How to Leverage Influencers During Holiday Promotions

With the holiday season among us, brands are heavily investing in an array of digital channels to boost their holiday sales promotions and propel sales. The most popular digital channels brands tend to focus on during the holidays include, Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC), Facebook Advertising, and Email Marketing.

However, with social media shaping modern communication between millennials and obtaining consumer retention, brands are utilizing another popular social network this season: Instagram. Brands are leveraging Instagram influencers to generate awareness around their holiday campaigns and drive new users to their website.

Since the holiday season is the most competitive time of the year for ecommerce companies, brands are implementing influencer marketing campaigns as a vital part of their holiday marketing strategies. However, the ROI for brands that are investing in influencer marketing isn’t heavily placed on conversions, it’s placed on increasing brand exposure through “word of post” marketing tactics, with the goal of introducing the brand to new consumers who are likely to visit their website and convert down the line.

Related: Getting Started with Social Media Influencer Outreach

Once summer comes to a close and fall hits, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are right around the corner so it’s never too early to kickstart your brand’s holiday marketing campaign into action and start. Influencers, vloggers, and editors, slate out their partnerships several months in advance prior to the holidays hitting. So, how can brands prepare for their influencer marketing campaign? Here are a few tips on how your brand can leverage social media influencers during holiday promotions:

Create A Holiday Promotion That Makes An Impact

Since the holiday season is such a competitive and expensive time for brands, it’s critical that your company creates a holiday promotion that makes a significant impact on its audience. In other words, your brand needs to offer consumers a deal they simply can’t refuse. This doesn’t mean your typical “buy one, get the second one half off” or “25% off select items,” it means you need to make a statement by offering something bold. If you don’t, your competitor will, and you will lose out on a huge sales opportunity.

Select A Handful Of Products To Target

Once you’ve created a holiday promotion, it’s important to focus on select items to have influencers promote. If the influencer’s post is too general, their post is less likely to appeal to their audience. The reason for this is solely due to the simple fact that an influencer’s followers aspire to live their lifestyle.

Related: How to Measure the Success of Your Influencer Campaigns

They want to know which products the influencer is using and which products they’re willing to put their name on the line to help promote. By posting about a product, influencers are giving it their “stamp of approval.” The more often that influencer shares about one or two products in particular, the more familiar their audience gets with that product and the more likely their followers will convert and purchase it for themselves.

Create Custom UTMs For Holiday Promotions

In order to drive new users to a specific product page or holiday-specific page on the brand’s website, it’s essential that you create a custom UTM link for the holidays. Although each influencer should have their own UTM link or promo code, the page that the link is pointing to should be different during the holidays. Whether it’s a specific product page or the brand’s holiday sale items, it will help drive new users to a specific page and increase the likelihood that the new user will convert.

Create Holiday Ad Copy From Influencer Images

For brands that struggle to create memorable content amidst the saturation of all the holiday advertising, influencer campaigns can be your saving grace. By partnering with influencers to take photos of the brand and its product, you’re killing two birds with one stone. You’re increasing brand awareness among the influencer’s followers and you’re having influencers create content for your brand.

Related: How to Develop an Influencer Outreach Strategy That Converts

With the consent of the influencer, an important tactic to use during the holidays is creating ad copy from influencer images. Not only does this make the advertisement appear less salesy and branded, but it also may give the brand a fresh look, one that the audience hasn’t seen before. Remember: people trust people, and what’s more persuasive than an influencer’s post that keeps appearing across your feed?

Wrapping Up

Not only do influencers create additional advertising opportunities for your brand, especially during the expensive holiday season, but these influencers become brand ambassadors, putting their name and personal brand on the line to vouch for a brand and its products.

Influencer campaigns during the holidays will give your brand or small business the additional exposure it’s looking for and will ideally reach a new audience of potential consumers, that if best, will become familiar with the brand and revisit the website. Influencers will take holiday shopping to a whole new level!