Are you ready for the holiday season, marketers? You’ll need fresh strategies to entice customers and urge them to complete purchases, from engaging shoppers on social media to devising appealing offers and campaigns. Take a look at these lessons from the best-performing holiday marketing campaigns over the years as you plan memorable holiday marketing campaigns for this year’s holiday sale.(marketing campaign)
#1 Feelings Always work.(marketing campaign)
Spending quality time with family and friends is a big part of the holiday season. Heathrow Airport, the world’s second busiest airport, becomes even busy as travelers return home for the holidays. In 2016, Heathrow Airport’s Homecoming campaign performed an outstanding job of portraying the emotions of the holiday season. The advertisement depicts two Heathrow bears, ostensibly an elderly couple, returning home for the holidays to spend time with their grandchildren. The commercial beautifully captures even the little actions, such as waking up the partner when the plane lands or thinking twice before walking on the escalator. It’s impossible not to identify with it. Despite the fact that the advertisement did not mention the airport, it played a significant role in the film. The campaign was a hit on social media, with some even comparing it to John Lewis’ Buster the Boxer ad. Last year, Heathrow continued the homecoming narrative.
Lesson 1: Holiday Marketing(marketing campaign)
For your audience, the holiday season is also an emotional period. Sales will follow if you focus on connecting with your audience through their emotions.
#2 B2B Holiday Marketing Campaigns(marketing campaign)
It’s not just about promoting specials and promotions to your customers during the holidays. It’s also about training them and helping them promote their companies. So, if you’re a B2B marketer who hasn’t yet planned your holiday marketing initiatives, now is the time. WeWork, a renowned co-working space provider, launched a #wwgiftguide campaign with gifting suggestions for families, party starters, and digital nomads. The best part of the promotion was that it highlighted products from its members. HubSpot, an inbound marketing platform, was also at the forefront of B2B Christmas marketing in 2017.
HubSpot created a Christmas-themed microsite with everything from articles on holiday marketing to eBooks on successful marketing to useful tools like the holiday trend tracker to help businesses maximize their marketing efforts during the season.
Check out these 7 fantastic Christmas marketing strategies to help you increase your eCommerce sales this season.
Lesson 2: Holiday Marketing(marketing campaign)
The holidays are for giving and sharing with your loved ones. This is also true for B2B businesses. Consider creating unique Christmas marketing campaigns and giveaways for your clients. It’s the holiday season, after all, so let your imagination go wild.
#3 Make Your Marketing Campaigns More Positive(marketing campaign)
This holiday season, spread joy and cheer by performing a kind deed. Last year, Everlane, a t-shirt manufacturer, launched a Black Friday Fund. The company employed email marketing to inform customers that all proceeds from Black Friday sales would go toward improving working conditions in their Chinese plants. They also mentioned the sales target they hoped to hit for the season. Many consumers responded positively to the non-pushy, straightforward communication.
Lesson 3: Holiday Marketing(marketing campaign)
Consider how you can bring goodness to your campaign. If you support a non-profit organization or have an unique cause that you want to promote, you may integrate it in your campaign to give your company a favorable image.
# 4 Look for ways to make the holidays a little less stressful.
As enjoyable as the Christmas season may appear, it can also be stressful when it comes to selecting appropriate gifts for family and friends. As a marketer, you must deliver a positive offline and online experience that makes the customer’s decision easier to make. Annie Selke, a business that sells utilitarian home goods, developed a personality profile to assist buyers in choosing the ideal present for their loved ones. This interactive marketing kept visitors on the website longer and alleviated the stress of present shopping.
Lesson 4: Holiday Marketing
Look for ways to make your consumers’ lives easier. Help your shoppers locate the ideal gifts for their friends and families, whether it’s a personality questionnaire like Annie Selke’s or a holiday directory of curated products.
#5 Make Your Mobile Marketing Strategy More Effective
Last year, mobile phones accounted for almost 61 percent of all web traffic to retail websites. Customers prefer to browse products and place orders while on the go. You can’t ignore the power of mobile phones, and if you haven’t already, you should focus on a razor-sharp mobile marketing strategy for the Christmas season. Walmart, for example, updated their mobile SEO approach and rewarded consumers who downloaded the app a sneak peek at impending discounts. Similarly, Amazon offered mobile-only bargains that were not available on the website, as well as personalized incentives via push alerts to its app users. This increased user engagement and drove traffic to their mobile app.
Lesson 5: Holiday Marketing
Plan your mobile marketing plan to reach out to customers who like to shop on their phones. Push notifications are an excellent method to keep your customers informed about new offers and promotions while also driving traffic to your website and app. Select a platform that allows you to segment and personalize the push notifications you send to your clients.
Get Your Holiday Marketing Campaigns Started
According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, holiday shopping will total $807 billion in 2018, with over $685 billion spent on gifts and other seasonal items. As a marketer, it is your responsibility to ensure that your customers have a seamless buying experience, especially in the digital realm. With so many marketers competing for your customers’ attention, it’s critical to stand out. The most effective method is to use push notifications. Push notifications allow you to send tailored messages and flash notifications to your customers. MoEngage is an AI-powered push notification platform that may help you design various marketing campaigns for your various audiences, track their performance, and communicate with them across their chosen channels. During the Christmas season, the laser-sharp targeting and 1:1 communication can help you develop stronger interaction with your clientele.
What’s the bottom line? During the holidays, there is money to be made, and firms who do not leverage for the season lose money. As a seasoned and new store owner, you may avoid this loss by learning from the best and most distinctive Christmas marketing strategies and avoiding the following holiday marketing blunders.
1. Not anticipating an influx of orders
Make sure you have enough people to handle the rush of orders that comes with the holiday season. By planning ahead, you can avoid becoming overwhelmed. If necessary, hire seasonal staff. Get hold of extra inventory and packing materials. Simply guarantee that orders are fulfilled to avoid disappointing clients. If you ever run out of stock, allow customers to place reservations for things that will be available when they return.
It’s also a good idea to check with your website host to see if your site can withstand the increased traffic that the holidays bring. You don’t want your website to go down, resulting in a loss of revenue.
2. A lack of live chat and customer service
By answering their pressing queries, you may avoid scaring away potential customers. Set up a live chat and support line to engage customers and assist them in their rush to make excellent buying decisions (through email, phone, physical presence, etc.). Before the holidays, make sure your team is familiar with the live chat and support solutions you’ve chosen. Setting up automatic messaging might also help your staff respond more quickly and attract more buyers.
3. Refusing to spend money on paid advertising
You may reach new and existing customers by investing in sponsored advertising. All you have to do now is establish a bespoke audience based on your current Facebook fan base. You can reach clients who are’receptive’ to your brand by running advertising to this category.
You can also target prior website users and divide them into groups based on their behavior. A retargeting ad can be used to entice visitors who have added a product to their cart to complete their order.
nd24, a German beauty and cosmetics retailer, is one firm that has had success with tailored display ads. Running retargeting efforts to reach both first-time purchasers and existing consumers resulted in a 30 percent increase in Christmas revenue for the company.
What’s the bottom line? During the holidays, there is money to be made, and firms who do not leverage for the season lose money. As a seasoned and new store owner, you may avoid this loss by learning from the best and most distinctive Christmas marketing strategies and avoiding the following holiday marketing blunders.
