Legend says the moment Halloween passes you start to hear tinkling of bells from marketers, all over the world, preparing for the much awaited launch of their holiday marketing campaigns. Holiday marketing campaigns appear out of nowhere, with several companies scrambling to capitalize on a spending frenzy. Holiday emails, social media posts, and ads everywhere, it’s definitely the most wonderful time of the year! It might seem like holiday marketing is cheesy and out of date, but you can’t deny how there are some brands who do it very, verrrryyy well. These brands are the cream of the crop. They’re clever enough to know how in the midst of all the holiday marketing noise and chaos, to elicit feelings and encourage sharing. Sometimes even reuniting people with loved ones or collaborating with a nonprofit organization. At Just Digital, our goal has always been to help your business grow and be the best version it can be. That’s why, as our holiday gift to you, we’re giving away some of the best holiday marketing tips and strategies. Holiday marketing is the production of campaigns centered on certain holidays and distributed through different channels. The campaigns usually come out around the end of the year and Christmas seasons. It usually entails advertising specific seasonal offers in order to boost income during the event. As described in the definition above, the key to holiday marketing is to create campaigns aimed at capitalizing on customers wanting to make seasonal purchases Holiday marketing has the potential to boost sales for a variety of reasons: But with the spotlight on seasonal sales, it’s easy to overlook the fact that this isn’t the sole advantage of holiday marketing. There are other opportunities for your business over the holidays, some of which include: Creating an effective holiday marketing campaign in the midst of a pandemic might seem extremely difficult. But our advice, stick with what you know (the basics), and try not to overwhelm yourself: There’s still so much you can learn from the past… Go back to your previous holiday marketing campaigns then take a look at the data you have. This can help you understand which holiday campaign strategies worked for you and which ones didn’t. Once you have your data you can try to emulate these strategies but with a fresh and modern twist. Remember, there’s also a lot to learn from the bad. Take a look at your campaign again and check where you could use some improvements. Analyzing these can help you avoid making similar mistakes. You’re not confined to only looking at your previous holiday campaigns, you can also take a look at how other brands created their campaigns. Aside from your performance stats, try to check your customer data.Has your customer base changed significantly in the last year? What are the most important demographics to consider? What are their priorities? Understanding the important characteristics of your target customer can help you in developing a holiday message that resonates with them. No two holiday marketing campaigns are the same. Don’t just copy your competitors’ strategies. Knowing your target group is crucial to a successful holiday marketing campaign. How else can you create a magical, emotionally charged message? The holiday season is all about working smarter — not harder. Look for content syndication solutions that can save you time and money while also giving your clients a more consistent experience. Holiday marketing is important for many reasons: Starbucks brings back pumpkin spiced lattes, everyone’s frustrated about which gifts to give, and well, they benefit businesses a whole lot! Other reasons can be: During ancient holidays, people would build fires, sing songs and dance, and sacrifice animals. Because us modern people are too busy for that, and because we’re all slaves to capitalism, we naturally substitute it with shopping trips. Though it may seem humorous, holiday marketing is a huge cultural phenomena. Customers have become used to heightened brand rivalry in a variety of fields, including search results, email inbox, and social media. Holiday marketing has taught individuals that they are entitled to more, and they now expect to be treated with an outstanding personalized buying experience throughout the holidays. It also raises the bar for brand excellence, causing them to strive for improvement. Holiday marketing rewards businesses’ efforts with big income and better reputation while also providing excellent discounts and presents to customers. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday frenzy push businesses to the extreme. Participating in these holidays is unavoidable, and the holidays will only test brands to see if they can handle the volume of seasonal marketing. It also reveals whether or not particular businesses are adaptable and flexible enough to sort things out. Getting people’s attention during a busy Holiday season is a difficult undertaking. To win over savvy customers, marketers should push their creativity to its limits and create emotional, relevant content. Holiday marketing can be a huge pain for marketers if they don’t know what they’re doing. Now it’s time we soothe some of your expectations for this holiday season. A survey by Google and Boston Consulting Group conducted last June 2021 reveals that this year, online shopping will have a significant part in consumers’ buying decisions this year. All thanks to Ms. Rona.. 🦠👁👄👁🦠 Due to the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, there was a significant shift toward e-commerce. In 2021, however, more than 80% of consumers will seek in-person purchasing experiences. With this information, brands must develop marketing efforts that cater to multichannel shoppers, using both offline and online touchpoints. In terms of social media, Sprout Social predicts that stores of all sizes will receive roughly 18% more messages each month. To prepare, brands should create a communication strategies online like: Choosing which events to focus on is one of the first stages in developing an effective holiday marketing plan. Some are self-evident, such as Black Friday and Christmas, but don’t stop there. Other holidays that you may not have considered, depending on your business, could be important. Here are some important dates during the holiday season of 2021: Start your end-of-year holiday marketing with an unique, spoooookyyy, eye-catching Halloween campaign. This is the perfect time to promote your holiday early bird sales. Black Friday is the focus point for many businesses, and for customers, it’s the day when they expect the biggest and greatest deals. This is a newer holiday devoted to promoting small businesses in your community. It provides the potential to obtain new clients and, perhaps, future loyal supporters. It can also increase sales through promotions. Christmas isn’t the only holiday! Hanukkah falls just after Thanksgiving this year, making it a great holiday to use to extend your holiday marketing strategy to December. This is a holiday that ecommerce enterprises should not overlook. It’s the only holiday that beats black friday in record sales. This is a day for giving back, whether it’s through a charitable donation or offering your time. While a Giving Tuesday campaign might help non-profits raise funds, it can also help companies. You may, for example, assist consumers in doing good by contributing a part of your profits to a nonprofit organization. Now’s the time to take advantage of the Christmas shopping season by encouraging customers to buy gifts from your store. This is your chance to welcome the new year, embrace new beginnings, and join in the fun. Enjoy the year’s end with your audience! Now you’re ready to start planning, designing, and executing your holiday marketing campaign! Any holiday marketing campaign must involve a few stages. The efforts may not pay off in the end if these steps are not mastered: A Christmas marketing strategy should be planned way before the holiday season. Remember, holiday marketing success is the result of a well-thought-out and intentional strategy, so each brand should determine which marketing channels will be most effective, who to target them to, and how to create a message that speaks to their audience. The holidays are social and emotional in character, making it very humane. This means the marketing platforms you use for holiday campaigns should be human as well. A comprehensive, cross-channel approach to Holiday marketing is usually the most effective. Sending targeted messages to people who have already expressed interest in your company is very beneficial with holiday email marketing. Meanwhile, SMS marketing helps you capture clients’ attention immediately. On the other hand, social media platforms provide a means of reaching a larger audience. And, if your budget allows, consider paid ads on platforms like Facebook to boost your exposure. It’s a good idea to collect as much valuable information as possible in order to provide clients with targeted and customised offers. Gather the data ahead of time then use it to create the right message for your holiday campaign. One way to do that is to customize subscription forms to collect data for future holiday marketing campaigns. It’s important to plan out what you want to do and when you want to do it before you start your campaign. Here are some important steps to consider for your Holiday campaign: Now comes the exciting part: creating your campaign’s messaging and content. Build your content around the schedule you’ve planned and the channels you’ve chosen, then tailor your messages to different customer segments and campaign stages. Create a dedicated landing page for all information relating to your seasonal offers aside from promotional content like emails, ads, and social media posts. And once you’ve finalized your content, you’ll be ready for the holiday shopping season. Let’s start with the good! The following Holiday marketing strategies can help you in fine-tuning your efforts to increase sales during the most profitable season of the year: It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of Holiday preparations. However, starting small with your holiday campaigns is preferable in the long run, especially if this is your first holiday season as a business. During the holidays, even larger shops that have been in business for decades typically return to the basics. It all hinges on your team’s bandwidth and the level of help your operations receive over the holidays. The holidays are not the time to try out new customer strategies or techniques, even if you’ve done extensive testing and discovery all year to nail down the right messaging. There is too much at stake. You can always try A/B testing if you want to be extra creative and explore a new approach. When clients are looking for the ideal present from Santa or a gift card for their loved ones, the reputation you’ve earned with them over the years will be one of the deciding considerations. Make sure you’re ready to provide them with a customer experience that’s similar to what they’ve had in the past. Regardless of the scale of your website, you’ll need a quick-response staff to address any problems that arise on your site, in your holiday ads or elsewhere. It encompasses more than just digital and content preparations. To accommodate the increased visitors and orders, make improvements to your customer service, shipping, fulfillment, and operations teams. When things don’t go as planned, you’ll also need to react quickly. Online shopping has only made customers more aware of Holiday marketing tactics. They see the same things year after year, so typical sales and marketing approaches may cause their eyes to glaze over. The same ecommerce trends that arose last year will apply to Holiday marketing strategies as well. The “content-first” approach that creative and trendy brands are adopting now will be a popular trend throughout the holidays. We’ll see businesses provide more personalized shopping experiences, like discount coupons and Christmas gift suggestions, using content marketing as a technique of reaching customers. Email marketing is the most important marketing channel you have during the holiday season. Make sure your email marketing helps you stand out from the crowd by clearly communicating the advantages of doing business with you over your competitors. If panic buying has taught us anything, it’s that customers might feel compelled to buy when they believe something they need or desire will be sold out. The Holiday season is notorious for big price cuts that are only available once a year, and savvy consumers know how to pick the best deals. Make sure you’re explicitly motivating customers to visit your online store and make a purchase during your holiday marketing campaign. Don’t just do random giveaways or discounts, be clever with it. Plan things out because you wouldn’t want your brand to lose its value to the point where people believe it is cheap. This might cause them to lose interest in buying from you ever again. It’s not only about making money over the holidays; it’s also about building relationships with consumers who will return to purchase during the off-season. Always keep client retention in mind when making holiday marketing decisions. The visitors to your website during the holidays are likely to be a good mix of new and returning clients. The process to buy for a returning customer differs significantly from that of a new customer, so keep both in mind when making your holiday marketing plans. After a tough year in quarantine, people are looking forward to the cheer of the holiday season. For many, this involves doing good deeds and giving back. Consider collaborating with a non-profit to get into the Holiday spirit while still communicating your brand’s core values with your clients. If you’re not sure where to begin, consider collaborating with a local organization or asking your consumers about their favorite charities. While not every campaign is made equal, there are several practices you should avoid at all costs. Let’s have a look at some of the most common mistakes to avoid: The most important piece of advice for every business is to know who your customers are. This advice may sound like it’s been given before, but it’s more important than ever for your Holiday marketing success. A digital marketing strategy tailored to your buyer personas can help your company stand out from the competition and keep your consumers’ attention. Using only one marketing strategy limits your possible customer base and lacks the innovation and authenticity that consumers want. While you might spend most of your time focused on one or two marketing tactics, such as influencer marketing or display advertisements, the Holiday season is a great opportunity to branch out. Whether you’re a large company or a small business, late planning is one of the most typical holiday mistakes made by businesses. You’ll need to start implementing your marketing efforts in a similar way for those early holiday shoppers. You don’t have to wait until after Halloween to start planning your next campaign. Count how many promotional emails you receive in a day in your inbox. It’s most likely more than you want. Now, consider which emails drew your attention. What was it about them that made them stand out? It’s easy to go overboard with holiday email marketing, but the emails that provide value and are creative are the ones that catch users’ attention. A simple yet memorable subject line can pique curiosity, but writing a value-add email will boost your click-through rate. Keep track of how many emails you have in your inbox and what each one is for. Your staff will have less work to do as a result, and overall client happiness will improve. As you create your heartwarming completely endearing holiday marketing campaign, try to take a look at these examples from the best-performing campaigns across the years. This recent Coca-Cola ad tells the story of a father who goes to great lengths to send his daughter’s letter to Santa Claus. While pondering what to do with the letter, the father enjoys a Coke, leaving us with the impression he won’t make it in time. As he hunts for Santa, we witness him sail over the sea, trudge through the woods, ride across the desert, and climb a snowy mountain. Finally, he arrives, but Santa is closed for the holidays. Just when we think the situation is hopeless, Santa arrives on a Coca-Cola-branded truck and whisks the father away. The little girl’s wish? For him to be able to spend Christmas with his family. (Cue the tears!) As always, Coca-Cola’s campaign appeals to emotions showing us the great lengths a dad will go through for his daughter, and that the finest gift you can give to your loved ones is your presence and time. You don’t have to be a huge brand like Coca-Cola or Amazon to create holiday campaigns. Just take a look at Peach & Lily’s Halloween email. It’s simple, it’s clever, and it works! The skincare brand is offering Halloween deals for those who would rather stay in and watch horror movies all while pampering their skin. It’s also an amazing way to treat your skin after all the Halloween makeup! This ad starts in a very relatable, almost nostalgic, way. You’re first introduced to a family going to see relatives around the holidays (you know how hectic that can be). The beauty of the ad is that the iPad appears to be the only thing keeping the peace during their trip. But then the ad takes a bittersweet turn as we see their grandfather struggling with the loss of his wife. An unexpected (but also very expected) thing happens. The granddaughters use the ipad to make a gift for the entire family. What makes this ad stand out from Apple’s usual ads is the emotional appeal. Apple’s ads are typically feature-heavy, emphasizing utility above everything else. But this time they leverage emotions and use the product as a tool to tell the story. In this Disney Holiday commercial, culture, history, and festive spirit come together. The media powerhouse uses its long-standing name to transport us to 1940, when a small girl receives her first Mickey Mouse plush toy. As the film progresses, we witness the tiny girl mature into a grandmother. She passes the plush toy on to her granddaughter, who, as she grows older, does not like it as much. The granddaughter recognizes how much the toy means to her grandmother and works to restore it to its former beauty. When Grandma opens her Christmas gift and sees her old toy mended and restored, we’re immediately taken back to her childhood with parols lighting up the night sky. We were expecting something heartfelt from Disney, and it did not disappoint. We really admire how Filipino culture has been shown to millions of people around the world. With an increase in people buying online and a steady stream of competitors, it’s more difficult for companies to flourish over the holidays. However, there are actions you can do ahead of time to place your brand above the competition and attract loyal customers. A key takeaway from this guide is that planning is essential to the success of your holiday marketing. You need to dedicate your time, effort, and resources to be able to fully reap the benefits of the Holiday shopping season. Start preparing today, optimize your content, keep your customers in mind, and don’t forget to build lifetime value with your brand. We wish you a warm and cozy holiday season, from our family to yours.Holiday Marketing Tips, Ideas, Campaigns For The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year
What is holiday marketing?
What makes a great holiday marketing campaign?
Look at successful holiday marketing campaigns from the past
Determine which holiday marketing strategies are appropriate for your target market.
Create automated scheduled campaigns
Why is holiday marketing important?
Shopping trips have become a tradition
Customers expect more as marketing standards are heightened
Customers and brands gain from each other
The ability of the company to expand and adapt is put to the test
Encourages you to think beyond the box
What to expect this holiday season
Holiday dates to look out for
October 31, 2021- Halloween
November 25, 2021- Thanksgiving
November 26, 2021- Black Friday
November 27, 2021- Small Business Saturday
November 28, 2021- Hanukkah
November 29, 2021- Cyber Monday
November 30, 2021- Giving Tuesday
December 24, 2021 to Dec 25, 2021- Christmas
December 31, 2021 to Jan 1, 2022- New Year
How to create your holiday marketing strategy
Plan ahead
Choose the most effective marketing channels
Gather user data
Create a schedule
Create your campaign’s messaging & content
Just Digital’s list of holiday marketing strategies that’s naughty and nice
Nice list
Keep it simple
Be ready to respond and adapt in whatever situation
Make your campaign content driven
Expect to face stiffer competition
Avoid creating a false sense of urgency
Care for your existing clients
Work with a non profit
Not so nice list
Not knowing your target audience
Limiting your marketing tactics
Preparing last minute
Bombarding your subscribers with promotional emails
Holiday marketing best practices
4 of the best holiday marketing campaigns
Coca-Cola Canada
Peach & Lily
Apple
Disney
Be merry and bright!
With Just Digital,
Success is Easy-Peasy Lemon-Squeezy.
When life gives us lemons, we generate results. Contact us today and we can start making lemonade.