Holiday Advertising Prep: What Marketers Should Be Doing Now for their Holiday Retail Marketing
For many businesses, the holiday season accounts for a large percentage of annual sales, and the holiday train seems to pull out of the station earlier every year. Before Halloween has even passed, snowflakes, lights and all other manners of holiday-oriented decorations pop up in both stores and on e-commerce websites.
With a huge chunk of annual revenue at stake and the fast-approaching deadline to promote, it’s time to start prepping for your holiday selling season now. Here’s how you should prepare:
Use What You Already Know about Holiday Retail Marketing
Think about what you did last holiday season. What worked? What didn’t? Apply what you learned from that experience to this year’s marketing strategy. You also know what’s worked this year thus far – product types, advertising, social media campaigns. Leverage what’s been working for you and apply it to your holiday marketing activities.
Determine Your Holiday Product Promotions
Which products will be your hot sellers? If you know, consider applying heavier discounts now on your least popular items to make room for those more popular later in the year. Once you zero in on those products, consider the following:
- Make sure you have enough inventory of hot sellers. Forecast what you need based on last year’s holiday season or what the most popular items have been year-to-date.
- Order holiday inventory early so you’re not left scrambling. Fill your shelves, ensure proper inventory, order gifts cards and order shipping packaging.
- What discounts or incentives (if any) will you offer for these products? Percentage off, free shipping, buy one, get one XX% off another item? Refer a friend.
- Complimentary gift wrapping. Complimentary Shipping.
Plan Out Your Holiday Marketing Activities
Once you know which products you want to focus on during your holiday retail marketing, start thinking about how you want to spend your advertising dollars and where you want to expand your marketing efforts. What’s going to create the biggest bang for the buck? Here’s an example of how one retailer can promote their Black Friday sale (the day after Thanksgiving) which is Nov 28th of this year.
What’s useful about all these marketing activities is that each one can prepare now. You could create your landing page, email, and social posts and have them ready to launch in November. This work can be done up front and then edited, if needed, closer to the start date. You can get these marketing steps done in advance so you can focus on all of the other things you need to do to get ready for this heavy buying season.
Other marketing campaigns that may need a special holiday touch to include:
- Holiday Cards – Whether you send an email or an actual postcard, customers always appreciate a note wishing holiday cheer. Send your holiday greetings early to stay top of mind when customers are getting geared up for their gift shopping.
- Marketing Collateral – Make sure you’re stocked up on your marketing collateral – business cards, brochures, flyers, etc.
- Gift Suggestions – Help your customers out by offering gift suggestions or a holiday bundle for that hard-to-shop-for relative.
- Coupons – Last year during the holidays, 66 million digital coupons were redeemed industry-wide. They work, and they’re popular. Drive users to your website or your physical location on specific days with, “Good on Black Friday only,” or “Valid only Dec 26th through Jan 2nd” offers.
- Paid Search – If you’re doing a paid search now, like Google AdWords, take a look at your keywords. Do they need to be updated to highlight a specific product, holiday name (e.g., “Black Friday Special”) or other?
Get Your Website and Retail Location in the Holiday Spirit
For those who have retail locations, determine which seasonal touches, you’re going to use to amp up the holiday vibe. If you need decorations, make sure you order or purchase them ahead of time. Get shoppers in the mood with some holiday music. Pick a Pandora station, Spotify playlist, or a favorite CD and pipe in that music to get customers in the holiday frame of mind.
For business owners who rely upon online sales, you can get in the holiday spirit, too. Update your logo to match the season. Here’s what we are thinking for Lombardo:
One overarching strategy for your e-commerce website that’s especially important during the busy holiday season is to make your site mobile friendly. More and more shoppers are buying via smartphones or tablet devices. According to Nielsen’s Digital Consumer Report, “mobile shopping is gaining momentum among U.S. consumers, as more than four in five (89%) smartphone and tablet owners say they use these devices for shopping activities, up 11 percentage points from 2013.” Don’t miss out on sales because you don’t have a mobile optimized site.
Besides buying online, many mobile users (up to 55%) are using their smartphones to read reviews, and 23% are writing reviews after their purchases. If you haven’t checked out your online reviews lately (on sites like Yelp), make sure to do so now. Get actively involved in responding to reviews – whether positive or negative. Shoppers will be more likely to visit you if you’re engaged and proactive in your business.
The holidays are a busy time for business owners, both professionally and personally. Have a great plan now makes for higher returns and less stress. By planning your marketing activities now, you’ll have more time to help your business be a success during the holiday season.