Any business guru knows that the holiday season is one of the best times to make money. People are shopping for gifts for their friends and family, purchasing new home goods to help start the year on a fresh foot, and goodies for treating themselves. Who can blame them? The sales can’t be beaten.
Holiday season marketing is severely competitive as each business fights for the attention and payout of customers. Thankfully, there are some simple, and applicable holiday marketing tips that can help you fine-tune and strengthen your digital marketing strategy this season.
1. Review data from past holiday seasons
Information is your ally when it comes to holiday season advertising. Looking back at past years to see successes and failures will help you grow and develop your advertising strategy in current and coming years. Be sure to look at how much revenue came from emails and drip campaigns versus social media advertising. If your budget is tight this year, consider going with the most profitable avenue from the past, or exploring what you can do with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It’s essentially free advertising!
2. Run an eCommerce sale
Everyone knows the holidays are the biggest shopping season of the year. Take advantage of the increased online traffic by running an eCommerce sale of some kind. Christmas, New Years, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, are all great reasons to run a sale. Offer customers special discounts that are only available for a limited time.
Bonus Tip: To really make sure your sale is a hit, promote it ahead of time. Consider asking customers for their email addresses with the incentive of being notified first when the sale hits.
3. Organize a giveaway or contest on social media
One of the most impactful holiday marking tips is to get involved with customers! Running a social giveaway or contest is a great way to increase your following and share your wares across social media.
Some popular giveaway entry strategies include:
- Requiring that contestants follow your perfectly curated social media account.
- Adding additional entries for the number of friends an individual tags in the comments.
- Asking customers and contestants to share your giveaway post on their own social feeds.
Employing these strategies helps by spreading the word about your business and products. The increase in traffic and engagement also bodes well for the algorithms, thus increasing the likelihood that your page will be seen by individuals who don’t already follow you...all without spending a penny on official advertising!
4. Partner with a non-profit organization
More and more, consumers are looking to spend their money on companies and products that support the causes they believe in. Partnering with a non-profit organization this holiday season is a great way to give back while building trust among your customer base.
Bonus Tip: By requiring users visit your website to learn more about your philanthropic endeavors, you can get them into a remarketing cycle.
5. Update your presence to reflect the holiday spirit
While you’re focused on making massive strides in terms of digital marketing strategy, one of the most overlooked holiday season marketing tips is to update your online presence to reflect the holiday season. Consider using a temporary logo, or updating your profile images. If you don’t want to go that far, explore how you can enhance your email marketing templates and Homepage to reflect the season. Doing so will help clue customers in that your mind is on the holiday season. Knowing this, they’re likely to explore your business further to see what other special things you're doing for the occasion.
6. Keep marketing best practices in mind
No matter what time of year it is, it’s important to keep marketing best practices at the forefront of everything you do. Don’t let your own standards diminish in the glow of the holiday lights. Keeping with best practices through holiday season marketing will only help to maintain (or even improve!) your reputation amongst customers.
7. Get help if you need it
Most likely, this is not the only report of eCommerce holiday marketing tips or the only blog about perfecting your digital marketing strategy over the holidays. It all can be very overwhelming; start an email campaign, run a giveaway, host an awesome sale, etc.
Oftentimes, overwhelm leads to inaction, and this is not the season you want to miss out on. If you need help perfecting your digital marketing strategy this holiday season, be sure to get help.
Epic Web Studios’ talented team of digital marketing professionals knows the holiday season (and all the specific marketing nuances that come with it), and are here to help. Whether you’re looking for an audit of the strategies you’ve used in the past, a brand new plan to take into the new year, or a team to take the work off your plate completely, Epic will be a part of your holiday adventures.