Now that the summer season is over and autumn is in full swing, it is time for small businesses to start thinking ahead to the incoming holiday season.
According to Deloitte, holiday sales are expected to increase by between 3.5% and 4.6% this coming 2023 holiday season. Thus, it’s clear that businesses that take the time to promote their products prior to the holiday season can capitalize on the holiday sales boost.
In this article, we will take a look at how holiday marketing can boost your revenue. Likewise, we’ll dive into actionable strategies you can use to attract the customers you want during the holiday season.
How Holiday Marketing Boosts Your Brand Image
Any small business owner knows the importance of providing a strong brand image at every time of year. So how does holiday marketing contribute to a stronger brand image? Some of the benefits include:
- Emotional Connection: Holidays are often associated with gifting, sharing, celebrating, and family time. When a brand associates itself with a holiday, it utilizes the fact that emotion trumps intent to buy by a factor of 3-to-1 in some cases.
- Increased Visibility: Holidays are high-traffic seasons for both online and offline shopping. Well-executed holiday marketing campaigns can drastically improve your company’s visibility, reaching both current and potential customers.
- Showcase Values: Many holidays have themes of generosity, togetherness, or gratitude. Brands can align their marketing messages with these themes to showcase their company values, reinforcing their brand identity.
- Customer Engagement: Special promotions or interactive holiday-themed events can engage customers in a memorable way, encouraging brand loyalty.
Across every industry, the holidays provide more opportunities to reach potential customers and make an impact online. This means greater exposure to your brand’s target audiences, but only if you know how to amplify your marketing message for this particular season.
The Best Ways to Amplify Your Holiday Marketing
Making the most of the holiday season is all about preparing in advance. Take advantage of the slow season to prepare for the holiday rush by researching, strategizing, and getting your plans in place.
Let’s take a look at a few key strategies for connecting with customers and bringing in holiday season business.
Leverage Local Google & Social Advertising
To maximize holiday marketing, focus on local Google and social media ads and make sure you set the right KPIs before starting a campaign. Use Google My Business for local visibility, and make sure you update your profile with holiday offers, hours and content–it’s a chance to refresh your business when it’s most needed.
Likewise, make sure you include location-based keywords and post valuable, insightful content that can be linked to. It can not only do wonders for local SEO, but also have PR-related benefits and even turn you into an authority about your industry or profession.
Then, you can narrow things down even further by geographically targeting Google Ads campaigns to people in a certain community. On social media, create zip-code-targeted ads. Use specific hashtags and location tags to increase local engagement.
Offer Exclusive Holiday Giveaways and Promotions
Everyone loves a good giveaway. According to Tinuiti, sales and discounts are amongst the top influencing factors for buyers, right after price.
Therefore, engaging and exclusive product giveaways create a playful opportunity for your business to engage with buyers and establish long-lasting customer relationships.
For instance, many retail stores use the opportunity to get rid of excess stock from the previous quarter by bundling certain items as gifts. Nike offers holiday discounts in this manner, as do Best Buy and Target.
So, a well-executed holiday promotion doesn’t just have your audience returning to share your content and check the results, but it also provides natural marketing power.
Craft Multimedia Content To Create Emotional Resonance With Your Customers
The best marketing campaigns make use of a variety of media to attract the attention of potential customers. You will want to create enticing content that quickly creates an emotional connection with your brand. Images and targeted copy are a great start.
But when it comes to creating an immersive experience that resonates deeply with your audience, nothing works quite as well as video content. Specifically, branded videos can be relatively undemanding to make and edit but provide a significant marketing impact
These videos often trigger emotions associated with the holidays and gift-giving, subtly wrapped around your product or service. They not only boost engagement but also contribute to building a lasting brand image, knitting your brand into the cherished memories and traditions of the holiday season.
Important Things to Keep in Mind For Your Holiday Campaigns
As you get your holiday campaigns up and running, there are a few key logistics you will want to keep in mind. Taking care to protect your site in advance and provide smooth shopping experiences for customers is a great way to ensure that they will keep on coming back for more.
Make Sure Your Site is Secure
A stellar customer experience is a cornerstone of successful holiday marketing, but this shouldn’t compromise security. As businesses streamline their checkout processes or integrate new payment options to enhance the customer experience, they often become attractive targets for malicious actors.
Just a single data breach or site downtime can have a negative effect on your business’s reputation and can result in all your holiday marketing efforts going to waste.
Don’t Rely Too Much on the Holiday Spirit
Utilizing holiday themes in your marketing campaigns is certainly an invaluable tool, but it shouldn’t be overused. The centerpiece should be your business and its products–the holidays are just a passing period, hence why you shouldn’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Instead, treat the holidays as an opportunity to reward your long-time buyers and attract new ones.
Diversify Your Payments
Provide plenty of options for your customers, making it clear that you accept credit cards. You may want to consider including alternative payment options such as Apple Pay that make online purchases a breeze for your customers on the go.
Final Thoughts
The holidays are just the right time for strengthening relationships and building connections, and the connections between customers and retailers are no exception. If you can dive into the social media marketing realm to boost your business’s image and reputation, you will make a lasting impression on current and future buyers. It’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss out on.
