The holiday season is one of the most profitable times of the year for brands big and small as everyone has a reason to shop. Despite Covid-19 and geopolitical issues causing economic uncertainty like record inflation rates, consumers are still showing up in droves to shop. That was the trend last year. According to Adobe’s analysis of online holiday shopping in November and December 2021, it was a record year for holiday spending online. Ecommerce sales grew 8.6%, which was 44% higher than 2019. 2021 was the first-ever $200+ billion holiday online shopping season.
That growth was unexpected to some brands. 6 billion “out of stock” messages were delivered to consumers, 10% higher than in 2020. Brands also reported regretting not starting to promote their holiday sales sooner. The holiday promotion season grows earlier every year.
According to Sprout Social’s social listening, there were already 77,000 Tweets about holiday shopping from September 20 to October 28, 2022. Bigger brands start their campaigns early, to compete with them and encourage your customers to shop small, start sooner rather than later. Below are five tips to help kick start your holiday marketing strategy:
1 Utilize shoppable content
According to Insider Intelligence, social commerce sales are expected to reach $45.74 billion in 2022. Not only will consumers opt to buy in online stores this year, but shoppable content continues to expand. Instagram was one of the first social media platforms to roll this feature out, by introducing the “shopping” tab and making it possible to tag products and purchase in-app. Now, shopping features have popped up on Tik Tok, Instagram Live, Youtube Shorts, and more.
How can you encourage people to buy right from your social media? Forbes suggests making your social media shoppable, including using high-resolution and enticing images, targeting through hashtags, offering a discount, and using paid ads.
2 Make your social media a search engine
According to the influencer marketing factory, 97% of gen Z consumers say they use social as their top source of shopping inspiration. Gen Z is a growing demographic that’s not to be ignored if they’re in your target market. More consumers of all ages, however, are beginning to use social media as a search engine. Instead of googling “gifts for fathers 2022”, consumers may search it on Instagram, Pinterest, or Facebook instead.
How can you make your holiday social content searchable? Use keywords in your captions and posts. For example, if your product is a menswear t-shirt, make sure your caption includes the phrase “t-shirt for men”. Use relevant hashtags as well.
3 Plan your ad strategy
The holidays are a crucial time to up your google and social ad spend or use ads if you don’t usually. It’s an incredibly competitive time on social media both organically and in the paid ad world. Most every brand is upping their content and paid ad game to make sure their product is the one that consumers choose.
When making your strategy, keep it diverse. The season is long and there are different pockets of time in which consumers have different buying habits. Black Friday is made for high-volume sales driven by steep discounts, however, ads ran in October target the early birds. Simple ads that let the product and discount speak for themselves are great for high-volume times, and ads that play up the value of the product, or are sentimental, are better for early birds.
4 Plan your budget and strategy in advance
This piece of advice may be too late to implement for this season, but you’re likely in the process of your 2023 marketing planning already, so start planning for the holidays now! When creating your ad budget for the year, leave more space in the budget for the holidays. Some digital tactics need a longer lead time, especially if you’re including other people.
If you want to have a holiday-specific photo shoot or create new graphics for your sales, you’ll need to work on those months in advance. If you want to utilize digital creators or influencers, even locally, try to book them before someone else does.
Prepare for this year’s holiday e-commerce season by analyzing last year’s trends in Adobe’s 2021 holiday e-commerce report:
With prior planning and a creative strategy, you can get ahead of the holiday marketing rush and make sure that buyers choose your products for holiday gifts. Are you already planning your 2023 marketing strategy, and are now inspired to get ahead of your competitors and in front of your customer’s eyes? Schedule a call with us!
Sources:
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/holiday-marketing/
https://theinfluencermarketingfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/social-commerce-report.pdf
https://readwrite.com/holiday-marketing-tips-for-small-businesses-that-will-help-them-stand-out/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2022/10/31/harness-instagrams-shoppable-features-to-drive-sales/
https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/11/service-business-holiday-marketing.html
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