Content Marketing: Holiday Edition

For many, the holiday season is the most wonderful time of the year, and it’s also one of the most important times for businesses to increase sales and capitalize on shopper activity. With Black Friday just around the corner, here are this year’s best practices to stay ahead of the competition and strategically plan successful content that will enhance your company’s marketing campaigns. 

Prep for Upcoming Trends

When it comes to planning your content strategy, it’s important to look back on the previous year’s trends by analyzing past performance and researching seasonal statistics specific to your vertical and the channels your brand is advertising on. One study has found that mobile app usage and mobile shopping accounted for 53% of online shopping during the holiday season as shoppers lean towards the convenience of making purchases from their home in lieu of dealing with large crowds and multiple trips to the shopping mall. Not only that, but marketing trends show that 84% of mobile shoppers are expected to use these apps to save money this holiday season. Marketers can utilize this knowledge and dive deeper into trends like these in order to tailor content market strategies accordingly.  

Look at your Audience

Who is it that your brand is trying to target? Knowing your audience will help your brand stay on track to reach your goals. Be sure that the holiday content strategy you’re leveraging is not only going to enhance your business’s experience but also improve your user’s experience. You can conduct this market research through email surveys or social media polls on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by asking your audience what they’re looking to see during the holiday season. Even if you don’t receive a high volume of responses, brainstorming questions such as: “what are your holiday plans this year?” or “what’s your fondest holiday memory?” will help nail down the goals and interests of what your customers are feeling or going through, ultimately leading your brand to a more tailored strategy for your marketing campaign.  

Gameplan

It’s no surprise that when prepping for the holiday season, the earlier you begin planning the better. Content calendars are great tools that allow you to thoroughly plan out your content in a way that is easily laid out and organized. Utilizing other helpful platforms like Sprout Social, HootSuite, IFTTT Platform, WordPress (WP) Robot, or others that can create and schedule posts to be published at later dates is also an effective tool to keep you on the right track, especially when prepping for a hectic holiday season.

Identify the goals your company is striving to achieve: what products are being sold, or how are you promoting your business? Be wary of creating content just for the sake of being festive. Instead, be strategic, be purposeful, and be on-brand with topics that ultimately ladder up to your main business goals. Target your key audiences and be sure to time content at key points according to the holiday shopping cycle. 

Leverage Content Across All Platforms

With so many platforms readily available, there are many opportunities when it comes to leveraging your brand’s content. Generate more traffic from different angles by posting your content across as many relevant channels as possible. Some of those platforms range anywhere from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Reddit, Pinterest, emails, websites, paid advertisements, or blogs. Be sure the content you are publishing on these platforms is hyping up any holiday-exclusive promotions your brand has going on, but be considerate of whether or not certain holidays or seasons complement your branding as well. When it comes to meeting marketing objectives, even if it’s a single piece of content, utilize that piece of content to your advantage.

Analyze Results and Optimize

It’s not enough to simply plan out your content and let it run. It’s important for you to monitor the progress of your campaigns and adjust accordingly based on tracking analytics. There’s a chance that posts will have to be tweaked to optimize performance, or customers may have comments or questions that need responding to or even technical issues may arise. Being prepared and ready to make quick  updates during this time is essential to having a successful campaign. It’s better to be able to respond and make changes within hours rather than days. Putting out any fires that may occur, especially during the holidays, will impact you positively in the long run when it comes to sales and brand image.  

Conclusion

Eliminate the stress of the holidays with consistent and valuable content marketing that will stand out in a sea of competition. Contact us at AVX Digital today to help develop your company’s strategy and start creating the content your prospects and customers want and need. 

Sources:
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/holiday-marketing/holiday-content-strategy/#close
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/10/15/your-2019-holiday-digital-marketing-strategy-guide/#13fd21222f25
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/10-experts-share-their-social-media-marketing-tips-for-the-holidays/565003/
https://www.retaildive.com/ex/mobilecommercedaily/84pc-of-shopping-app-users-expected-to-use-them-this-holiday-season-study