It is summer. You are still busy with various seasonal promotions. So, why should you already consider the upcoming seasonal digital marketing campaigns? You’ve still got several months before the first major sales holiday. This is exactly why you need to start right now.
Last year was a complete failure for most businesses. Except for bare necessities, digital entertainment and home improvement products, most people were very careful with their money. For one, they were not allowed to visit and exchange gifts with families and friends. For another, they were aware that their jobs are no longer secure, and they saved every penny they could.
You Need to Run Successful Seasonal Digital Marketing Campaigns This Year
Just like your customers, you probably kept your business afloat from your savings. You downsized when you had to. But now you want to get back to your average holiday sales results.
Consumers are emerging from lockdown with a new zest for socialising and restarting traditions. They are willing to spend money on gifts and to treat themselves to something they really want, from a new smartphone, to new furniture or a fresh wardrobe. If you plan your seasonal digital marketing campaigns carefully, you stand a great chance to make a lot of sales.
How to Start Planning Your Holiday Sales Campaigns
We believe that the first thing you need to do is create a framework for your seasonal digital marketing campaigns. This framework need not be very specific, but include at least:
- The digital channels you will use to send your marketing messages
- The consumer persona you will speak to in your messages
- The objectives you want to reach
- The benchmark for analysing the results (it could be the last year’s results, for instance).
And now, it is time to start working on your upcoming seasonal digital marketing campaigns! Here’s what you should do:
1. Use a Smart Calendar to Plan All Your Campaigns
Fortunately, you do not have to do anything specific at this step. All you have to do is go to this Think with Google page and download their calendar for seasonal sales campaigns.
The page also contains useful insights that you should read carefully and include in your strategy. For each major holiday, you will find valuable consumer trends, which will help you understand what your clients want. From then on, it is your turn to find ways to satisfy their demands.
2. Start Working on Marketing Assets
Do you remember how you had to stay up until past midnight to put together a Facebook ad for the last Christmas sales season? Or how you were unhappy with your Halloween video ad because you just did not have enough time to add the final touches?
This is why you need to start working on your seasonal digital marketing campaigns now. You have all the time to create various assets, such as:
- Social media ads: videos and image carousels
- Email templates
- Landing page templates
- Teasers to post on your social media pages.
Whenever you get a great idea, you can try it and see if it really works. You have a few months to edit and improve your marketing assets if you start early.
3. Check the Page Rank for Your Seasonal Sales Pages
You should not delete your seasonal sales pages at the end of the campaign. They still carry brand equity and the page rank they’ve earned from your efforts to optimise the content and promote it.
You should look at their current page rank and consider what needs done if you see a drop in ranking. If you did not really perform well, those pages can go. But if Google gave them a high rank, you want to capitalise on that. Start going through this pages and consider ways to update and adapt the content, so that you can:
- Maintain the high page rank
- Present your current holiday sales offer to your customers.
4. Reconsider the Urgency Approach
After having their lives turned upside down by the COVID pandemic, people have become emotionally numb to many sales tactics. One of them is the sense of urgency to buy something. After having to face life and death situations, getting that last sofa at a special discount price only today doesn’t really matter so much.
Instead, consider the deep, valid reasons why someone may want to buy your products. More than ever, focus on the customer – on how their lives can be simpler, easier and better by using your products.
5. Evaluate the Performance of Previous Marketing Materials
Speaking about making lives simpler, here is a way of simplifying your work on the upcoming seasonal digital marketing campaigns: find out which assets performed well and you can reuse.
Unless you created something ultra-memorable, most consumers won’t remember the ad from last year. However, if it created a strong emotional response in them and determined them to make a purchase then, you can be sure you will get the same response now.
Of course, you need to update the respective materials a bit, but it will save you a lot of time instead of starting from scratch.
6. Be Authentic in Telling Your Brand Story
Holidays of all kinds are emotional moments. People are looking for meaningful interactions with brands. Now, more than ever, they want to see authenticity. They are no longer impressed by marketing tricks. If your brand story does not ring true, you won’t get the sales.
Do not be afraid to show the vulnerable, human face of your brand. It will bring you closer to your customers. You are not kidding anyone – the last year was bad and your business has transformed tremendously as a result. Embracing this simple honesty and infusing your marketing messages with it will get you on the same page with your target audience.
7. When in Doubt, Choose Simplicity
Are you debating whether you need to add a little something to your marketing materials for the seasonal digital marketing campaigns? If you are in doubt, then leave it out. The same goes for the general structure of the messages you want to send to your customers and leads.
Simplicity has always been the winning recipe for marketing. The fewer distractions, the more powerful the core message will be.
Conclusion
This year means a fresh start for most businesses. The world is struggling to find a new normal way of living and doing business. You need to prepare your seasonal digital marketing campaigns with thoughtfulness, kindness and authenticity at the core of your message.
Your customers were hit by the global pandemic just as hard as you. Empathising with them will bring you more sales than trying to find a smart marketing trick to get them to buy your products.