How To Improve Your Holiday Marketing Plan

The most wonderful time of the year is almost here, and with it comes the biggest shopping rush most businesses will see all year, as well as the need for a great holiday business marketing plan. Whether you choose to take advantage of the fuzzy feelings that undoubtedly follow this romanticised season, or the toll of the holiday shopping rush, or both, we’ve got ideas.

We’ll cover everything from the dates you’ll need to keep on your calendars for social media posting and giveaways to the ad extensions you’ll want to review. We have suggestions for using vintage graphics to nudge nostalgic emotions and limited-time shipping offers to save your customers from the stress of last-minute shipping. We’ve got all the tricks you’ll need to craft a personalized and successful marketing plan that will meet your revenue goals for the holidays and bring in old and new customers alike.

Improving Your Holiday Marketing Plan

The Holidays are coming up soon, and if you haven’t started already, it’s high time to begin brainstorming strategies and ideas to implement in a holiday marketing plan that will help you meet all your business goals this season. If you’re racking your brain for ideas, we’ve got a couple to share.

Setting A Goal

First things first, there’s no use in making a marketing plan for the holidays if you don’t have a goal for what the plan needs to accomplish. Before you can think about email campaigns, ads, graphics, or anything else, you’ll need to think about what you want to be the end result of your holiday marketing. Are you looking to increase website traffic? Increase repeat business, or gain new customers? Do you have a special service or product you’d like to focus on? It’s fine to have more than one goal, as long as they don’t automatically cancel eachother out. Once you have a clear goal in mind, you’ll be so much closer to creating a great holiday marketing plan!

Note The Important Dates Of The Season

What are some of the dates you should keep in mind for social media posts and limited time special offers? In November there’s Thanksgiving (the 26th in 2020), Black Friday (the 27th), Small Business Saturday (the 28th), and Cyber Monday (the 30th). In December there’s Giving Tuesday (the 1st), Hanukkah (the 10th-18th), Christmas Day (the 25th), Kwanzaa (December 26th-January 1st), and New Years Eve (December 31st), and in January there’s New Year’s Day (the 1st). All these days warrant a special post wishing your followers a happy day, and if you can line up some limited-time sales or giveaways to coincide with these celebrations, even better!

Take Your Customers Down Memory Lane

If there is one thing there’s sure to be lurking in every corner during the holidays, it’s holiday nostalgia. Most people associate the holiday season with the most magical parts of their childhood. Their memories of presents, lights, food, and music will bring all the fuzzy feelings to the forefront. So go ahead and tap into that childhood holiday magic as you make your marketing plans. Use vintage pictures and fonts, or give an old timey feel to your graphics by using black-and-white photos. Whether you’re advertising in-store or online, holiday nostalgia holds a lot of power.

Make The Holiday Shopping Easier

In the weeks ahead your customers will most likely be in a rush to finish their holiday shopping, so why not make it a little easier for them by offering suggestions on what to buy for their loved ones? Coinciding with sales and special offers from your own business of course. Write up some brilliant copy for an email campaign offering all your best sales with hyperactive links or buttons that lets recipients click right through to your product page. Your customers will be a little closer to finishing their holiday shopping and you’ll be a little closer to your revenue goal, it’s a win-win.

Take A Look At Your Ad Extensions

To get the most out of your holiday marketing this year, make sure that all your holiday ads are using ad extensions, such as sitelinks, review extensions, or call extensions. Even if you’re already using extensions in your regular ads, it’s worth reviewing them to make sure that you’ll be able to convert holiday shoppers that visit your websites, as well as making your ads stand out as much as possible.

Don’t Use Any Old Graphics

Don’t keep using the same old graphics to announce your offers, or worse yet, announce your holiday specials just in a text post. If you don’t have a graphic team, there are free online tools, Canva, for instance, that will make it easy to create festive social media posts, website banners, etc.. There’s no reason to miss out on holiday sales for lack of good graphics, especially not when the solution is free of charge.

Ease The Stress Of The Season

The holiday rush is stressful, even online shopping carries a certain amount of stress for holiday shoppers who worry about whether or not their packages will make it in time. If you can cater to your customers’ desire for less hassle and more peace during their holiday shopping, you will have a powerful draw. For instance, by offering limited time free shipping before a specific date, you’ll both add urgency to your offer and raise your customers’ hopes that they’ll get through their holiday shopping early this year. Throw in an extra offer for orders placed before Thanksgiving and market your offers with giveaways and frequent postings on social media for even better results. Don’t forget to pair the special offers with gift suggestion lists or special sales as well.

Wrapping Up

With a clear cut goal for your marketing strategies for the holidays, your list of important dates in hand, and these proven tips for leveraging the special circumstances of the holiday season, you should be able to craft an effective and improved holiday marketing plan for the most wonderful time of the year.