‘Tis the season to be jolly! With chestnuts roasting on an open fire and good ol’ Saint-Nick getting ready to deliver presents around the globe, a lot can be forgotten during the holiday season. Of course, while people are currently running amok over the next couple of days (either at shopping malls or during office parties), marketing professionals simply cannot put their campaigns on the backburner. This is especially true for ecommerce business, where processing transactions on a daily basis can become more time consuming and physically demanding.
With that in mind, I have prepared some handy tips for marketing during the holiday season. While these are more geared towards B2C businesses and ecommerce stores, the salient points can be applied to the B2B realm (replace “discounts” and “coupons” with “free booze trials”).
1. Keep your SEO campaigns hot with fresh content
It’s common for companies to think that this is the time of year to be more relaxed when it comes to investing into search engine optimization. However, that’s a myopic approach to take, especially if your goal is to maintain momentum or increase rankings within the next couple of months. SEO is a long-term play and should never be put on “pause”; otherwise, you’re giving the competition an opportunity to vault ahead of you on the first page of search results.
2. Jazz up your social media marketing with awesome content.
This is the time of year where you can throw all types of promotions at users via social media platforms to achieve great success. The advertising options available on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram give you the opportunity to extend the reach of your content beyond the confines of your own audience. Of course, remarketing to your existing customers and followers can prove to be fruitful, especially if you roll out fresh promotions and advertise special discounts.
3. There’s no advertising like product advertising.
Dominate the space on search engines by pushing your product ads in front of targeted users. With the removal of right-hand side ads earlier this year, Google has made it easier for ecommerce websites to showcase products on both mobile & desktop by increasing the amount of space for product ads. Also, don’t forget Bing when you’re optimizing shopping feeds if you want to reach a larger audience.
4. Incentivize existing customers to purchase more via strategic email remarketing.
There’s no better audience to target with limited-time promotions and discounts than your existing customer base. While inboxes tend to receive a plethora of spam during the holiday season, remarketing to your existing customers and subscribers can prove to be quite fruitful once the weather gets colder. Shoppers tend to become more price sensitive and on the lookout for deals, so give them what they seek via targeted campaigns.
3. Create social media gold with interactive contests.
The holiday season is the time for giving, which makes it the best season for contests. As stated previously, shoppers and social media enthusiasts alike are looking for the best deals during the month of December. This is also the time of year when you have the undivided attention of your followers. Make living through frigid temperatures more bearable for your fans by surprising them with engaging contests and wonderful prizes.
6. Always be diligent with money at stake for media buying campaigns.
I cannot stress this enough: always double check your ad schedules and budgets for all campaigns, whether it’s on Facebook or Google AdWords. You don’t want to come back from the holiday break to find out that you spent money when your company and/or clients were out of office. On that flip side, you don’t want to under-spend if you’re an ecommerce business when people are actively looking to make purchases online. December is a special month…treat it like one.