It’s hard to believe that we’re almost back to the holidays, but ready or not here they come. The holiday season can be a significant time for business. It can be an even better time for business if you know how to make your brand stand out amongst the many.
In order to catch your audience’s attention over the noise that is holiday marketing, you’ll need to be unique in more ways than one. Everything from your marketing campaigns to your customer service will need to be refined to bring your customers the best experience possible.
Be Mobile Friendly
This goes for both your marketing advertisements and your website. We are in the mobile age and you need to make sure your brand is keeping up.
Related: 2017 Mobile Marketing Stats Every Digital Strategist Should Know
A study by comScore found that 60% of people choose to browse the internet on a mobile phone rather than a desktop or laptop computer. Be prepared for mobile traffic by:
- Making your website mobile-friendly, or responsive
- Having the capability to contact customers who opt-in via text message
- Leveraging mobile search advertising and optimization so that your ads are seen at the top of search results by holiday shoppers
- Integrating mobile beacon, or proximity marketing, if you have a physical store to connect with nearby shoppers
Appeal To Emotions
The holidays are inherently nostalgic and emotional time for many consumers. If you want to grab attention, make sure your marketing appeals to their emotions and creates an experience.Research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania found that the key to making marketing content go viral was to appeal to positive emotions. Happy, emotional content prompted viewers to share with their friends and family on social media.
Create Shareable Content
Easily shareable content could be one of the most important elements of your holiday marketing campaign. The majority of consumers seek out recommendations from friends and family before making a purchase, and in the digital marketing age most of those recommendations are shared via social media or email.
Content that contains high quality visuals such as photos, videos, or infographics, will help to communicate information to your audience that will resonate with them. Visual content is also easily shared on social media networks.
Related: Beyond Blog Posts: 5 Ways to Take Your Content Strategy to the Next Level
When you create content that encourages sharing and make it easy to do so, you allow customers to endorse your products quickly with their networks.
Serve Your Shoppers
Prepare to provide outstanding customer service. The holidays are a stressful time for many so do whatever you can to help your shoppers out. Adding little touches like free gift wrap, or offering a free gift wrapping station in stores, will go a long way with your customers.
You can also display specific categories of products together on your site, or in-store, such as gifts for Mom, baby gifts, or teacher gifts. Giving your customers a place to start will help them save time if they aren’t exactly sure of what they are looking for.
Treat Your Shoppers
Many shoppers use holiday sales to treat themselves to things they want or need. You can appeal to these shoppers with special sales or deals. For example, promoting sales like two-for-one orbuy one, get one can encourage shoppers to make a purchase. You may consider a give one, get one promotion on gifts where customers buy a $100 gift card, or $100 in merchandise, and receive a $25 gift card for themselves.
Related: 6 Do’s & Don’ts for Your Holiday PPC Campaign
For many, the holidays are about connecting with others, but it can also be a stressful time. If you help your customers connect with their friends and family while making their life easier, you’ll become a stand out brand in no time.