Tis the season to...
Start planning your killer promotional campaign for the holiday season. With so many e-commerce features out there, social media is the leading source to drive sales. Platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest are perfect examples and they have all introduced major e-commerce integrations over the last year, making it easier than ever to make sales. Other ways to plan the perfect holiday campaign include targeted blog posts, thank you packages, and more! Check out these seven simple steps towards sleighing the holiday season.
Here are the steps you can take to make the perfect holiday marketing campaign:
1. Strategize your sales goals
Knowing your company needs will help position you and your offerings in a meaningful way. Start by identifying a target market, performing competitive research, analyzing trends, and deciding the most effective promotion method. Here are three questions to get your sales strategy going:
- What are you going to sell?
- Who will you sell it to?
- What methods are we going to use to sell our offering?
2. Set your creative concept and content
The holiday season presents a huge opportunity to connect with your customers, reach new customers, connect with your digital community, and drive sales. It’s important to note that holiday campaigns don’t have to purely revolve around selling. Give back to your audience and celebrate your community, it’s a great way to bring people together.
Your marketing concepts need to be rock-solid. Here are some questions to help develop it:
- What type of content will achieve your goals?
- What products or services do you want to focus on?
- Are there any wider social causes you’d like to support?
- How can you give back to your audience?
- Does your company need professional help with design services?
Be sure your tone, content and assets support your goals and capture the desired aesthetic of your campaign.
3. Select your channels
Make sure whichever channels your business selects for promoting content that they align with your overall holiday marketing goals. Achievable goals can range from pushing traffic to your website, converting sales, or even spreading a company message. Whatever that goal is, make sure that the consumer or business you are targeting has an easy route to the final destination of your campaign.
That destination can be reached using various channels:
- Social Media Messaging
- Holiday Care Packages
- Blog/E-Newsletter Blasts
- Holiday Ads (Discounted packages, referrals, new program promotions)
4. Get your website in check
Give your website a quick refresh to match your holiday campaign goals. You also don’t want to lose any sales because your website is sluggish. Is your website performing at its highest ability? Is it ready for high traffic? Are all your processes working?
Here are some helpful tips to prepare your website for the holiday season:
- Launch that new blog post, strong SEO strategies will help pull you to the top of the holiday searches.
- Compare your analytics from last year to possible traffic this year. Watch for spike times to make sure your hosting can scale with the additional loads.
- Make sure all software, plugins, themes are up to date before any sales begin.
- Be ready for inquiries and questions, make sure your site has clear contact methods for customers.
5. Create pre-sale curiosity
Using someone’s curiosity can be powerful and motivating. In any industry, your goal is to get your target market's attention, maintain it, and engage. Curiosity can help you accomplish those goals.
Now how can you generate sales without making a sales pitch? By creating a curiosity gap, people naturally want to fill it and they’ll start asking additional questions or follow your company platforms for more information.
6. Schedule your campaign
The holiday season is crazy enough, so scheduling your campaign ahead of time is a big time saver. It will also leave you with more time to engage with your audience.
When scheduling your campaign be sure you are making your content go live during a time of maximum engagement, make sure to research your ideal industry engagement trends.
7. Measure your results
Throughout the campaign it is important to see how your content is performing. By accessing the analytics of the platform(s) you are using for the campaign, you can gauge what’s getting the most traction and what your audience responds to best.
Holiday campaigns don’t have to be complicated to deliver great results for your business.