5 digital marketing tips for the holidays

The holiday season is approaching fast. It’s the perfect time to increase your sales and visibility. How do you tailor your digital marketing to this season?

Well, this November, your holiday communication strategy should already be set. If you haven’t yet, don’t panic! This article is for you, as it gathers 5 tips to create an effective digital marketing strategy during the holidays*.

1. Adapt your content to the holiday season

To get into the holiday spirit, be generous! 

This is the time to share as much as possible, always in a strategic way. On the visual side, bet on festive images and videos. As for the texts, share positive and warm messages that reflect the holiday season. 

Newsletter

If you have a database of your customers, share your offers and promotions in a newsletter. Highlight and insert them directly in the title to attract as much attention as possible. This way, you’ll get a better opening rate.

Blog

If you are writing blog posts, choose topics related to this period. Depending on your field, your content will vary, but you can list holiday gift ideas with some of your products or services.

2. Start early

Rule #1 in digital marketing: always strategize ahead of time. First of all, this prevents you from being behind the competition. Also, it’s an opportunity to clarify your communication objectives using a publishing strategy.

That’s why, for a holiday digital strategy, we suggest you start in early November.

As for your ads, we recommend launching them in mid-November. Because of the increased competition during the season, the advertising costs will be too high in December. Starting earlier will help you avoid overspending and give you a head start on the others.

3. Schedule your content for the holidays

A great way to stay organized is to schedule your content on social media. Schedule your posts and stories ahead of time by determining what topics you want to cover for each one. Prepare enough relevant content so you can focus on other activities during the holidays.

Fortunately, this is all possible now thanks to several tools!

Post Scheduling:

To schedule posts on the Facebook and Instagram, use Facebook Suite. You can import your visual and add text, hashtags and even a location to your posts.

Scheduling stories:

You can now schedule Facebook and Instagram stories using Facebook Suite. For an attractive and easy to make visual, we recommend our favorite tool: Canva. 

Warning: Facebook Suite is limited for scheduling stories. Some options, like music and product tags, cannot be included yet. Also, if you communicate in French and English on Facebook, it is recommended to use Creator Studio which allows you to publish your text ina  bilingual version.

4. Do holiday promotions

The holiday season is all about giving! That’s exactly what you should do at this time of year in digital marketing. It’s not necessarily about giving away products for free, but rather making them more accessible through one-time offers:

Promo Codes

The perfect example of a one-time offer is a promo code. You can offer a discount or a gift when you buy a product. No matter how you include it, it is ideal to encourage your customers to buy.

Contest and Games

What better way to engage your subscribers than with a game?  Make a selection of your top products and offer them during a Christmas contest for example. In exchange you can ask your audience to share, comment or like your posts. This is a good way to increase your engagement and improve your visibility.

E-gift and gift card

Think about the latecomers, offer an e-gift! Unfortunately, not everyone plans their gifts a month in advance. Seize this opportunity to create a virtual voucher to offer to your loved ones during the holidays. This will allow you to increase customer loyalty or simply increase their shopping cart.

5. Be transparent

Show your employees and customers

Take the opportunity to humanize your communications: be grateful. Thank your employees for their loyalty by dedicating a post to them for example. Consumers are always looking for the experience of others before making a purchase. Post positive comments and reviews from your customers to convince them.

Do a retrospection of the year

Take a look back at the different changes and progress your company has been through this past year and share them with your audience. You can also integrate your best sales and highlight them in your promotions. 

In short…

A good holiday marketing strategy requires good organization and advance planning. It’s also a time to be vulnerable and show the human side of your business. 

Otherwise, if you don’t think you have the time to do it, or if you want to get the best advice, call in the digital marketing experts and book an exploratory meeting.

*This term includes all the popular holidays that take place during the months of December through January.