Pretty much the only thing you want to “retain and gain” over the holidays is customers!
While Black Friday and Christmas might feel like ages away still, in the digital marketing world it’s never too early to start planning in preparation for the busy shopping days ahead.
Peak online sales during the 2019 holiday reached $1.5 million per minute and 25.5 million customers bought something from a Shopify store, according to Digital Marketer.
Businesses will want to focus hard on their relationships with customers and growing sales online over the holidays, especially in a pandemic (cross-border shopping won’t be happening in 2020).
But it’s not always about the hard sell to get ahead. By promoting your brand’s personality in an engaging way you can boost customer loyalty and engage new customers.
Here are some creative and fun campaigns that we’ve personally done at Alpha. We hope to inspire your team to step outside the usual framework and go big with heart and humour.
1. Retaining Customers
Holiday Video
There’s really never been a better time to open the doors of your business virtually and let people into your world.
Get employees to sing out a “happy holidays!” from their virtual offices, put together a year in review collage, or record a comedy act with your team dressed up and acting out a holiday movie scene.
Whatever the inspiration, remember that an effective holiday video doesn’t have to be very long, or professionally produced, all it needs is a healthy dose of heart and authenticity.
Watch the full video here.
E-Card
An e-card is different than the company holiday video because here we’re looking for fun animation or big visuals and graphics that will make your holiday greeting pop.
They can be gifs, or even Jpegs, and can be posted on your social media channels, sent out to subscriber email lists, or even embedded in your email signatures during the holiday season.
The only goal is to make it memorable. Watch the full video here.
2. Gaining Customers
Email Marketing & Newsletters
One of the best ways of promoting what you’re selling during the holidays is direct to your existing customers or subscribers through email marketing and online newsletters. These will link back to products and services on your website to promote sales.
A “Great Gift Ideas” email or newsletter can drive traffic to your dad-related items for sale and can also be disseminated into post content on social media to drive visibility and sales over a period of time.
Consider the personas of your target audiences too (for example, gifts for dad) and look at the ways you can reach out to them and help them find what they need… from you, rather than the competition.
Online Advertising
While your newsletter or email might not be sharable as a whole, a blog can act as a landing page for advertising campaigns.
By creating a gift guide blog that features relevant items or services from your online shop with links for easy consumer access, you can effectively create a sales landing page.
Consumers will see your Google, Facebook or Instagram ad promoting your gift guide, and when they click on the ad, they’ll be directed to that blog you created, where they can start shopping.
View our landing page for this online ad.
Questions about how you can create your own digital marketing holiday campaign? We’ll help you imagine, create and implement online strategies that will help you get your product and services to the people who need it most. Contact us today.
