Online user activity is no longer limited to Black Friday. December is the most active month of the year: Cyber Week at the very beginning of the month, searching for gifts for St. Nicholas, Christmas, New Year, and many other festivities until February 14.Naturally, the online business should be ready for the massive influx of customers. In our article, we will show how to prepare your influencer marketing campaign for the holiday season.
Introduction
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… Christmas is one of the most eagerly awaited periods of common joy and happiness. People more gladly spend on gifts, and in 2021, according to Statista, the major part of customers were more likely to shop online, and in 2022 the number of online purchases is going to grow more:
So in case you have prepared the marketing strategy for your business at the beginning of the year, worked out all the activities, launched a seasonal campaign, now all you have to do is to enjoy the increasing number of customers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always happen like this. Many businesses at the beginning of December are still in doubt on how to attract the audience and not fall behind the competitors during the Christmas season. Below, we will discover how to prepare and launch your marketing campaign for the period of increased customer activity. Moreover, we will provide useful tips to make influencers help your business enjoy the seasonal benefits to the maximum. Stay with us!
How to Run a Seasonal Marketing Campaign?
A few years ago, only large companies took part in special events like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. And now? Companies of all sizes - big, small, or medium - run seasonal marketing campaigns and reap the rewards. Because they work. However, it's not enough to just offer free shipping or add a Santa Claus emoji to your social media posts to win the audience on Christmas. If you want to be successful with seasonal marketing campaigns, you need a solid plan. Here's a plan to help you run an effective seasonal marketing campaign.
1. Start with the essentials
Planning your marketing campaign starts with finding out the basics. You need to figure out what you are going to offer, who you are going to target, and finally how you are going to do it. When it comes to seasonal marketing campaigns, there is one more question you should ask yourself before spending your time and resources:
Will people be interested in my proposal this time of the year?
It is not enough to make your offer attractive to your audience. It should be that attractive that they would like to opt for it at this certain time of the year. For example, if a local store would launch a campaign to sell lawnmowers at Christmas time, they would not probably succeed. The time of the year is just wrong. Assuming you answered positively to the question above, let's move on to the following:
What will be the idea of my marketing campaign?
For example, if you want to increase your brand awareness, why not partner with a charity? By sharing your income with a charity organization, you open yourself up to new clients and give your audience an additional reason to buy from you (while supporting a great cause yourself).
2. Collect leads with a landing page
Most marketing campaigns are built to achieve one of the following goals:
- Attract leads;
- Drive sales.
No matter what you would like to sell, you'll need a page to direct all traffic from your ad campaigns. Instead of using your website's homepage, it's better to create a landing page that is appropriate for your new campaign. Not sure what it is? A landing page is usually a simple web page designed with a single purpose - to increase conversions. After a user comes to it, the following scenarios can vary, from downloading something to registering for direct consultation with a manager.
However, the landing page is not enough. It will bring conversions, but only if:
- It is developed according to the best design practices;
- You give your audience a lead magnet.
When it comes to conversion itself, many things can become your lead magnets. The list of examples includes, but is not limited to:
- Free product sample;
- Free introductory lesson if you offer studies;
- Free delivery if ordered immediately, and way more!
3. Send out the newsletter by email
The reason we suggest you send an email newsletter is in its simplicity and availability - it doesn’t require any additional investment. If you are already using an email marketing platform to send out autoresponder emails, you can also send the newsletter to your contact list. However, pay attention to segmentation and send your Christmas offer only to those who might be interested in it.
Decide carefully if you want to target everyone because you aim to filter out groups that are unlikely to convert.
4. Explore other promotion channels
When preparing a seasonal ad campaign, an email newsletter will not be enough. It is necessary to attract audiences through various channels. Consider using the following:
Blog posts
Create new posts for each promotion and write them with SEO in mind. Make sure your messages are clear and well-illustrated. You can determine how effective they are by analysing additional traffic coming to your website after every post (you can do this with Google Analytics);
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are easy to set up when you know what your potential target audience is based on age, location, interests, and more. For good Facebook ads, make sure you include compelling product images, a clear call to action so people can get to your site.
Google Ads
Google Ads is an online advertising service that allows you to place ads on a Google search results page. If your budget is not unlimited, you might not want to consider this marketing option as the prices increase during the holiday season. If you do decide to launch a Google Ads campaign, make sure your ad is correct:
- make your Christmas offer clear (“Lowest Price”, “Free Shipping”, etc.);
- include information about your products or services;
- make sure your call to action is clear to ensure you get clicks and leads.
Other social media channels
You can place paid ads on other channels like Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, but keep in mind that some organic (unpaid) Twitter posts, for example, may be of interest to potential new customers. Experiment with wording, call-to-actions and graphics to make sure you're delivering the best posts or advertisements.
5. Opt for influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is a social media marketing approach that involves partnering with celebrities, influencers, and anyone with loyal followers to promote their products or services. Influencer marketing can include product placement in feeds or influencer stories. This way, you reach more people with the help of those who can really influence the choice and opinion of the audience. As the holidays approach, influencers start paying more attention to commercial projects. Social media attracting millions of monthly active users is an important business platform allowing you to increase your audience. However, marketing with influencers can be trickier than it seems. This is especially true on holidays because the competition in the market at this time increases greatly. But don't worry. Below we will help you create a good plan for your upcoming influencer marketing campaign. Collected here are some basic tips for working with influencers during the holiday season.
How To Work With Influencers During Christmas Season?
Christmas in the USA, New Year in Eastern Europe, Chinese New Year in the East are family holidays. It is especially important these days to be responsive, sincere and kind. Can a brand become closer to its audience? Sure, and there are two ways to achieve this effect. First, you can communicate your brand values and service benefits by showing real people (your team members, customers, and partners). Share your products with real stories. And don't forget about the happy ending! A more time-consuming way to connect emotionally with your audience is to collaborate with influencers and launch ad campaigns with them. The latter option will allow your subscribers to feel in the spotlight and also be part of a fun company! To help you partner with the right influencer in the most profitable way, we’ve made up a step-by-step plan. Here it is.
Step 1. Set your goal
The first thing to do is set goals for your influencer marketing campaign this holiday season. Choose an influencer based on what you want to achieve. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, reach out to an influencer who can share information about it with hundreds of thousands of people. If your goal is to generate leads and improve conversion rates, opt for an influencer with a small but loyal audience. This year, the trend for partnerships with micro and nano influencers continues to gain popularity. It is easier to negotiate with opinion leaders who have up to 10 thousand subscribers. These influencers do not have a lot of offers from brands, so they are more willing to agree to partnerships than those with 50 thousand subscribers or more. In addition, the communication of micro and nano influencers with their audiences is more personalized. Brands choose them to achieve their marketing goals through quality, not the number of potential leads. Also, partnership with micro and nano influencers allows you to enter a new market because usually, their audiences are more local. After that, you need to decide how much you are going to spend on the holiday campaign and define a budget. Once you've set up the goals and allocated the budget, you can start choosing an influencer.
Step 2. Select key products for the campaign
For the Christmas campaign, it is necessary to focus on goods or services in any way related to this holiday. Using news feeds is great for capturing the attention of potential customers. Festively design the product packaging or offer a discount timed to coincide with the holiday.
Step 3. Choose an influencer
Well, consider finding the right influencer for your Christmas campaign as a half of its success. Browsing the internet can help, but will take you tons of time to find the perfectly aligned partners to grow your Christmas sales. Searching for the right influencers you should take a look at the following points:
- Relevance: the influencer shares content that is relevant to your business and industry in general. If so, then the target audience already matches yours.
- Reach: the number of blogger subscribers, the average coverage of the publications and the activity of followers.
- Resonance: the potential level of engagement an influencer can bring to your brand.
In order to save you the trouble while partnering with the influencers, use the dedicated platforms for influencer search and discovery, such as BuzzGuru. Using 30+ filters and data breakdowns, you’ll be able to select those whose target audience, values and messages coincide with yours. This approach will allow you to reach the right audience and gain loyal customers over time.
Step 4. Create eye-catching content
During the holidays, influencer activity is at its peak. Social media is literally filled with ads from brands and influencers. To highlight your posts in these conditions, you need to create something unique and stand out. For example, the influencers of one world-famous watch brand in their New Year campaign promised to plant a tree for every watch sold during the promotion. The brand has chosen an excellent time for such an activity as it was surprising and presupposed each customer would invest in a really good thing for the planet.
Step 5. Promote your content
Competition during the holiday season requires special attention to content promotion. In order not to get lost among thousands of similar posts, use hashtags.
- Create a custom hashtag for your campaign
A unique hashtag for your holiday campaign is a good way to promote your posts
- Use holiday-related hashtags
There are always a few popular holiday-related hashtags. Using them in an advertising campaign, you can attract more customers.
Step 6. Analyze the campaign
Once the holidays are over and the ad campaign finishes, it is worth doing an extended analysis and checking the results carefully. Along with engagement and reach metrics, which are great for building brand awareness and involving new audiences, you can also analyze Story Clicks, use personalized promo codes or UTMs to see leads and conversions.
Step 7. Maintain relationships with influencers
Even after the end of the ad campaign, it is important to maintain good partnerships with influencers. If they like your brand, further cooperation is possible. The best way to build a good relationship is with a small gesture of attention. You can send a gift from your brand or write a thank you letter to the influencers. They will appreciate your activity on their social media profiles as well.
Conclusion
The end of the year is a very busy and important period for brands. December is the time to take stock of past marketing campaigns, update target audiences with meaningful insights, and set new business goals. Even if you start at the beginning of December, you can certainly launch a working holiday marketing campaign to give your business a boost. Spend more planning effort, appeal to emotion, invest in quality content, and cooperate with the right influencers. As a result, you will get satisfied customers who will not only make one purchase from you but will become true advocates of the brand. In case you want to save time on searching for the right influencer, try BuzzGuru's solution. It will help to quickly analyse your competitors’ ad campaigns, discover influencers for various platforms, and launch your marketing campaign before Santa Claus comes to town!
