Despite the rise of e-commerce, many small businesses still rely on traditional marketing methods to make sales during the holidays. These tactics can be successful, but they may not be as cost-effective or scalable as digital marketing.
See: Youtube marketing strategies
While it might seem daunting to plan a marketing campaign in such a short period of time, small businesses can make an impact with smart strategies and creativity. Here are some tips for your marketing strategy kit that you can use to grow your business with these last few weeks before Christmas.
What is your competition doing?
Check your competitors’ websites to see what they’re doing. If you’re in a crowded field, make sure you’re not following their lead. This will help you design a campaign that uniquely benefits your business and audience.
If you’re in a competitive industry, check out what your competitors are doing on social media. Social media is where people are spending time these days because it’s quick and easy to share content with friends and family. Don’t just focus on Facebook or Instagram—take the time to explore other social platforms as well.
One of the most important things you can do is monitor what your competitors are saying online. See how they’re using hashtags or social media influencers to engage consumers online, then try those same strategies yourself.
What do you have to offer?
The number of competitors on the market is fierce, but small businesses are still able to distinguish themselves with their unique products and services. It’s imperative that you develop a marketing strategy that will help make your company stand out from the competition.
In order to be successful in digital marketing, your business needs to have something new or different to offer. One way to do this is through your website. By creating great content, you can inform potential customers about what makes your business special and show them that you have something that they need or want.
A great example of this is an app like Shyp: A mobile app that helps consumers get their items delivered more quickly and cheaper than traditional methods. Using this type of approach, you can use digital marketing to reach consumers who might not be aware of how much they could save by using your service or product.
Another way your company can differentiate itself is through social media advertising: You can promote specific products or services as well as educate consumers about how they can benefit from what you have to offer. Social media ads also allow companies to go back into their customer’s social feeds after being clicked on and invite them back onto the site where they already were so they’re more likely to convert into a sale
Develop a strategy
The first step to a successful holiday marketing campaign is developing a strategy. This strategy should include detailed plans for your website and social media presence, as well as a sales plan for the upcoming season.
No matter what type of business you’re in, it’s important to have a plan that each member of your team is familiar with and has input into. Creating this strategy will help boost morale and make sure everyone on your team knows what to do when the time comes to execute.
In order to execute your strategy, ensure that all members of your team are doing their part by providing them with the tools they need (like scheduling and budgeting) along with clear instructions on how they can contribute.
Develop a marketing plan
The first step in any marketing campaign is a solid strategy. Before you jump into writing your holiday marketing plan, it’s important to consider what your goals are and how much time you have to spend on each project.
If you’re looking for increased revenue, then this might be a good time to rethink your pricing structure or change the frequency of sales. If you’re looking for brand recognition, then creating a holiday marketing plan with digital advertising might be the way to go.
Regardless of what type of marketing strategy you choose, it’s important to outline these steps in your plan and create a timeline for each project so that you don’t overwork yourself.
Your final step is to implement your strategy! Keep in mind that this may take more time than expected; it’s necessary to test different advertisements and produce content until you find something that will resonate with your audience.
Develop a creative plan
While it may seem difficult to plan a marketing strategy in such a short period of time, small businesses can make an impact with smart strategies and creativity. Here are some tips for your marketing strategy kit that you can use to grow your business with these last few weeks before Christmas.
Start brainstorming ideas for campaigns during the season. What avenues can you take advantage of? Which ones would be appropriate for your target audience?
As suggested by Forbes, consider creating a “Holiday Wishing Tree.” This is a decorated tree that contains wishes you want to come true on behalf of yourself and others involved in the company. People who visit the tree can write their own hopes or share their own reasons why they’re wishing for what they’re wishing for.
The tree will then be compiled into a book at the end of the year and given as gifts to people who wrote their wishes on it.
Other ways to get creative are through site content, product offerings and social media engagement. Those are just a few suggestions, but there are plenty more up-and-coming ideas!
Develop an online strategy
Although digital marketing is not necessarily as effective when it comes to maximizing sales during the holidays, you can use other creative strategies to get the word out about your company.
Start by creating a plan for your online strategy and work with a social media management firm. Implementing a strategy online will help you maximize your promotional efforts with an audience that’s already familiar with your brand.
Additionally, planning ahead will help you optimize your time and energy. The most important thing is to find what works best for your business so that you can make the most of the holiday season.
To make it easier on yourself, try planning out a calendar in advance so that you know what day each step of the campaign will happen. This way, you’ll be able to more effectively utilize your time and resources over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas.
Social Media Strategy
Social media has an amazing reach and is the best way to market your business during the holidays. It’s also perfect for engaging long-term customers who aren’t shopping for themselves.
Setting up a social media strategy that includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn can be daunting at first. But it’s important to know what platforms to use for your marketing campaign so that you can target your audience effectively.
To start, create a social media plan and determine which platforms will generate the most engagement from your target demographics. From there, design a compelling call-to-action that encourages people to find out more about you and your products or services.
For example, if you sell wedding accessories, using Pinterest as part of your social media strategy could increase engagement with women between 25-55 years old who are ready to get married soon.
From there, share beautiful images of weddings on Pinterest in order to build anticipation for their big day. Finally, include links to where people can buy items featured in the pictures on your pins!
Email Strategy
If you aren’t sending out emails to customers, then it’s time to start.
An email strategy is a critical part of your business’s marketing plan and can be used for a variety of different holiday-related campaigns.
Email helps you maintain a long-term relationship with your customers and build brand loyalty. If a customer has subscribed to your email list, they’ll be the first to know about new products or promotions that you’re releasing.
Additionally, setting up an email strategy will help you maintain a consistent message in your emails so that you don’t miss any opportunities for reaching out to your audience.
To get started, select the type of email campaign that you’d like to create and what type of holidays promotion it would be (e.g., “Seasonal Products” campaign). Next, set up clear parameters for what types of emails will go out (e.g., product-specific emails or general company emails) and how frequently they’ll go out (e.g., weekly or biweekly).
Search Engine Optimization Strategy
Keyword research is one of the most important steps in SEO. You want to find keywords that people are searching for that relate to your company’s products and services. This will help you make sure your website is ranking higher in search engine results than your competitors, giving you a competitive advantage.
You should also look into your competitors’ marketing strategies to see what keywords they’re using, too. That way, you’ll know which keywords you need to focus on.
Another great strategy is linking out to other websites related to your business and make sure those links are relevant and high-quality. If a website has good content about your industry, then it makes sense for you to link back so that interested users can learn more about what your company does.
In addition, many small businesses don’t have the time or resources necessary for an effective SEO strategy. It can be difficult when you don’t have enough experience with SEO tactics or time management skills—especially since some methods require a lot of work upfront before having any impact on the site’s performance later on.
If this sounds like something familiar, outsourcing SEO services could be a good option for your business! Outsourcing these tasks will free up time for more important tasks such as developing new
Look at the big picture
While the holiday season is fast approaching, it might not make sense to focus on your marketing efforts until now.
It’s important to take a step back and think about your long-term goal. Your strategy should take into account what you’ll be doing in 12 months and how that affects your business today.
First, think about how e-commerce will impact your business in 2018. You can’t plan for a new channel of marketing if you don’t know what to expect from e-commerce. In fact, 75 percent of marketers say that their sales increased during the holiday season due to e-commerce channels like Amazon, which helps small businesses sell more without investing as much time or money.
Next, consider what your website needs to be able to do for you in 2018. Are you planning on adding any features? Do you need to update outdated content? If so, planning ahead now can help ease the load on your team when December hits.
Last but not least, create a timeline for your marketing strategy before you get started. Planning out how long each phase of the strategy will take will help keep everything organized and on track so that you’re spending less time fighting through deadlines and more time celebrating Christmas with your family!