The holiday shopping season is coming early this year — and it might be bigger than ever. According to results from a Coveo survey, 80% of people plan to shop as much or more during this upcoming holiday season as in past years. Nearly one in two shoppers (45%) will start shopping earlier than usual to find deals and discounts, given the rising cost and erratic supply of products.
That is great news for brands with a polished holiday marketing strategy ready to launch. However, it means a lot of missed opportunities for companies to get a slow start.
Whether you're assembling your marketing plan from scratch or looking for a few extra touches to make your marketing strategy sparkle, here are some effective holiday promotion ideas for small businesses.
1. Start Early and Have a Plan
A plan is essential for any big sales season. Whether you're in business as a solopreneur, a small team, or a local but quickly growing company, take these steps to develop your holiday marketing plan:
- Identify Your Key Buyers and Buyer Personas: Who are you selling to? Where can you reach them with marketing initiatives?
- Create Your Goals: Identify reasonable targets for sales, conversions, and touchpoints. Some of your ads will fuel brand recognition, and others will lead to sales, so you need goals for all possible outcomes.
- Establish Your Per-Channel Budget: Once you know where your buyer personas engage with ads and decide on your goals, you can cap spending across traditional and digital channels to avoid overspending.
- Create Your Content: Whether using paid searches, email marketing, or videos, creating your content early (or brainstorming the ideas for fulfillment later) can streamline the entire season.
- Put it into Motion!
Let's dive deeper into steps four and five to see what merry marketing initiatives might fit your brand and goals.
2. Leverage Radio Advertising
Awareness-building of your sale events through broadcast and streaming radio, such as your local Mid-West Family stations, can really help! Because it relies on audio, your audiences might not associate a specific voice or sound with your brand. Instead, you should highlight promotional details such as BOGO offers, discounts, and the dates of your sales.
Remember, radio advertising is more than ads via radio in a car. Your younger shoppers will especially listen to many podcast apps and streaming radio services. Just like with OTT, you can use these digital channels to focus your ads on a smaller, more distinct listener group.
Using radio and digital advertising together can help you reach more than traditional talk radio advertising or local radio advertising audiences. Whether you want to inform a broad spectrum of shoppers in your local area (traditional radio) or reach a specific type of shopper anywhere across the world or country (streaming radio), don't neglect this advertising style for this Black Friday and December.
3. Use Paid Campaigns to Increase Awareness
Paid campaigns are ads that pop up on the page using specific platforms, after specific searches, or within specific users' feeds. Paid ad campaigns are a great shortcut to organic, slower growth, especially if you're using them during the holiday marketing season when everyone's jostling for a spot in consumers' digital feeds.
Some types of paid campaign content are:
- Search and display ads that are relatively static and triggered by specific searches or online activity
- Social media ads, which can include text, video, and image ads that wouldn't otherwise populate in a user's feed
- Sponsored posts and sponsored content, which allows you to provide information to prospective customers
Most of these ads feature a cost-per-click (CPC) or similar payment model where you pay when the audience clicks or otherwise engages with the ad. Different platforms will charge different rates based on the keyword and type of ad you choose, and some highly competitive keywords can get pricey during the holidays. With this style of advertising, make sure you manage your budget.
4. Create Targeted Email Campaigns
Email is a great way to remain front and center in your shoppers' minds, especially once you know your email marketing target audience. You can send promotional details, helpful holiday content, and product spotlights straight to their inbox. They'll see the title even if they don't open the email or click through to your website.
This creates a touchpoint or a little nudge that your brand is creating great content and offering great products. Those nudges increase familiarity with your brand and help shoppers think of you when they need something.
But the magic begins when subscribers open your emails and see all your creative marketing strategy ideas. Then they can see the holiday promo details, personalized coupons, and new products, all in bright colors and beautiful formatting.
With today's email marketing tools, you can create eye-catching emails that have unique content based on each shopper's profile and position in the sales funnel. It's like a sales associate speaking directly to them instead of speaking to a generic crowd.
5. Be Purpose-Driven
While it is more of an overriding principle than an advertising method, it's essential for every step you take this holiday season: be intentional with all your messaging. As a rule of thumb, you should only have one message and one call-to-action per ad. Tell people about a new product or your upcoming sale, not both. Too much information clutters the message, and busy holiday shoppers will just ignore the whole thing instead of puzzling it out.
6. Try Social Media Marketing
If social media marketing has been on your to-do list, but you haven't gotten around to it, don't make it your new year's resolution. Do it now through the best holiday social media campaigns you can fit into your schedule. Social media marketing can help spread brand recognition through local posts, tell shoppers about your sales through paid ad campaigns, and give you plenty of data about how to get local customers that you can comb through once the holidays are over.
7. Plan for Long-Term Success with Mid-West Family
Once everyone opens their presents and starts taking down their holiday decor, that doesn't mean your advertising efforts should end. At Mid-West Family, we can help you transition from holiday advertising to a long-term marketing strategy with marketing must-haves that make every season a more profitable one.
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help with the holidays and across 2023 with the most cost-effective marketing strategies and reach strategies.
