How to Plan Ahead for the Holiday Marketing Season
As summer draws to an end and Back to School season hits high gear, now is the best time to prepare for the upcoming holiday season! At DigiShopGirl Media, we have developed a holiday toolkit to make this planning easier. You can download our toolkit and read our tips and tricks for making the most of the holiday season.
There are a few characteristics which have come to define the holiday marketing season:
- It’s increasingly spread out because of online shopping and online advertising
- There is a flurry of last-minute sales and campaigns
- Mobile is becoming much more important
In this landscape, multi-channel online marketing continues to become more essential to effectively reach your customers. Follow these easy steps to ensure your email marketing, social channels and website are all optimized for the holidays:
- Have a mobile-friendly email design optimized for easy reading
- Make sure to include large call-to-action buttons in your emails
- Make necessary mobile improvements to your website so it is ready for on-the-go browsing
- In addition to your holiday email campaigns, have email templates ready for:
Any last minute promotions or sends
Any customer service issues which come up
A “we are sorry” email for shipping delays or any other issues
Before the holiday season begins, make sure to clean your email lists. Also develop a plan for how you would handle getting your mail server blacklisted
Once your various channels are ready to go, plan the campaigns you want to run through the New Year. Below are the major holiday periods along with recommendations for standing out from your competitors. You can use our holiday planning toolkit to keep track of your campaigns across months and channels.
Pre-Thanksgiving
- Make sure to capitalize on pre-Black Friday sales
Thanksgiving-Christmas
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the biggest days during this time frame
- You can always start Black Friday earlier in the online space
- Capitalize on Amex Small Business Saturday (Saturday after Thanksgiving) if you are a small business
- Mobile is especially important during this time. Make sure your email is responsive and that you have a strong landing page experience
Christmas-New Years
- Tailor the message of campaigns to “gifts you didn’t receive” along with redeeming gift cards
After New Years
- Focus on New Year’s resolutions, staying active and healthy.
There you have our recommendations for developing a successful online retail presence throughout the holiday season. Have fun with your marketing over the next four months and as always, contact us if you have any questions about your digital marketing strategy.
This article was originally published by DigiShopGirl
Published: September 15, 2014
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