Holiday marketing do’s and don’ts

Holidays come all year long and they carry great potential for growing your business and income. However, tapping into the full potential of such events through your marketing efforts requires experience and skill. Otherwise, you might find yourself in a situation where you lose out on conversions and sales to your competition. Here at Digital Dot, we understand just how important it is to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself. And that is why holiday marketing strategies need to be prepared with care and devotion to each detail. To help you do that, we’ve come up with a list of do’s and don’ts when it comes to marketing your business during the holidays.

Do’s:

• Focus on the emotions of audiences
• Keep your message authentic
• Put your customers first
• Expand your presence as much as possible
• Establish a proper network
• Do your part for the local community

The importance of basing your campaigns on emotions

Whether we’re talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, or any other holiday, the notion remains the same. All holidays share the common goal of bringing people together. Therefore, a lot of emotions is involved before, during and after them.

That means that you would be wise to lay the foundation of your advertising efforts on those emotions. People feel nostalgic around the holidays – they don’t want the usual transactional sales pitch. Discounts are always nice and people love them, but there is nothing like a good background story to increase your holiday sales. So, rather than centering your holiday marketing around a simple discount, make it memorable by appealing to the emotional side of your consumers.

Maintain your authenticity as a brand

With seasonal marketing, a company is always at risk of losing its voice among the countless other businesses that are doing the same. You need to incorporate your brand into the message you send out to consumers during the holidays. Ultimately, it is your core brand personality and mission that will differentiate you from your competitors and leave an impression. If you are running a serious corporate business, the holidays are no cause to change your tone of advertising. Just keep it real and authentic because that is what consumers that know your brand are expecting.

Of course, there are subtle ways to add a little holiday cheer, either through web design or your social media marketing channels. Just make sure to stay within the boundaries of your brand personality and you should be just fine.

Putting your customers first is always important

Increasing sales and growing your brand is important, but so is maintaining your current customer base and their happiness. Sometimes, even the smallest reminders such as a complimentary gift or a promotional coupon will do the trick. They remind your long-term customers that your brand appreciates their business and loyalty. What would the key difference here be between smaller and larger companies:

• Smaller businesses can offer personalized cards or gifts to their customers, wishing them a happy holiday.
• Larger businesses can opt for bulk appreciation in terms of valuable discounts, small tokens of affection, etc.

The conclusion – remembering your customers during the holidays builds a more personal connection between them and your brand. It also boosts brand awareness and the potential of receiving new customers through referrals.

Work on expanding your presence as much as possible

Sharing is caring – a saying that applies to modern-day marketing a lot. The most successful campaigns often tend to be those that get the most views. The more attention you gather, the more likely you are to attract your target audience. So, when working on your holiday marketing campaign, make sure that it is easily shareable on social media. In fact, focus on creating a campaign that encourages others to share it.

Use the resources you have, to establish a wide-spread network

Standing out with your seasonal campaign is not limited to social media shares. You can also exploit other resources at your disposal. Although it requires long-term planning, combining your holiday marketing with Paid Advertising (PPC) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always a potentially beneficial approach. For example, writing content that matches the holidays several weeks ahead of time or building your PPC strategy around holiday-related terms can lead to potential leads and brand recognition.

Link your brand to your local community

Each day is a good day for being generous, holidays in particular. Therefore, companies that wish to establish a strong local and online presence should act on it. Incorporate a charitable donation or sponsorship in your holiday marketing plans and show what it is that makes your business the right choice. Not only will you be helping out your local community, but it will also win you loyalty among customers and other small businesses.

Don’ts:

• Going overboard with advertising
• Unfriendly campaigns for mobile device users
• Slow shipping
• Broken links
• Waiting too long

Don’t go overboard with the advertising

Yes, holidays present a unique opportunity to boost your monthly sales score. However, this doesn’t mean that you should go ahead and invest a quarter of your annual budget into such campaigns. Consider your customers for a moment and what they are faced with – countless companies doing the same thing you are. You have to know where to draw the line between ‘just enough to get them interested‘ and ‘bombarding them with ads‘.

You always need to prioritize the experience of the customer and how they might respond to aggressive advertising. Consider your target audience and carefully plan out your marketing strategy for the holiday in question. Making the wrong call here can lead to losing potential customers and even some of your loyal ones.

For example, email marketing offers an ideal solution here, as it guarantees a regular update on holiday promotions without the aggressive push to buy. Timing it before, during and right before the promotion ends can deliver great results and make all the difference without overthinking things.

Don’t neglect mobile device users

With a majority of consumers doing their online shopping over mobile devices, companies can’t afford to not cater to their needs and expectations. In fact, marketers and advertisers use as much as half their budget on mobile device ads. The point we are making here is that mobile shopping has become dominant in the past several years, and will only continue to grow. Hence, any holiday marketing campaigns that you have planned should be optimized for mobile devices to perfection. Because this strategic step can end up making a significant difference in your overall income during the holidays. Of course, this is where some professional help often comes in handy for most companies.

We here at Digital Dot understand the importance of mobile user experience and have optimal web design solutions to offer. If you would like to discuss one such option tailored specifically for your campaign, schedule a web design consultation with our team today!

Don’t drop the ball on the shipping estimate

Slow shipping is never welcome, even less so just before a major holiday. People want to order gifts for their loved ones or specific products and they expect them before the actual holiday comes. Therefore, this is definitely something you need to plan for and ensure that it doesn’t happen. If people are ordering products as a result of your campaign, you need to clear up just how to accommodate a larger volume of orders, as well as count on potential delays due to such a rapid amount of invoices from other businesses.

Don’t forget to doublecheck for broken links

Having broken links in a seasonal marketing campaign is one of the worst nightmares for marketers. Unlike other regular promotions, this one comes around once per year, so one swing & miss is all you really need to lose out on success. In a majority of cases, this is a mistake that tends to occur while:

• Rushing the holiday campaign last-minute;
• Working with an inexperienced in-house team;
• Not testing the campaign before sending it out.

Don’t wait for too long to start

It’s never early to start planning a promotional campaign for a holiday. Time is an advantage here, and the sooner you start preparations, the less chance of errors there will be. Thinking that you can simply take the idea you had last year and just tweak it a bit is never the solution. You need to remain vigilant in your marketing efforts if you hope to keep up with your competitors. So, either start planning early-on or hire outside help to do it for you. Either choice works out for you!

Plan each holiday to portray the full potential of your brand

As we mentioned at the start of this article – holiday marketing is never as easy as people consider it to be. You have a timer and a lot of pressure because it’s a passing opportunity. Therefore, businesses that hope to survive in the competitive online environment of today need to think clearly and plan with the utmost care.

Digital Dot always has a team on standby when it comes to planning tailored digital marketing services. Contact our company for a detailed plan of action as soon as today. Why chase after the holidays when we can deliver them to your front door?