The holiday shopping season is right around the corner, which means you need to know how much money to set aside for your holiday marketing campaigns. If you want to capture as much website traffic and get as many customers as possible, you’ll have to spend some money first.
But deciding on how much to spend is a little more complicated than it seems. After all, you’ll want to get the best bang for your buck when it comes to customer outreach and engagement over the holiday shopping season. You may also need to reach your annual budget goals to get a full marketing budget for the 2024 fiscal year.
If you want to learn how to plan your 2023 holiday marketing budget effectively, read on.
Drop Out of B2B Marketing Entirely (or Mostly)
B2B or business-to-business marketing can be a major drain on your marketing finances. Around the holiday season, it’s also not always necessary. Ad prices usually increase in November and December for obvious reasons, so you might get more bang for your marketing buck if you avoid B2B advertising in favor of advertising to consumers directly.
Alternatively, you can reduce the budget you have allocated toward B2B ad marketing for a while, then reinstate your regular campaigns once prices stabilize after the new year.
In any case, consider carefully whether advertising to B2B businesses or clients via pricey ads is worthwhile, given the increased advertising you’ll need to focus on to reach end-users or consumers throughout the holiday season.
Search for Cheaper Ad Prices
As mentioned above, ad prices can increase leading up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and all the way up to Christmas. With this in mind, you should try to find a reputable and trustworthy marketing network with a low cost-per-click or CPC rate for all your PPC or pay-per-click ads.
Lower ad prices can go a long way toward maximizing your marketing budget, especially if you are working with a tighter budget limit than last year. Every wasted dollar is a buck you could have spent elsewhere on your marketing campaign. A few hours of research looking for lower ad prices can save you serious cash that you can funnel toward this expensive season.
Upgrade Your Accounting
You’ll only be able to plan a successful 2023 holiday marketing budget if you have good accounting software to keep track of your numbers. Indeed, reliable accounting software will help you plan your marketing campaigns effectively and keep track of cash flow increases throughout the holiday shopping season so you can make wise business decisions in the future.
If you don’t already have accounting software, get some. If you are using a basic accounting platform, consider upgrading by looking for software that comes with important features like general ledgers, cost of goods sold trackers, mobile app access, and more.
Information is certainly power when it comes to planning a successful 2023 holiday marketing budget. The right accounting software can maximize your information and help you make the best decisions for your marketing and sales teams for years to come.
Focus on Your Target Holiday Market
Next, you’ll need to optimize your digital advertising campaigns for your target holiday market. Your target holiday market may not be the same group of people who shop from you throughout the year.
For example, your holiday audience may comprise:
- People who are only looking for a specific item
- One-time shoppers not likely to return
- Random shoppers who stumble onto your site by accident but who usually buy their products offline
Many retailers and e-commerce store owners have also taken a while to recognize that teens represent a major holiday target (whether they buy things themselves or talk to their parents to buy things for them). After all, according to recent statistics, more than 70% of 12-year-olds now have a smartphone.
Be sure to gather a lot of data for your holiday marketing campaign so you’ll know as much about your target audience as possible.
Key metrics like potential spending, debt level, and interests are all attributes you need to know about your target market to advertise to them effectively. For instance, the average millennial makes $47,034 per year – keep this fact in mind when pricing your products, especially when accounting for major Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and discounts.
Plan for Regular Social Media Marketing
Lastly, plan to do regular social media posting and other marketing in the run-up to the holiday shopping season. Social media marketing is highly important because it allows you to connect with current and prospective customers more personally than ever.
In addition, social media marketing is a great marketing channel for announcing things like Black Friday sales or Cyber Monday discounts to your followers. Coupons, countdowns, and other online campaigns are best launched on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Even better, social media marketing is relatively cheap, which is why it is so popular. If you plan for more social media marketing, you may find extra financial wiggle room or money you can funnel into your other marketing efforts, like paid advertisements on Google and Bing.
Wrap Up
As you can see, there are many ways to bolster your holiday marketing budget’s efficacy and improve your marketing campaigns for this holiday shopping season. Try to use these tips in conjunction with the others – that way, your marketing budget is both allocated more accurately and produces more dramatic revenue results than before. Good luck!
