5 Digital Marketing Tips to Get You Geared Up for the Holidays

The holiday season is a great time to boost your sales and profits with the right digital marketing strategy. In fact, you should consider beefing up your traditional marketing strategy by adding digital to the mix if you plan to gain a share of the $465 billion Americans spend over the holidays. Here's a list of great digital marketing tips to help your business reach your Holiday goals. 

 #1 Invest in Social Media Marketing 

Social media is a great way to engage with potential customers and generate leads for your business. Best of all, if you can navigate the nuances of each social media channel appropriately, you can reap great conversion rates. Popular social media giants like Facebook and Instagram offer the opportunity to present and promote your products to engage holiday shoppers.

Both organic posting, as well as sponsored ads through these networks can have a great impact on your bottom line during the holidays, as nearly 43% of Generation Z say that social media is somewhat influential for their holiday shopping.

According to Forbes, customers are also likely to spend 140 percent more with a business or brand based on having had a good previous experience. That’s great news if you consider that the likelihood of your existing social profile audience is past purchasers and potential purchasers! Improve your customer experience by creating helpful content like videos or digital.

A few tips when utilizing/planning your social strategy:

• Use video as often as possible in both your ads and organic post content.
• Focus on helpful types of content – either educate, provide a product that fixes a problem, or promote a product that is for someone on their gift list.
• Pay attention to timing – post your organic content when people are most likely using the network, and make sure your ads are targeting the right people who are going through the need in the moments that your ads would be showing to them.
• Stumped? Give Amplified a call. We work with businesses large and small to implement both content strategies and social media advertising campaigns to maximize your goals.

#2 Develop a Remarketing Strategy 

Shoppers rarely make purchases in a linear format with access to so many sources of information at their fingertips. They tend to bounce around to multiple channels – from Facebook to Google, to Amazon and to your site/store, and then maybe back again! The holiday season is a great time to remarket to previous customers or website visitors who have showed interested in your products or services previously and get them to come back and make another purchase or convert if they’ve not yet made their final purchase.

This technology works by placing a snippet of tracking code on your website, and then displays your ad message to captured users wherever they go online – be it browsing home décor ideas for the holidays or connecting with friends and family on Facebook and Instagram. Remarketing is a great way to stay in touch with these users, who are much more likely to convert after seeing your ad.

 #3 Take A Look at Your Competition

Find out what is working for your company’s competition and discover new ways to set your digital marketing strategy above and beyond theirs to reach new heights. Often times, outpricing your competitors will beat them out during this time of year, however that might not be the only way. If they’re running a Pay Per Click campaign on Google, chances are this is where they are winning the majority of their leads and/or sales from. It is possible to jump into a heightened PPC campaign and find new or different keyword approaches that they may have not thought of yet, but let’s also take it a step further.

Engage with their content online, from their website, through all of their social, email newsletters, (and ads where possible) and pretend that you’re a customer of your product or service.

Consider the following:

• How is the information presented?
• Is it easy to find what I need?
• Are the offers, promotions and incentives aligned with what I’m looking for?
• How are they speaking with me, and engaging me into wanting to purchase from them?

Now do the same for your own business and think as objectively as possible.

• What are the similarities?
• What are the differences?
• What can you improve in your customer experience to tighten the gap between the two companies?

 #4 Spruce Up Your Website

A well-designed website that's easy to navigate can lead to higher conversion rates and solidify your ROI. If through your comparative analysis on number 3 above, you’ve found that your website experience is sub-par when compared to your competition, it’s time to kick it up a notch. Hire a professional that can help you redesign your site to appeal to holiday shoppers.

If you’ve run out of time to completely rebuild your website, consider making the following improvements:

• Feature your top sellers on your homepage for easy to find navigation.
• Place your specials, sales and promotions in the top image on the homepage so that users see these offers almost immediately.
• Make a quick Holiday Shopping FAQ list on your site, so users can easily find shipping information, return policies, and purchase information
• Develop a landing page to link from your special offers and marketing campaigns, ensuring all the information users need to see is present.

#5 Promote A Holiday Giveaway or Contest 

Creating a holiday giveaway or contest with your digital marketing campaign is a great opportunity to engage your customers and attract a new audience. Not only does it give your business something fun and exciting to promote, you can build lasting relationships from the users who enter by asking them to opt-in to receive future marketing messages. Contests are a pretty turn-key way to reach new audiences who might not decide to do business with you otherwise, but everyone loves the opportunity to win something – so you’ll capture their attention!

When developing a strategy for a contest or giveaway, remember the following:

• Ensure that the prize is worth winning, and relevant to your business. A car dealer giving away TV’s for example is going to get more people who are interested in TV’s and less who are likely to want to use their business in the future.
• Ask as few questions as possible in the required fields to ensure users don’t shy away.
• Make sure you've disclosed that you're capturing their information in your privacy policy and outline the contest rules and terms/conditions clearly.

You may not have Santa's helpers to assist you with your digital marketing campaign, but the right strategy can help you reach your seasonal revenue goals! If you're in need of a few elves to help you along this season, contact the expert digital marketing staff at Amplified today!