Your Guide to Holiday Marketing on Social Media
The festive season is upon us! That means you need to start working on your holiday marketing campaign immediately if you want ample time to plan and develop your creative assets. This can feel overwhelming, even for seasoned brands who have been doing this for a while. However, it doesn’t have to be this way every year.
In this article, you’ll learn a few essential steps for bringing your holiday marketing to life in a way that’s effortless and enjoyable. This way, you can create a campaign that delivers results and resonates with your online audience.
Your Guide to Holiday Marketing on Social Media
To begin working on your holiday campaign, simply follow these steps:
1. Start Planning Early
When it comes to your holiday marketing campaigns, you don’t want to wait until the last minute to get started. They require quite a bit of time and effort to bring to life. And if you procrastinate, you’ll be scrambling to get everything together before it’s too late. That’s the last thing anyone should be dealing with when they just want to enjoy the holidays.
By planning your campaign early, you can outline realistic deadlines for developing, editing, and scheduling all creative assets. This ensures nothing feels rushed. But rather, it gives you the chance to pour your heart and soul into everything you create. Your audience is sure to take notice of all your hard work once the campaign goes live.
Plus, for those who are part of a larger team, you may need approval from the higher-ups before anything can be created and published. It’s imperative you have enough time to go through every stage of the process, so factor that into the schedule accordingly.
Related: How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar
2. Set Objectives for Your Campaign
As with any marketing campaign you create, it’s important to have clear objectives so you know what you’re working toward. So, what are you hoping to achieve with your holiday marketing efforts? Do you simply want to generate more brand awareness? Or would you like to drive additional sales before the year comes to a close?
Whatever you want to achieve, make sure your objectives are measurable. This will ensure you know which metrics to track and can clearly monitor your success during and after the campaign. For example, you may want to watch for social media growth, click-throughs, leads, and conversions.
Related: 5 Important Twitter Metrics You Should be Tracking
3. Understand What Your Audience Wants
A crucial element of any successful campaign is creating something that will resonate with your target audience. If it doesn’t pique their interest, they’ll just keep scrolling. That means you’ll miss out on the engagement and sales you desire. Before you begin strategizing, think about who your target audience is and what would get their attention.
This is why it’s so important to conduct market research so you can learn about your audience on a deeper level. Not only will this assist with your holiday marketing, but it’s essential for content created year-round. If you aren’t already, consider sending out a survey to your email list as a way to discover more about them.
4. Review What’s Worked in the Past
Part of knowing what your audience wants is doing a deep dive into your analytics. This will reveal tons of helpful information on what has resonated with your audience in the past. Then, you can use this data to shape your holiday campaigns. Repeat what worked well for you before and ditch what didn’t. But also, don’t be afraid to try something new!
If you’ve never run a holiday campaign in the past, don’t fret. Review your analytics for content created over the past year. You can also turn to your competitors in a situation like this. Take a look at the content they’ve posted over the previous holidays to see what generates the most engagement from their audience. Make a note of what seems to perform the best. Then, you can let that inspire you to create something entirely new and unique.
During this stage, you’ll want to consider the topics your content covers, as well as the content formats you use. Does your audience respond better to photos or videos, for example? You should focus on creating more of what they enjoy.
5. Be a Valuable Resource
As you’re brainstorming content ideas for your campaign, there’s one thing you want to keep in mind… Always position yourself as a valuable resource for your audience. That means sharing high-quality content and being of service and focusing less on your sales pitch.
This can be hard for many brands to hear. After all, everyone wants to make sales, right? Well, you can absolutely do that. However, it just can’t be what every single social media post is about. You want to give value first before you start asking for people to purchase your product or service. This is essential for building trust and growing your relationship.
So, what kinds of tips and tricks can you offer? Sometimes it’s the value-focused content, rather than the “sales-y” content, that drives the most revenue.
Related: How to Master Social Selling Without Being Salesy
6. Offer Special Discounts and Sales
While it’s great to offer discounts and sales throughout the year, it’s even more special during the holidays. This time of year can be expensive with parties and gift-giving, so providing people with a way to save some money is much appreciated.
Consider having a sale or offering a limited-time discount code for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. It’s a surefire way to boost sales as your audience will feel compelled to treat themselves or a loved one to a special gift.
Related: How to Develop a Black Friday Social Media Strategy
7. Host a Giveaway as a Thank You
This is the perfect time of year to give back, so you may want to incorporate a giveaway into your holiday marketing campaign. The chance to win your product or service is sure to grab attention and generate awareness for your brand.
Plus, you can require various tasks to be completed in order for people to gain entry into the giveaway. For instance, following you on social media or subscribing to your email list. Great for growing your presence!
If you want to take things to the next level, you could partner with some other business owners for a massive giveaway. It’s perfect for getting more exposure for everyone involved.
Related: How to Give Thanks to Your Twitter Followers
8. Review Data at the End of the Campaign
Once the holidays have wrapped and you’ve returned to the office, you’ll want to take some time to review your analytics. This will let you know if you were successful at reaching your objectives. If you were, fantastic! Make note of what performed well so you can replicate that with future holiday marketing campaigns. If you didn’t reach your goals, there’s no need to worry. You can still learn from this experience to do better in the future.
Related: