Start Planning for The Holidays!
With big shopping holidays like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday now playing a key role in our holiday season, it’s important to start planning your holiday marketing campaigns early. But especially this year, with global supply chain issues and mail delays, it’s crucial to develop your game plan.
Most businesses depend on third and fourth-quarter sales to make the year. Hopefully, you’ve had a successful start of Fall and Back to School season so you can start building a strategy for the holidays.
Here are our tips for creating a holiday marketing strategy:
Social Media
It’s important to get consistent about posting on your social media pages. If you haven’t been on a good schedule this year, now is the time to start getting back into one. We recommend marking this on your calendar or setting a reminder on your phone.
The social media algorithms prioritize showing content from accounts that post frequently. So even if you have a high follower count, without consistent posting, your audience may not be seeing your content. Think about it: is there a business page you like or follow but you haven’t seen posts from? Check their profiles and you may be surprised to see they didn’t stop posting, it just hasn’t been showing in your feed.
If it’s in your budget, boosted posts or social platform ads could be a great part of your marketing plan depending on your market reach, products, and goals.
If you sell a product, consider using the shop features on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook pages. This can be easily integrated into a pre-existing e-commerce platform, like Shopify. You can then link products in your posts so your followers can click to buy right in the app.
Email Marketing
We talk frequently about the importance of email marketing, which targets your existing client list. These people are already fans and champions of the products and services you offer.
Here are some of our key email marketing tips:
Don’t send too often. Make sure you have a compelling call to action when you have something to share.
Use your emails to remind your customers of all your offerings
Use an attractive template that matches your branding
Write a catchy subject line
Avoid sending an email on a Monday when people are catching up on all their emails from the weekend
Especially consider adding coupons, offers and exclusive sales for your email subscribers with your holiday offering announcements to help drive sales.
Prepare Your Marketing Materials
Do you have a special graphic you want to create for a holiday sale? Start designing and printing those now. Especially with mail and fulfillment delays, if you need something from a business outside of your own, be sure to plan early to ensure you have everything you need for a successful holiday season.
If you are advertising a product, make sure you confirm your shipping cut-off dates for the holidays so you can clearly communicate that with your customers.
