As the holidays rapidly approach, a strategically designed online marketing campaign can maximize the upcoming holiday season.
Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your holiday campaigns:
Identify the holidays you will target
The first step is to identify which holidays you are going to target.
Are you going to target…
… all of them?
… Some of them?
… None of them?
Some important dates are:
Halloween – Wednesday, October 31st
Thanksgiving – Thursday, November 22nd
Hanukkah – starts Saturday, December 8th
Christmas – Tuesday, December 25th
And, throughout December, many schools will have holiday balls.
The more completely you create your plans, the better your results will be.
With date-driven promotions, there is a limited window of opportunity. If you are doing PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, it’s important to make sure you allow enough time for your ads to be approved by Google.
Coordinate Your Campaigns Across Different Media
If you are using multiple platforms for your promotions, have consistency throughout.
It’s confusing to your reader to see one promotion somewhere and then come to your website and see a completely different promotion.
If you are offering a special promotion on your Facebook site, or in an Adword, make it easy for someone coming from one of these sources to find the promotion on your site.
Often, a person visiting your website won’t remember the promotion code listed on the site where they saw it, and making them go back to find it is an invitation for them to leave your site and possibly visit another one.
Test your campaigns and adjust
No matter how well you like a promotion, what ready matters is how well it is received by your audience.
By continually monitoring your promotions and making adjustments as necessary, you can maximize the results of your holiday marketing efforts.
For more useful tips regarding online marketing for your retail floral business or to discuss your needs, please contact us.
Quite true. Targeting your holiday session can actually bring in a lot of clients. You can start out by sending out an online greeting card to all your clients on major holidays. Also see that you shall list out an offer in the card, which gives something special for that holiday. Clients love discounts and doing shopping especially during the holiday season. So make it worth it.
Yes. Discounts and freebies will really be very attractive for the holiday season. We have to remember that the holiday season puts the people on festive mood and also on buying mood.
I think Halloween is one of the most profitable feative seasons, especially when you have all the kids and even adults looking out for creepy costumes and ornaments for their houses. It’s a really wide targeted market that you can reach out to, compared to other events.
Very good article.
One thing I’d like to mention more about is starting early. Very early.
I’ve learned from selling articles online and doing some PPC ads on various sites, is to start promoting about 3 months in advance of the holiday.
Looking at my records, Christmas articles on gift ideas start becoming popular in October, and that’s also when I sell the majority of my articles about Christmas. November is still a good month for this as well, but it’s dying down. In December, most people know what they’re buying, so they’re not as interested in new gift ideas, unless they waited until the last minute.
So when preparing for holidays, prepare early.
You also have to make your promotions more closely aligned with the festivities. Definitely, holidays are a great timing to increase your sales. You just have to learn how you can best take advantage of these holidays. The festive season always place the people in the mood to spend more.
You definitely have to plan things ahead to have an edge over competitors. You need to know what holidays you want to focus on and come up with something that makes your company stand out. It’s not always easy because nowadays so many companies come up with special holiday promotions and actions.
I agree with KennyK. It seems like almost everyone has some sort of holiday promotion, and it’s very easy to get lost in the shuffle. Not to mention the fact that holiday sales are starting earlier and earlier. I’m sure I’m not the only person who has noticed that Macy’s has begun putting out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how we can remain competitive without resorting to things like that?
I’ve definitely taken advantage of promoting things during holidays, especially christmas. Posted on a lot of blogs and wrote a lot of articles before the holiday season and I’ve gotten great results. It seems out of all the holidays Christmas is the one holiday that is the best for marketing online.
Christmas is probably my best earning holiday of the year! People often click on a link to buy a book from Amazon and end up buying all sorts of other things like TV’s, workout equipment, bikes, etc.
I am constantly amazed by how many things are bought in this period! If you are not prepared for this holiday then you are probably missing on at least a 10% increase in business! I often make 20% of my entire yearly business in this period of time!
Just by testing some marketing campaign right in this time frame will show some great results. Use social media and PPC advertising near Christmas and I guarantee you will love it!