It’s no secret that Holidays are the most sought after time of the year for making sales. Most companies, Businesses, and stores depend on the holiday season to get the cash flowing in. This gives you the perfect opportunity to give people what they want. In any given scenario, you have something a consumer wants. You just need to strategize a way to lure them to your goods, and yes, it’s a challenge. As you’re not the only one sharpening and honing your skills for the holidays, every person with something to sell will be doing the very same. You’re the seller but let’s take into consideration that you’re also a consumer. Being a person who buys goods, you know what attracts any human to make purchases. We’re going to need that perspective.
Facts
Every year money making records are shattered in the holiday season. For example, in 2019, Spotify found itself breaking its records of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales with $2.9 billion in total global sales. This was a result of scaling from what they worked with last year. In 2018 it was about $1.8 billion. Yes, you read that correctly. In a year, they topped by another billion.
It seemed almost everyone found something they fancied from Spotify that year. They had 25.5 million customers. How Spotify achieved this feat we may never know, but one thing for sure they had a plan. The opportunity to market your product is perfect for the holiday time period, and your product may just be the answer to someone’s gift buying problems, which is why you need to start working on your marketing strategy now.
A well-organized plan will be the answer to your Business’s success instead of a last minute desperate attempt at making a sale as December comes near (Finger crossing won’t work either). You have to be serious and confident and lose importantly smart working efficiently. Considering the world with Covid-19 here to stay, things work differently following SOPs and lockdown restrictions. Life won’t be this kind to your Business with the current condition. A plan of action is much needed.
Without further ado, here are some tips to get you started on that marketing strategy to know precisely what you need for the holidays this year.
Start your marketing campaign early.
This cannot be emphasized enough as you should be prepared, and when you smell the pumpkin spice in the air, it’s gone time. You should start working on your plan of action in August or September and start your seasonal campaign early so when December rolls around you’re ready. Your campaign could also be functional in November, and while many customers are known to shop at the last moment, many are also known to make purchases early while everything is stocked and pristine. So sending out seasonal offers and clearance sales might get a lot of attraction to your Business as the smart ones buy ahead of time and the smarter ones sell to them. With this approach, it won’t take much motivation to get shoppers to flock to your stores.
Embrace email marketing
Although you might find many flocking about finding the perfect deal or opportunity to swoop in, many don’t have the luxury nor time. Whether it’s work or running errands or so, your consumers are busy. These are your last-minute shoppers. They don’t have the time to dedicate themselves to finding the perfect gift or phone calls or even mail. This is why you’ll welcome email marketing with open arms. You can guarantee that these busybodies check their email inbox, especially during the influx of the holiday season offers from businesses and so. Email is the most convenient way of finding sales, offers and vouchers, and so.
Email can help them save. When the holidays roll around, make sure to engage the preferred audience and subscribers by sending out emails that will highlight your deals, promotional clearance sales, and whatnot. An email will reach a much larger audience than your shop, making quite the difference in your sales.
Use hashtags
Social media has become the bane of existence for most people. 81% of people have a social media presence. This is the perfect opportunity to reach out and engage with audiences and platforms you wish to reach. If you’re already on social media, focus on your media presence and make sure it’s festive and ready to jingle for the holiday season. Optimize this opportunity and use it as a strategy. After social media hashtags will be your best friend. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook are perfect for marketing your brand. Instagram will be your best option here and you must use the perfect hashtags to capture your preferred audience’s attention. Hashtags can be centered around your brand only or could be a part of the holiday festivities or simply both. You could create a hashtag for shoppers to encourage their own content featuring your product with the customer promoting your Business. Hashtags are also easy to remember sticking in your customers’ minds, making it easier for them to remember your Business or look it up quickly. The hashtags could also reach others who haven’t heard of your brand and hopefully gain new customers too.
Show gratitude to shoppers.
It’s something small and mostly overlooked, but gratitude goes a long way. In the holiday’s buzz with eye-catching deals and festive attractions popping up everywhere, even loyal customers may find a better deal more suitable to them, so to the ones who do spend a significant amount on you, let them know. Like any business, you want to reel new customers in and keep the old ones happy too. You’ll have to develop a strategy for that, too, keeping your consumers dedicated and happy to shop from you. Your best friends for these causes are thank you cards, emails, small discounts here and there, or a little something or a gift. You may find your clients more inclined to visit again and motivate them to do their holiday business with you.
Tailor your strategies according to your audience.
When it comes to strategies and plans, don’t just copy your competitor’s and influencers’ ideas. Instead, identify the demographic audience and fashion a fitting scheme. This will allow your campaign to speak for itself. For example, if you hold adult customers like millennials and Gen X, bring your efforts to share special offers and promote specific products. You can also try and get creative with last-minute gift ideas, provide curbside delivery or buy online, and pick-up in the BOPIS option.
Be innovative with your holiday marketing approach.
As online shopping has been around for a while now, customers have gotten pretty familiar with holiday campaigns and traditional marketing tactics. As they repeatedly see the same thing every year, there is more than enough chance that their eyes will just glaze over at traditional ideas and tricks without being convinced to empty the wallets. The one thing that will save you in such a situation is a content-driven approach.
Today, trendy and innovative brands benefit from this strategy by using it as a method to reach out to customers and offer personalized shopping experiences like holiday gift guides, shopping assistants, endless deals, and whatnot! This earns them customer appreciation and trust, which promises long-lasting connections.
Also, if you are thinking of introducing a new brand voice into your holiday marketing strategy, then be sure to incorporate those new messages into your holiday campaigns for a stable customer experience.
Be prepared for competition.
You might have heard this line a lot “Try to think outside the box.” Do you know that the wise saying does not end there? It goes on, “Leverage something interesting and unique you know about your target demographic and speak to that rather than just going with the traditional and easy holiday-related subject line.” You see, with all the holiday promotions that will be going on around the season, email marketing will prove itself to be more critical than ever in drawing potential buyers to your online store.
Develop your email marketing campaigns to be such that they make you stand out from others and communicate the advantages of choosing you over your competitors.
Don’t underestimate influencers and their effect.
As expressed in the heading above, underestimating the value influencers hold in this day and age is nothing but pure foolishness. Their effectiveness may waver between industries, but as the holidays approach and more and more users hop onto their respective social media, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter become clear avenues for brand interaction.
This is the prime time to make your presence known to social media users by using this influencer strategy that carries through to the holidays. This means getting in contact with various influencers and collaborating with them to create sponsored yet non promotional-looking subtle content that focuses on the next holidays.
You can also request them to show and tell about your products in use during the holiday festivities. This small action of theirs holds the power of influence, making their followers head over to your store and try some products for themselves.
Avoid false urgency; instead, craft a real reason to buy.
Image source: Legal + Creative
With the outbreak of covid19 and lockdowns, marketers have experienced a new type of fever in customers that they like to call panic-buying. Living and benefiting through it, they have found out that if a customer needs or wants a particular item that they are scared will run out, they will never purchase it. But holiday seasons are known for their vast amount of deep discounts and sales that can only be found annually; on top of that, shoppers know how to spot the good ones very well.
This tells us that while mapping holiday marketing plans, you need to make sure that you are leading shoppers to visit your online store and go all the way with their purchases and not leave halfway.
Also, whatever promotion you run, make sure that it encompasses a genuine reason for the customer to click BUY NOW. Like ifyour brand genuinely only holds sales once or maybe twice a year, and this coincidentally is one of those times. That’s compelling! Or maybe you’ll donate a particular percentage of holiday profits to a charity organization that rescues stray animals and shelters them. That’s convincing! Whatever you do offer, avoid false urgency. It’s something buyers can sense from like a mile away.
There also exists a valued fine line between holding discounts and giveaways and creating trustworthy relations with your customers. After-all no one wants to downsize and devalue their brand so much so that other buyers begin finding it cheap. They might not be so convinced then to make a repeat purchase.
Value your present customers
Though they might look all the same to you, usually the viewers visiting your store during the holidays constitute old and new customers, and given their experience and time spent with you, the pathways mostly differ. A returning customer will shop differently, and a new one will shop differently. So this is something you will have to keep in mind while creating your marketing plans.
Ask yourself questions like “Are there people who purchased last year but haven’t done so this year? Cool. So it’s time you target them. Perhaps with an ad offering gifts for someone in their lives or maybe a product recommendation that’s the reasonable next buy after the previous? You should at least try to do something and get them back to buy again. You got to knock where the digital door is if not fully then partially open.”
Collaborate with non-profits.
At the end of the day, this is a holiday season we are talking about, and after a rough year, everyone is generally looking forward to the warmth and joy of the season. For most, this is about doing good deeds and giving back. If you consider collaborating with a non-profit, you can win these consumers’ hearts and get in the holiday spirit while simultaneously promoting your brand mission.
If you need ideas to start, consider working with local organizations or poke your customers to learn about the ones closest to their hearts. End the year with a warm and heartfelt note.
Conclusion
The holiday season is known to be a make-or-break deal for almost every marketer in the field. The rise in online marketing with a constant competition flow can give anyone a tough time to succeed. Luckily some steps can be taken in advance to safely position your brand above others and earn some loyal consumers.
Start now and remember to keep your customers in mind in every plan you make to establish lifetime value with your brand.
