Yup, it’s time to get your holiday campaign strategies moving because fall is here and Christmas will be here before you can say HoHo! In fact, if you’re just getting started, you’re already a bit late.
Your Lexabi team is here to give you a nudge and some help to get things really moving.
First, ask yourself if your holiday campaigns includes the following:
- do you have landing pages in place?
- what will you focus on for your social media holiday planning; big sales or promoting best holiday sellers?
- will you promote by giving things away?
- are your leaders all in place?
- how will they make the purchase? Is your ecomm ready?
- how will you tie your digital initiatives to other marketing?
Answering these questions should help you get started on your holiday campaign strategy and act as a checklist for some of the assets you should have in place to accommodate a good campaign.
Now, let’ get to the marketing – 8 step checklist for your holiday marketing campaign
- Decide on a theme – and no, it is not too early to do this in September.
- Choose the goals for your campaign
- Design your offer(s)
- Define the target audience
- Create or edit your landing page(s)
- Design the promotional plan
- Execute the campaign
- Measure and report
Decide on a theme
Deciding on the holiday campaign strategy theme means aligning your marketing channels (don’t forget this is also social media holiday planning), and considering the branding and messaging. What’s the timeline and should you consider other marketing to support it (such as signage, print or even attending events)?
Choose your goals
Like anything, goal setting is going to set you up for success right away. What do you want to get from this campaign? Be S.M.A.R.T. about it – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. For example: Sell 150 pairs of red shoes per month, from launch date to December 20th.
Once your SMART goals are in place, decide on your KPI’s (key performance indicators) for measuring.
Design your offer
This is where you want to consider everything you’ve done in the past, what’s going on now and maybe even just check your inventory. However you brainstorm, the offer will be the centre-point of the campaign.
Maybe you’re not even putting items on sale; maybe you’re giving something away. There are so many offer ideas, take the time to brainstorm and come up with something strategic, that your ideal customer really wants and that is reasonable for you to offer. GET CREATIVE!
Define your target audience
You have your goals set, and your offer is designed, now where are your people and how best will you reach them? Are they hanging out on social media, or will you consider an exclusive email campaign?
If you have several buyer personas established for your marketing efforts, you should begin by honing in on a smaller subset. Does your campaign speak to all of your target demographics? If not, you’ll have to start eliminating potential candidates right away.
Once you know who you want to target, choosing the medium(s) should become clear. And don’t forget about choosing the best keywords for Google – it matters for your website and social media.
Create or edit your landing page
The landing page is probably the most important component of a digital campaign and one of the most overlooked. The landing page is where you’re going to send people, and it needs to be specific and clear plus convincing.
A catchy headline is a great way to capture attention. Create more than one to resonate with more than one demographic.
Aesthetically pleasing visuals – remember that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text, and people remember 65% of what they see. If you can afford a professional photo shoot, great, but don’t despair if you can’t, you have options.
The benefits of the offer should emphasize what the customer will get and why it matters.
The final link could be a form, a purchase link or whatever makes sense for your campaign. This should be clear and feel trustworthy.
Design the promotional plan
This is the fun part! And the list of promotional tools:
- email marketing
- social media
- social media ads
- print ads
- signage
- traditional means (tv, radio)
- influencer marketing
- google ads
- industry events or presentations
- utilize your blog
You may not need to utilize all the tools we listed above, but it’s important to consider them all. If you do use more than one, remember the importance of tweaking your message to fit the channel. What you might say in a Google ad will likely differ from what you say in an email.
Keep the branding consistent throughout, and make sure you create the design so it fits the different mediums accordingly.
Execute the Campaign
Have the champaign on ice and trust that you’ve done all the work required; especially because you got started early! Hit the ‘GO’ button and get ready for the next crucial part…
Measure and report
Your KPI’s should have been clear in the goal-setting portion of your planning so now is the time to be watching, recording, discussing, and pivoting if necessary.
If you’re not hitting your goals, take a hard look at why. Analyze where people are dropping off or even ask people, but understanding why it isn’t working is crucial in future planning.
This article is about ‘holiday campaigns’, but honestly, it is much the same for any campaign, so make sure you bookmark this and give yourself extra time so you’re ready to make the most of any campaign, any time!