Winter is coming…..
And so is the holiday season!
Holidays are the perfect opportunity to connect with your audience on social media and to drive record sales. You can embrace all those gushy feelings of festivity to create an emotional bond with your customers, fostering more loyalty, trust and traffic.
But here comes the hard part: How to create a successful holiday marketing campaign that will help your business to stand out?
Here are the 4 marketing tricks to treat your customers this holiday season.
#1. Plan a personalized campaign
Are you still hoping for your customers to just see your product and buy it?
Well if you aren’t as cute as Agnes, then we’ve got a bad news for you! Really bad!
Given that 41% of customers interact only with personalized ads rather than random ones, it’s time to up your game.
The more engaging and interactive the experience is, the more likely they are to be liked and shared on social media and beyond. So why not bridge the gap and let them physically insert themselves into your content?
A great example of personalized campaigns is Kate Spade’s 2014 Youtube holiday campaign, “The Waiting Game”.
The shoppable video feat. Anna Kendrick managed to turn a witty, branded ad into an engaging personalized shopping experience for its target audience. The visual not only gathered 500,000 views on Youtube but also boosted brand engagement by 30% within a month.
#2. Involve your staff
Being the Santa of your business, you can’t afford to ignore your sleigh movers i.e. Your employees!
Even studies have shown that there is a 2% to 8% overlap between employee and company social networks. In other words, getting your staff involved can proliferate your marketing campaign’s effectiveness, just like REI’s.
For the 2015 holiday season, the outdoor retailer started a social media campaign, #OptOutside. The letter style crusade requested its 5.5 million members (employees + customers) to close the doors of its retail locations on Black Friday and spend time outdoors with their loved ones.
The campaign also offered ideas for outdoor adventures and featured hiking trails for the members to explore. The social maneuver helped REI create a depth of loyalty and trust with their employees as well as the audience.
#3. A dash of funny
Laughter is a universal language. It creates unity as everybody laughs the same! In a world where every brand is trying to be polished and groomed, a little bit of laughter is exactly what your audience is looking for.
Dollar Shave Club is one such brand which keeps on winning the social media circuit with its witty posts. They also ruled the 2015 holiday season with their subtle yet funny Facebook graphics slaying all those stubbles!
The ad campaign incorporated some eye-catching visuals, a clever copy, and along with the festive colors to show that their razors make a great holiday gift for any guy with a face !
Well played DSC, well played !
#4. Ring a bell with the emotions
Decision-making is more of an emotional process than rational. As a result, if you want your holiday marketing campaign to be successful, emotional elements are necessary.
John Lewis has been creating christmas ads like no other. Their 2015 ad campaign, #ManOnTheMoon depicted a young girl trying to send gifts to a man living on the moon. And the emotional visual managed to generate 47,770 tweets within 4 hours of its launch.
Given it had all the Christmassy sentiments, perfect characters, and impeccable music, the campaign deserved such wide spread social buzz.
Getting It Right This Holiday Season
Customers are embracing social media with zeal, and it is impacting businesses more every day.
The upcoming holiday season will be no exception. If you want to get ahead of the curve, you need to tune into what’s worked and follow their lead. Locking down a strong campaign strategy now can make all the difference.
The brands above set an example and arose as leaders. With the right approach, so can you. And if you still have any doubts, 42Works is always here to help you drive your brand’s campaigns to success.
