The 2014 Holiday Season will again be a highly competitive environment online, even more so this year as consumers flock to the web and avoid the cattle call at the local mall. Here’s a few things you can do to be sure your company’s Holiday Season is a happy one.
Be Prepared
When in doubt, always go back to your Boy Scout roots! We all know that the holiday season is a large percentage of most businesses yearly revenue so a plan for the Holidays should be a year round consideration. However, for most business owners living in the real world, that is often not realistic. Either way, November is the wrong time to begin thinking about your 2014 Holiday plans so the sooner you start preparing the less hectic and more profitable your Holiday will be. For my money, if it’s past the first week in September and you have not begun to put your plan in place, you’re setting yourself up for failure since 30% of holiday shoppers begin their holiday shopping before Halloween.
“But I just saw this blog”, you say, “And it’s late August.” Don’t worry my friend, because the good folks here at Forthea have you covered with an interactive online Holiday marketing calendar you can repurpose and make your own. The more creative of you can even pass it off to your boss as something you slaved over last weekend. It’s ok, we won’t tell. It’s our holiday gift to you. You can also learn more about being prepared by visiting your local library or simply by reading this post by Forthea’s Zach Doty.
So, aside from this cool Holiday marketing guide, what else can we recommend?
Glad you asked!
To start, you can also customize your own calendar by downloading this .ICS Holiday Calendar, OR view it as a Google Calendar.
Embrace Mobile
Back in 1994 I went to Direct Marketing conference while working at a national catalog company and there was a seminar on this new thing called the internet. My boss, who will remain nameless, scoffed at what he absolutely knew would be “a fad.” He was wrong and you’re laughing at him now, but I still hear many business owners thinking of mobile the same way. 2013 was the first year that mobile searches surpassed desktop and almost 3 out of 4 when surveyed said that they require a mobile website. “People don’t convert on mobile” is the most common mantra, and that may very well be the case. However, people do a lot of their research on their mobile phones and if your site doesn’t allow them to do that easily you are missing out on filling the early stages of your pipeline with prospects who can later convert on a desktop using branded searches or people looking for things like location or pricing with the intent of walking in. Embrace the mobile, and read this awesome post by our very own Chad Ostroff to get all the information you’ll ever need to make sure your customers mobile experience with your site is a positive one.
Remarketing
It goes without saying that “Diehard” is the greatest Christmas movie ever made. Why? A beat cop from New York takes on a band of highly trained terrorists and takes them down is a classic example of the underdog rising to the occasion. Some may say “White Christmas” or “ It’s a Wonderful” life but until either of those gets re-cut with automatic weapons and Run-DMC rapping about Christmas in Hollis, they would be wrong. What does this have to do with remarketing? Remarketing is the John McClain of online marketing!
The Holidays are horrible for underdog business. The larger online retailers throw a large portion of their yearly marketing budget at the web these months and with limited real estate, competing with the big boys for highly competitive terms is often a losing proposition. Remarketing solves this issue in that through the use of segmented audiences, you have a direct channel to people familiar with your brand that doesn’t rely on costly keywords nor hindered by text limitations. You may also take this one step further and target similar audiences as your site visitors. Our friends at Google define them as “new potential customers whose interests and characteristics are similar to those of people in your remarketing list.” In many cases, not only does this seem to target people familiar with your competitors, it also generally performs better than a standard remarketing audience.
Google Shopping
Shopping is emotional. Don’t believe me? Check THIS out. Not only is shopping emotional, it’s an epidemic. And what better way to appeal to that emotional nature but to have a clear image depicting the product of a searcher’s affection and a simple way to enable their disease help them make that purchase. Let’s say I have a friend who is a HUGE fan of My Little Pony and getting him a new Rainbow Dash would make his Holiday the best one ever. BAM! There she is in all her glory and I’m exactly 4 clicks away from adding her to Nick’s impressive stable of Hasbro’s finest toy collection.
Ad Copy
Most companies will create ad copy that acknowledges the Holiday season, but very few write ads that take into account the how close the Holiday may be and what factors, aside from product availability, help nudge the potential prospects into customers.
Early Bird Shoppers – EBSs want to be rewarded for being so together that their shopping is done before Thanksgiving. Free shipping, low price guarantees or deep discounts will sate their appetite for reward.
Black Friday – Valuable promotions specific to 1-2 day, extended hours, in-stock, rain check and (sadly) messages of safety and security resonate with those who see Black Friday as the day they get the best deals available.
11th Hour – Guaranteed shipping for the Holiday is the best option here, but last-second discounts or an in-stock guarantee work well for the shopping procrastinator.
Conclusion
Don’t let this year’s holiday season sneak up on you. The holidays are a busy time for everyone, so do yourself a favor and get ahead of the curve now so you can be on autopilot when the calendar flips over to December. Holiday planning seems like a big chore (and it is, mostly), but use our free holiday planning guide take you step-by-step through how to prepare your website for the holidays.
The post Forthea’s Holiday Planning Guide appeared first on Forthea Interactive Marketing.