Are You Ready for the Holidays?

With pumpkin spice lattes back in season, it is hard not to have the holidays on the brain. December is right around the corner and customers are starting to shop. Now is the time to start marketing to help customers shop for the special people in their lives.

While it might seem early to plan for winter, it isn’t! The earlier the better. After all, Mariah Carey already has her Christmas tree up…

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Here are some holiday marketing ideas to delight your customers:

1) Run a Holiday Giveaway on Social

A great way to utilize the platforms you’re already on is by running a social holiday giveaway. You can run a social campaign across all the major platforms your business uses (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.) to get more eyes on your business.

And who doesn’t love free stuff? Whether it’s a discount, a free add-on with an order or just something completely for free, get into the holiday spirit of giving. Asking followers to comment, like, etc. are great tactics to get even more engagement on your giveaway.

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2): Incorporate the Holidays into Email

Holidays instill powerful memories into your customer’s minds so enticing them with fun seasonal emails is a great way to connect in their inboxes. Pay close attention to your email subject lines when marketing for the holidays. It’s important to give buyers an incentive to shop with you and instilling urgency is a great strategy for your subject lines. 

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3) Amp Up Your Remarketing Game

Remember that time you almost bought that sweater and then you saw it again and took that as a sign, so you went ahead and bought it? That was not fate, that was remarketing! Remarketing is when you cookie your audience to later remind them what they’re missing out on.

Remarketing gives you a chance to remind potential customers that they abandoned their shopping cart or landing page. The holiday season provides an opportunity for remarketing because people are busy and making decisions fast. Therefore, if they dropped off your website or left their cart half full, they might just need a quick reminder!

When configuring your remarketing lists for the holidays, ensure your parameters are shorter than normal. For instance, if you typically allow users to be added to your remarketing list for 30 days, reduce that to 15 days. That will increase the chances of a customer seeing your ads more frequently closer to the holiday. 

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4) Pull at the Heart Strings

When I picture the holidays, I see Christmas lights, cookies, Santa Claus, and reindeer, but what I feel is that warm fuzzy feeling of enjoying time with family. While holidays may not be loved by all, most people have an emotional tie to them. And we all know that emotions drive action, so now is the time to get emotional with your marketing.

Emotional doesn’t mean you need to make every one of your audience members cry – even using humor in your messaging can go a long way during the holiday season. Whether it be your team dressed in ugly sweaters or the office dog hanging out by the Christmas tree, get creative and cheery with your content!

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5) Be Prepared for More Competition

With all the promotions around the holiday shopping season, marketing will be even more important than ever in drawing customers to your online store. If you don't want to get lost in the crowd, standing out among your business rivals relies heavily on advertising, an increased budget, and marketing promotions. The fourth quarter, December in particular, is when many retailers pull out their “big guns” in terms of ads, whether these manifest in print, radio or TV.

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Whether it be to show your loyal clients you care, to warm up current leads, or even entice new ones with some powerful branding campaigns, the holidays provide a tremendous opportunity to use the seasons to your marketing benefit.

Sarah NgComment