Holiday season has been going on for over a month now, starting with Halloween, following up with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and here we are: it’s the end of another year.
Holidays are a given opportunity for basically everyone that runs a business to improve their digital marketing strategy, but is especially important for those that are present in the online environment.
Why are the holidays the perfect time to work on your digital marketing strategy?
This year around, people are looking for deals like crazy, and there’s nothing that can stop them. At the same time, consumers spend more time online during this time of year. Whether they’re looking to buy presents for their friends and family, or scouting for deals, people tend to buy during the holidays things they don’t need, or that they won’t ever use.
The words “promotion” or “sale” seem to do the trick every year, and they will continue to do that for as long as people will keep buying.
How to make the most out of the holiday season in terms of digital marketing strategy
- Plan your strategy ahead. Ahead doesn’t mean 2 weeks before the holiday season. It can mean even months, depending on how complex your campaign is going to be. Also, pay attention to all the holidays that are happening. The holiday season basically begins with Halloween. Globalization made it possible that some holidays that were celebrated in certain parts of the world, are now embraced by almost every country.
- Use specific keywords. By optimizing the content you’re creating, people will be able to find you more easily on search engines. If you don’t know much about SEO, and keywords, you can use a WordPress plugin like Squirrly, that will guide you through the process of optimizing your content. Adding a word like “deal”, “discount”, “offer” next to the product you’re selling will increase the chances that people will find it.
- Use social media to spread the word about your offer. As I was saying, people spend a lot of time online during the holidays. Social media is a fast way to let people know what you’re up to, and what you planned for them. You can also use social media the share some cool holiday photos, or texts to get people in a holiday mood.
- Email marketing works almost every time. Why? Because people open up their emails, especially if you use the words “holiday”, “offer”, or similar ones in the subject of the email. Or, it doesn’t even have to contain those words. It can be something funny, that will relate to the idea of holiday. It’s a good idea to contact people that have already done business with you, and that for some reason stopped using your service/product.
- Make them an offer they can’t refuse. Limited offers always work the best. A one day offer would probably be a too tight deadline, but a 3 day type offer would work. Also, here you can use keywords that give the impression of urgency, like “limited”, “one time only” and such. Let people know that your offer is unique and you’ll never going to have it again. Very important: don’t forget to make it valuable for them.
- Create a landing page for your offer. It’s not that hard to create a landing page, and with the right design, and some awesome copy, you will be spot on. Also, it will be easier for you to include there all they need to know about your offer.
Tips for your digital marketing strategy
No matter for what holiday you’re creating your offer, don’t release on that exact day. Not many people are online scouting for promotions on Thanksgiving day or during Christmas. Nor will anyone have any money left to buy your product. Instead, release your offer a couple of weeks ahead, or just one week before. People would still have a budget to buy presents, and if you’re lucky, they’ll spend some money on your product.
At least, that was our strategy this year, and it totally worked.
To quote Dustin Heap’s article, “the holiday shopping season has become a very digital one”. What did you do this past holidays in terms of digital marketing strategy?
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