One of the best opportunities to bring in new customers is during holiday seasons. Holidays present the perfect opportunity for attracting new business and expanding your customer base.
When we think of the holidays, we often think of the last quarter of the year from October to December. While this time of year is important as it generates the highest amount of traffic and sales compared to other quarters, holidays occur year-round. These strategies emphasize why holidays are the perfect advantage for marketing your business.
Start Planning Early
The earlier you can start strategizing your holiday plan, the more successful your marketing can be. While there is an increase in traffic during the last quarter, you can’t take it as a given for results. There is also an increase in competition as everyone is launching specialized holiday marketing, presenting more opportunities for attention to be taken away from your business. Time and energy also can become depleted during the end of the year and having a plan ahead of time ensures a more relaxed and effective execution. Costs of marketing also can increase at the end of the year as projects become more demanding and timeliness is crucial.
Having a strategy for all outlets and platforms is important to ensure you are staying ahead. Begin strategizing as early as July in order to make sure you have all the pieces lined up. This also gives you a chance to test out new strategies and tactics before the holiday season. The sooner you can make adjustments, the better chance you have on improving your results.
People have a higher tolerance for promotional material during this time of year and are expecting to see an increase in marketing. By starting early, you can take advantage of producing higher quality work that will stick out during the heart of the holiday season. This is the time to build up SEO and customer outreach. If you have a high SEO return going into the holidays, incorporating seasonal keywords becomes an easy way to pick up extra free traffic. Getting the word out early also gives you time to generate more buzz and desire for what you are promoting.
Sell More Than a Product – Sell a Lifestyle
When marketing during the holidays, keep in mind that you want to sell more than a product – you are trying to sell your brand. Think about the kind of lifestyle you are trying to emulate. With the increase in competition, you are wanting to not just pull customers for the season, you want them to keep coming back. Market from the perspective of winning goodwill. Stand out from traditional sales tactics by making your promotions more meaningful. What products or services do you have that are evergreen, meaning they will last through the year? This gives you the ability to convert new customers into repeat buyers by focusing on lifetime value over a one-time acquisition.
Niche holidays are the perfect opportunity to sell a lifestyle. There is less chance of being overshadowed by bigger companies, and with so many different national holidays, there is an opportunity to find ones that perfectly align with your brand. Look at channels that are being ignored by most companies, like Pinterest, YouTube or Reddit. It’s easy for people to delete emails. Getting on platforms that aren’t as saturated with marketing allows for a better chance to promote yourself and gain potentially untapped customers.
Surprise and Delight
Customers are already looking for deals during holiday seasons. You want to ensure you are creating deals that are too good for your customers to pass up. The expectation is already in place that deals will be out, so think of ways to surprise and delight in unique ways. This is the perfect time to create personalized ads based on customer data. What are people purchasing year-round versus seasonally? What can you feature as add on items that they wouldn’t necessarily think of getting themselves without the bonus of a deal?
Gift specific pages are an additional tie in that can help guide website traffic. Customers are being inundated with offers and products, which can be overwhelming when navigating through an excessive number of websites. As opposed to having to filter through themselves, which can be frustrating and time-consuming, take the work out of the process by providing them with curated items tailored to their needs. Dividing by lifestyle is the perfect way to provide useful options that will work beyond the season and sticks out from traditional methods of shifting by age group or gender. Your website is also the perfect place to cross-sell with relevant pop-ups. There becomes more incentive to stay on the website with the bonus of a discount.
By strategizing early and effectively, the holidays can become your biggest asset to capitalize on marketing. Take advantage of this period in order to gain the best boost possible for your business. Being diligent will produce a return on investment that will last beyond the holidays.
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