We’re only a few months shy from the end of the year. Festive greetings and decorations are sprucing up the streets and public places, and you probably know what’s coming. The holidays are upon us. For marketers, this is the golden period of retail and you need the right strategies to make the most of your holiday campaigns.
Understanding what the holiday season means is the first important step to driving a winning holiday campaign. If you’re unsure of what the next steps are, our team has summarized these below.
1. Set your campaign objective and strategy
Every successful campaign starts with a clear objective. There are a few digital marketing campaign objectives that marketers would be familiar with, such as:
- Generating more leads
- Increasing conversion rate (usually from site visitors or viewers into customers)
- Increasing traffic to your site or social media channels
- Simply increasing your sales
Traditionally, most people are willing to spend more during the holiday season. So, increasing sales is a very popular objective for a holiday campaign.
2. Set a concept for your holiday campaign
A remarkable cross-channel marketing campaign is usually guided by a single creative concept that will tie the different activities together. Understanding your audience’s behaviour and characteristics will play a central role in developing the right concept that will win your customers’ hearts and ultimately drive them to help meet your campaign objective.
Keep in mind that aside from developing the main concept, you will also need to map out the list of creative assets that need to be created.
3. Plan and create assets for your holiday campaign
Once the overarching theme has been finalized, it is now time to brainstorm the different ways to communicate your message to your target audience. Massive-scale marketing campaigns typically seen during the holiday season involve multiple communication channels. Your team should focus on ensuring that each creative asset meets the correct channel requirements and guidelines. Last but not least, schedule the release of your deliverables ahead to ensure that your campaigns can get sustainable exposure throughout the holiday season.
4. Make your brand accessible from social media channels
Among all of your digital marketing channels, social media might be one of the first touchpoints your customers are likely to encounter. The important thing is to ensure a clear and short route from your social media channels to your brand’s online shop or company website. An easy path would enable prospects to complete the buyers’ journey much faster.
5. Partner up with influencers
Do you know that 80% of marketers say influencer marketing is more effective compared to other marketing channels? It would be a missed opportunity if your brand were to exclude influencer marketing from your holiday campaign. What is essential is ensuring that your brand partners with social media influencers who align with your target audience and what your brand stands for.
6. Schedule your social media content
Spoiler alert! Your brand is not the only one running a holiday campaign. Your competitors are most likely running their campaigns targeting the same audience. There will be an intense rollout of content across several digital marketing channels, with social media expected to see most of the content refreshes throughout your campaign. On top of that, your team might be short-handed with some colleagues heading for holiday leaves.. Scheduling your campaigns ahead of time will help your team run an organized campaign. The good news is, there are a lot of scheduling tools available, and brands have been able to benefit from them during intensive campaign periods.
7. Prepare for paid ads
In the age where internet shopping has become the global norm, you need to ensure that your brand’s online presence stands out. If you wonder what else can be included in your holiday campaign, paid advertising is an alternative that can fetch higher visibility and Return on Investment (RoI). Your brand can start putting out ads on social media channels frequented by your target audience. Targeting capabilities will also enable you to craft more targeted messaging to deliver to the audience group that you are targeting.
8. Maximize your existing list of customer contacts
Let’s say your brand has already collected user data from various touchpoints like lead generation forms on your website, offline event registrations, or even email subscriptions. In that case, subject to your brand’s privacy policy and applicable data privacy regulations in your territory, you can utilize this contact list of people who have engaged with the products and services you offered. Try re-engaging them with a special edition newsletter, pop-up message, or even a WhatsApp broadcast. Efforts like these can go a long way in getting more interactions and engagement towards your holiday campaign.
9. Measure your holiday campaign results
It is crucial to track the critical metrics of your campaign’s performance based on the campaign objectives and goals that you set in the beginning. You would want to measure a few critical parameters on your holiday campaign efforts, such as clicks on your content, engagement on your social media posts, and the number of people who saw your content. You will also be able to track conversions or how many people become your customers due to the holiday campaign. Constant monitoring of your campaign performance figures helps you identify any required quick fixes along the way. Plus, you can also find learning opportunities that will improve your future campaigns.
Final thoughts
The year-end holiday season is without a doubt the epitome of shopping holidays. This year, recent world events make the holidays bear a merrier and more positive outlook, increasing its significance for people across the globe. That’s why it is the perfect opportunity to invest in creating an emotional bond with your target audience.
By segmenting your customers for a truly personalized experience and making your campaigns effective and easily shareable, you will be able to deliver the best deals across all of your channels. By setting up these foundations in place, you will be able to steer your brand on the right track even after the holiday season.
