Your Guide to Digital Marketing During the Holiday Season
It’s November, and in the marketing world that means it’s officially the start of the holiday season! The holidays are a crucial time for your brand. It’s not only a season where creativity meets strategy, it’s also an excellent opportunity to stand out and let your brand’s story take center stage.
As you approach the holiday season, it’s key to have a plan for how to best target your audience, how to be more inclusive in your materials, and how to get creative with your content to stand out from the competition. Let’s dive into this fun-filled world of digital marketing during the holidays, where you have the opportunity to boost your bottom line and also spread some holiday cheer for all to hear.
Targeting your audience in this busy season
As a consumer, you know that with the holiday season comes an overwhelming and sometimes annoying influx of promotions, sales, and discounts. Brands are starting Black Friday deals earlier than ever before and trying to get their audience’s attention amidst the mad dash of gift browsing and buying.
So how can you make your brand’s messaging stand out? The answer lies in an extremely targeted approach that focuses on the audience most likely to buy your product. If you use your budget to create a generic ad that tries to appeal to everyone, you’ll probably struggle to differentiate your product and ultimately have little to no conversions.
If you instead hone down on your target audience with things like proper segmentation, personalization, location data, purchase history, and online behavior, you’ll be able to tailor your content and have an excellent starting point from which to test your campaigns.
Bonus tip: start this exercise by creating a very specific, highly detailed description of your target audience member. Where do they live? How old are they? Where do they hang out online? What other brands are they buying from? Tap into their mindsets and get one step closer to turning your potential consumers into loyal buyers of your product or service.
When putting these marketing materials together for your target audience, it’s important to remember that the holidays can be a difficult time for some people. Amidst the global tragedy and suffering we’re experiencing today, it’s crucial to be welcoming, comforting, and inclusive in all your holiday marketing content, which we’ll cover in the next section.
Celebrate diversity in your holiday marketing materials
Above all, the holiday season is a time for love, warmth, respect, unity, and support. Your marketing materials should embody and reflect these values. Not only is it the right thing to do to make your audience feel welcome, but it will also help your content resonate with those of different backgrounds and religions. A strong community is founded on diversity, and this is especially true during the holidays.
Embracing inclusivity in your marketing materials should be a welcome challenge. While it’s easy to do things like using the phrase “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” I challenge you to go a step further. Send out a survey to your brand’s community ahead of the holiday season and ask them which holiday they celebrate. By doing this, you now have dedicated segments that you can then personalize based on holiday!
Besides being sensitive to all cultures and religions, make sure to have diverse representation in your materials, make your content accessible to all, and use inclusive language in your copy. Remember that it’s always a great idea to turn to your community for feedback to foster a sense of belonging and commitment. Showing that you care about your audience will go a long way beyond the holiday season in fostering loyalty and connection to your brand.
Getting creative with your holiday marketing
Many brands see the holiday season as a time to use their best materials and have their biggest sales of the year. With so much going on in your inbox and on your newsfeed, how do you make your brand really stand out? You have to get creative.
While ways in which you can be creative with your brand’s holiday marketing materials will vary based on your business’s product, values, and story, there are some key ways you can infuse creativity into your campaigns and catch the eye of your consumers. I’ve listed a few below, but if you want an extremely personalized and tailored approach, it’s not too late to get started! Fill out the form here.
Unique Designs
Canva has revolutionized graphic design for brands. While these platforms are great in making design accessible to everybody, it’s also pretty easy to tell when a brand has used Canva or another popular design tool. Ditch the standard templates and invest in unique designs that capture the spirit of your brand and campaigns.
Impactful Storytelling
While storytelling is crucial for your brand’s marketing, it is especially key during the holiday season. Already a time of warmth, fuzz, hot cocoa, and love, the holiday season is prime time to use storytelling marketing to evoke emotions in your audience and further connect with your community.
User-Generated Content
Stand out from the crowd by using videos and photos created by your consumers in your campaigns. Not only is this a fun way for your community to participate in your company’s strategy, but it’s also a great tool to humanize your brand and add a human touch during what many see as a materialistic season.
Conclusion
The holiday season can be a stressful time for brands trying to stand out amidst the influx of campaigns and promotional materials. Instead of getting overwhelmed, approach this season with a strategic plan to target a specific audience, celebrate diversity in your materials, and get creative with your content. People want to feel the warm fuzzies that come with the holiday season, and with the right approach, your content can do just that.
If you’re feeling stressed about your holiday marketing plan, don’t! It’s never too late to get started with a strategy that can take your business to the next level and set you up for a great new year. Fill out this form to get started!
