The holidays are here. But you’re stuck trying to figure out how to create a holiday marketing campaign that gets your audience in the festive spirit.
And that can be quite overwhelming, especially when you’re up against thousands of other businesses competing for their attention.
How can you stand out from all the noise?
By creating powerful and meaningful marketing messaging that makes it hard to resist your product or brand. And it all starts with knowing your goals and what your audience wants.
In this blog, we’ll show you just how to do that.
The Benefits of Holiday Marketing Campaigns
We all know that the point of any marketing campaign is to raise brand awareness, build trust, increase brand recognition, boost website traffic, or drive more sales.
The holidays aren’t much different. But what makes holiday campaigns unique is the time of year, seasonal themes and messaging, emotional appeal, gift-giving focus, and increased consumer spending.
Holiday marketing campaigns allow you to:
- Get creative and try out strategies you wouldn’t use throughout the year.
- Launch new products and promotions centered around the time of year.
- Offer sales and promotions without losing significant revenue due to increased sales volume.
- Hone your marketing strategy due to increased brand competition.
But the keys to reaping these benefits are planning ahead, choosing the right holidays to focus on, and personalizing campaigns to target specific audiences.
Creating a Holiday Marketing Campaign
Use the following strategies to create a successful holiday marketing campaign.
Define Your Holiday Campaign Goals
Knowing exactly what you want to achieve will help you pinpoint the best marketing activities to engage in during your holiday campaign.
Consider using the SMART goals framework. In case you’ve been in the wrong corner of the Internet, SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Take the company Clean Origin, for example. Imagine it wants to increase online sales revenue over the next quarter for its new line of diamond tennis bracelets. Here’s an example of how that goal would look using the SMART goals framework:
- Specific: The goal is specific as it defines what the company wants to achieve — increase online sales for a specific product line.
- Measurable: The goal is measurable because it includes a quantifiable way to measure results — 20% growth in online sales revenue.
- Attainable: The goal is realistic and attainable, given the fact that Clean Origins has an established customer base and a sizable marketing budget.
- Relevant: The goal aligns with the company’s overall objective of boosting sales.
- Time-Bound: The goal has a specific time frame — over the next quarter.
When implementing SMART goals, brands should also focus on how they’ll achieve their set objectives.
In this case, Clean Origin’s YouTube video showcasing its beautiful jewelry could effectively entice customers to purchase. The striking visuals of its jewelry mimic the brilliance of Christmas lights, creating a festive mood.
Understand Each Target Audience Segment
Before starting your holiday marketing campaign, know the different audiences you want to target.
If you’re a business offering different products for distinct customer segments, make sure you’re tailoring your campaign messaging to their unique needs.
Hims & Hers does this well. As a telehealth brand selling ED medicine, it’s familiar with a segment of its target audience’s needs — solving erectile dysfunction.
With a campaign titled ’SEXMAS,’ Hims charmed its audience with a sense of humor, creativity, and transparency while promoting its ED products.
To define your target audience, outline each segment by providing detailed information about their demographics, preferences, and behavior.
Gather information and data about them, such as where they hang out on social media, the device they prefer to use when consuming information, and their specific interests related to the holiday season.
Choose Holiday Offers and Promotions
Make it impossible for potential customers to look or click away with irresistible offers and promotions. During the holidays, people spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on meals, gifts, and decorations.
Thanksgiving hosts planned to spend an average of $396 in 2022. And consumers are expected to spend $1,430, on average, during the 2023 winter holiday season.
So, people are always looking for sales to increase their buying power or save money, with 70% of consumers planning to shop for themselves during holiday sales such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2023.
And 67% of shoppers will use sales as an opportunity to shop for immediate family members.
To get the attention of these shoppers, offer them opportunities to save money with:
- Buy one, get one free (BOGO)
- Discounts and percentage off
- Loyalty program rewards
- Extended return policies
- Social media contests
- Early-bird specials
- Free shipping
- Bundle deals
- Flash sales
- Gift cards
And when promoting these special offers, don’t forget to use countdowns to create a sense of urgency and make consumers feel like they’re missing out if they don’t take advantage now.
Also, while it’s beneficial to offer promotions and discounts to entice customers, don’t go marking down all your products.
The products best suited for holiday sales are electronics, toys, games, apparel, beauty and skincare products, and home decor. Consider putting together holiday gift guides to provide value to customers and help them take the guesswork out of shopping for loved ones.
To further build trust with your audience, offer holiday shipping options and a guarantee of fast, reliable, and safe delivery.
This seems like a given, but it’s become more and more difficult for eCommerce brands during the busy holiday season. So, highlight this promise in your email campaigns, social media, and website pages.
Let your customers know that by partnering with a reliable courier, you’ll ensure their packages will arrive in time to be unpacked under the tree.
This removes one of the biggest concerns customers have when shopping online during the Christmas season — not getting their items on time.
Create Your Holiday Landing Pages
To maximize your campaign results, create a dedicated holiday landing page. This is the page your target audience will land on when they click the links in your social media posts and emails.
Your landing page should include a compelling headline, interesting visuals, the benefits you offer, a form for collecting information, and a strong call-to-action (CTA).
Consider implementing an interactive landing page. These types of landing pages include interactive elements like quizzes, mouse-hover animations, and mini-games to engage your audience.
This, in turn, helps to boost conversions. The more engaged your visitors are, the longer they stay on the page. And the longer they stay on the page, the more likely they are to convert.
But you likely won’t be able to increase conversions if your website is difficult for anyone to use. This means your visitors may have a hard time viewing and buying your products or services,
And all the time and money you’ve spent generating traffic to your holiday landing page might not give you the desired results.
How do you prevent this? By investing in something called Shopify accessibility. Using platforms like accessiBe, you can conduct a comprehensive analysis of your website to determine how accessible it is to all visitors.
Choose Your Marketing Channels According to Customer Journey
There are plenty of marketing channels out there. But the secret is to find the ones that work for specific audiences and their designated place in the buyer’s journey.
Incorporate Social Media to Increase Brand Awareness
Using social platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X (formerly Twitter) allows you to engage with customers and create visually appealing content that resonates with audiences.
To find the right channels, go back and look at your buyer persona. Are your target customers younger or older? Which social media channels do they spend the most time on?
Asking yourself these questions will help you determine which platforms to focus on and the messaging you’ll use to capture your audience.
Let’s look at an example of a brand strategically using social media to create and share holiday-themed content.
StudioSuits, a company that sells impeccable jackets, pants, and tuxedo suits for men, creates holiday-themed content across social media channels to capture the spirit of the season and cultivate a sense of celebration and style during the colder months.
Encourage User-Generated Content to Foster Engagement
What better way to engage with your audience than to get them involved in your brand’s narrative?
This entails asking people to create content centered around your brand, whether it’s pictures, videos, or success stories.
You can ask them to include holiday-specific and branded hashtags to keep them engaged and invite other users to join in.
Consider adapting your messaging to customer segments and different stages of the campaign. And craft content for various channels.
Use:
- Promotional emails: Create compelling subject lines, incorporate visuals of UGC, and include clear CTAs encouraging subscribers to participate.
- Ads: Feature user testimonials and use targeted ad copy based on audience segments and campaign stages.
- Social media posts: Use different social media platforms based on audience demographics and preferences. Encourage participation with polls, challenges, or hashtags.
Create an Email Marketing Campaign to Thank Loyal Customers
Show loyal customers you appreciate their business with holiday email marketing campaigns. Consider using a customer relationship management (CRM) platform to keep track of customer contact information and online behaviors.
Integrate this data into an email marketing automation platform. Then, create email workflows triggered by different behaviors (e.g., making a purchase, visiting a product page, etc.).
As a result, you can automatically send relevant promotional emails that spread holiday cheer and give your customers something to be excited about.
Offer rewards and incentives like:
- Holiday sweepstakes or giveaways
- Countdown calendar promotions
- Holiday gift cards with bonuses
- Early access to holiday sales
- Exclusive holiday offers
- Gift with purchase
- Loyalty programs
- Discounts
By offering its valued customers early access to deals, Samsung builds a sense of exclusivity that’s hard to get elsewhere.
Here’s to Your Holiday Marketing Success
Holiday marketing success is all about knowing your customers, targeting your messaging, and reaching them on the right platforms.
It’s also important to offer them multiple touchpoints across multiple channels. This omnichannel approach will allow you to expand your reach and maximize success.
But perhaps what’s most crucial is updating product feeds with holiday-themed artwork and descriptions. It’s one thing to be able to attract and engage new and current customers with your holiday marketing campaign.
However, it’s another thing to keep them interested and make them stay put once they reach your website and product pages.
To improve your paid media campaigns' performance and boost marketing ROI, try Marin for free today.
