them of products or services they were already considering. Use these retargeting pieces to highlight any promotions, shipping specials, or time-sensitive details, such as: “Purchase today to receive by December 24!” Being top of mind this season means you’ll be top of the gift pile, too.
Curate Content Early
Meghann Foster, Marketing & Events Manager — Before the holiday shopping season is in full swing, start collecting, curating, and categorizing the content you would like to highlight. The advantages to planning your holiday content calendar early are twofold: first, it allows you to build excitement for the specific products and services you want to highlight during your busiest time of year. Second, planning ahead assures that your social updates won’t fall by the wayside during the holiday rush.
Pay Attention to Time
Angie Cottrell, Client Services Manager — For the holidays, more than promotion, brands must use social media to tell shoppers about TIME. That means – times that you are open, time that it takes for gifts to ship, time remaining for any promotions or specials, etc. Not only will messages like “Order now to receive by Christmas Eve” help drive sales, it will help any frustrated customers who may not have noticed the shipping details.
Get Online and Give Back
Jordan Williams, Content Specialist — As we are quickly approaching the holiday season, a couple things come to mind for business promotion. First, Thanksgiving weekend is the traditional kickoff of the shopping season. With more people looking online and through ads for gift ideas, purchasing is top of mind. It’s essential to ensure you highlight your business online as well. It’s a great way to maximize exposure and get the most bang for your buck.
Secondly, it’s the season of giving. And your company can give in a variety of ways – run a promotion with proceeds going to a local charity, provide a helpful shopping tool for your customers or have your staff volunteer at a local shelter. In any case, be sure your giving is relevant, and share your story online.
Get Ahead Of The Competition
Sarah Moy, Search and Analytics Coordinator — ‘Tis the season when consumers are inundated with messages and ads on every device, everywhere they go. If you’re advertising on social media or search engines, heightened competition can dramatically drive your costs up without any improvement in performance. Get ahead of the competition by refining your target audience. Narrow your audience by targeting more specific locations, demographics, or interests. Better yet, create multiple, highly-specific audiences and increase your relevancy by developing specific messaging, timing, and calls to action for each audience. Be strategic, targeted, and relevant with your ads. You’ll drive better results without emptying your wallet.
Do you have any other questions as the holidays near? Let us know and we may feature the topic here on the blog or on our Social Brand Chat podcast.
