The Holiday shopping season has already begun this year with many already active deals. Are you prepared? Maybe you have high sales goals to hit before the end of the year.
There’s no better time to start implementing your holiday digital marketing campaigns than now. The season’s busiest shopping days are ongoing this year, and PPC marketing can make a difference for your sales this season. (Let us help you!)
Even though supply chain issues have kicked off holiday shopping early this year, the formal start of the season begins with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, also known as “Cyber Week.”
Here are a few fun cyber week stats…
- Digital holiday sales statistics were the biggest they ever have been last year, amounting to $192.19 billion, and are expected to top $200 billion in 2021 for the first time.
- Last year, 150 million Americans planned to shop on Super Saturday (the Saturday before Christmas). 42% of those shopped online to avoid crowds.
- Cyber Week broke records in 2020, with $10.8 billion spent, up 15.1% from 2019.
- Despite holiday shopping starting early in 2020, 79% of shoppers still waited until mid-December to start buying gifts.
So how can you optimize your performance during the holiday shopping season? You do not want to lose sales to competitors this year or miss the opportunity to run seasonal promotions before it’s too late.
Use these holiday digital marketing tips to help you initiate, refine, and run successful digital campaigns during the most profitable months of the year…
Examine past performance
If this is not your first holiday campaign, look to past performance before you kick off ads for this season. Review your goals and evaluate what worked last year and what didn’t.
You can determine effectiveness reliably by checking the trends for new user visits on your website. New users should stay for longer than 30 seconds, and your bounce rate should be 30% or less.
You’ll also want to make sure you were converting prospects, meaning you connected the right messages to the right audience. Conversion rates (purchases vs. traffic) during the holiday period will indicate success if they are higher than for other slow periods. If not, your messaging may be off, you used incorrect channels, or you have issues with your pricing. We can help analyze these factors for you and help you kick off this year’s campaign(s).
Translate the metrics into goals
Next, you will want to consider goals and come up with new offers for this holiday season. Plan ahead and set measurable goals so performance can be evaluated later (in preparation for next year).
We do not recommend that you test out new personas this season, especially if you’ve been successful with your messaging this year already. Your current reputation will attract your loyal customers this season, so stand firm and be consistent with the service you have delivered in the past.
You should instead invest creativity in the types of offers and deals you’ll use to attract customers through the holidays.
Here are a few ideas:
- Offer pre-booking pricing.
- Recall previous offers you know that worked. Update or enhance it for this season.
- Offer exclusive deals or discounts on certain dates or weeks.
- Team up with other businesses to offer specials together.
- Try a contest on Instagram or Facebook using a catchy hashtag related to your product.
Take advantage of new and classic marketing channels
Diversifying your marketing approach will help you reach more customers and yield more profits in the long run. Push deals on all your digital channels including your website, blogs, social media accounts, and email campaigns.
For social media promotional content, use effective visuals. Visuals ensure that you stand out!
Email campaigns help you re-connect with customers you have lost contact with and inspire excitement for returning customers.
Create holiday blog posts. Look for relevant keywords to inspire topics and schedule your posts ahead of time. Setting things up in advance helps make sure things run smoothly for the next couple of months.
Review SEO so your content and ads are easy to find. Make sure you cover general keywords in your campaigns and remember that holiday-specific keywords are seasonal (and you can expect a dip towards the end of the season). There are many ways we can be sure you are ranking high, so let us help with SEO before you run your seasonal ads and campaigns.
Explore whether a PPC campaign is right for you! The holiday season brings accelerated opportunity, and if a PPC campaign can help you capitalize, you should go for it!
Are you ready to set up and run your holiday digital ad campaigns? Contact us today to get started!