It’s Never Too Early to Start Marketing for the Holidays

We were asked recently for some holiday social media marketing advice we could share with our users.

Businesses that fail to maximize the holiday shopping season miss a huge revenue opportunity. Brands that invest only a small portion of their budget on timely, seasonal ads flounder while competitors with bigger budgets win the wallets of consumers.

During the holidays, companies have a chance to capture loads of new customers.

Here are some of our favorite holiday marketing tips and examples to strategize your own strategy for the holidays:

• Holiday Marketing Tip #1: “There’s a lot that businesses can do on Facebook to get more sales during the holidays. The easiest thing for brick-and-mortar businesses is to target audiences by using the new Local Awareness feature. This allows you to target ads to people only when they’re physically near your business. You can even give people directions to your location right on their phones. Another way is to use Custom Audiences to find your best customers on Facebook, and then use Lookalike Audiences to find similar people.” –Mari Smith, Facebook Marketing Thought Leader

A successful holiday season depends on preparation and research months before the holidays arrive.

Indeed, one of the secrets of holiday success is spending a disproportionate amount of your marketing budget on festive advertising. Brands should do is prepare for the holidays early, and celebrate them sooner. Make sure to accommodate such dramatic growth in market opportunity.

• Drive that local cheer:
  The holidays experience in New York is different than in San Francisco. Your messaging should reflect that. Leverage geo-targeting tools to know from where your customer is. Then you can create content they can relate to and messaging that resonates with a personalized brand experience.
• The key to the holidays is user-generated content:
  How do you connect with audiences when they are already inundated with advertisements? You make them the hero. Businesses that can actively leverage user-generated content are the ones that will drive deeper connections with fans. Most people today are programmed to ignore ads. Showcasing authentic photos of your audience drives your intended message while encouraging a deeper, emotional interest from new and loyal fans alike. Relate to them with real people, in real moments, using your product and services.
• Promote ads weeks in advance of the shopping season:
  Doing so gives you ample opportunity to try new copy and images to learn how consumers react. To help kick off your holiday planning, we’ve compiled a set of tips and best practices designed to help you maximize your success during this important time of the year.  The first set of tips will help you prepare for the holidays by:
  • Testing different creative
  • Planning your holiday budget
  • Optimizing your mobile experience
  • Getting to know your audience segments

Ramp up spend, quick: Double your ad spend immediately when you identify the creatives that engage customers.

Establish a marketing plan for every holiday your customers celebrate – Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, New Years, and more. When you celebrate holidays early, you get a chance to have fun with your customers, outshine the competition, and dramatically increase sales.

• Holiday Marketing Tip #2: Ask yourself what your best customers, the people who support you all year round are doing this month…. Forget about what you think the season the holidays are about. Ask what your customers are focused on.

Holiday Marketing Links: 

• Email holiday marketing: listrak.com/resources/holiday-insights/
• Facebook holiday marketing: facebook.com/business/a/pre-holiday
• General holiday marketing: entrepreneur.com/topic/holiday-marketing

Future tips will include how to drive momentum before the holidays, maximize sales during the holidays and keep customers engaged at the end of the year. What’s your best Facebook holiday marketing advice? Please let me know in the comments.