When Should You Start Holiday Marketing Campaigns?

The holidays may be a couple of months away, but in terms of advertising, that is gone in a blink of an eye. When it comes to major holidays, there are sweet spots to turning on ads. You don’t want to hit your audience too soon with holidays deals and you definitely don’t want to be too late to the game either. The first will desensitize them all together while the latter will mean they’ve already found deals from your competitors. So when do you start your holiday marketing campaigns?Here are a few general tips that are good to keep in mind when planning your holiday marketing strategy:

• Plan early, and plan more than you think
• Simplicity to key
• Be ready to react and adapt
• Use a more content-driven approach
• Be prepared for more competition
• Avoid false urgency

In all of this, remember to market to both new and existing consumers, as both are just as important during the holiday rush.

What Marketing Platform is the Best for Holiday Sales?

No marketing platform is better than the other. It all depends on your business, your services/product(s), and your audience. We won’t go into every social and paid search platform available, but this blog will offer general tips and tricks for getting the most impressions and clicks. In the social media realm, you can choose to advertise on countless platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. For paid search, you can use any search engine under the sun, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You have even more options than just those too. You can choose to create and push an email marketing campaign and blogs for a boost in SEO (search engine optimization). All of them have different pros and cons to them and may not work with your product, service, or demographic. For example, email marketing requires you to have an extensive list of emails from your potential leads and existing customers, which takes time to build organically.The biggest thing you’ll need to do is decide how you’ll mix and match platforms that speak to your target audience, come up with your strategies for each, and how they’ll all feed into your overall holiday marketing strategy.It’s a big job and one that often requires an expert social media manager. If you’re in over your head this holiday, give us a call at Helix House. Our team leaders are the best in the business and will ensure your product or service will get in front of the right people and will generate the most impressions and sales possible.

When Should You Turn the Ads On?

Once you have decided on what platform/platforms you want to use, you’ll need to decide on a timeline. If you have past data from previous holidays, use that to your advantage and look into trends your company saw to gain the highest number of impressions and sales. If you don’t have past data to rely on, try starting slowly to build a larger retargeting audience before the holiday season really gets going. Take the Thanksgiving season for example, which is notorious for flooding your social media feed with Black Friday and Cyber Monday ads. The ideal time to start these ads is generally three weeks before the expected sales/holiday. Then you can continue to build on the momentum you’ve created to capitalize on increased click-through rates between October, November and December.

Content Helps Too!

Marketing content is just as important as the big discount at the end of the deal. You can’t assume an ad that just reads “10% off” will get the most conversions right off the bat. Instead, try testing your market with variants that change as the holidays get closer. Build two or more ads for each demographic and each campaign (lead generation, retargeting, etc.) to test what works. One can be more data driven, while the other can be more lighthearted and fun. For example: Ad A: More than 36 million American adults cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third-grade level. Check to see if you’re above or below the curve with this app. Ad B: Quick, what’s 3x9? If you had to whip out a calculator, you may be one of the 36 million Americans who struggle with basic math problems. This app can help!

Add Urgency

When you get closer to the holiday, add more urgency to the marketing copy to help drive conversions, but remember, don’t create a false sense of urgency or anxiety with your ad copy. DON’T: THE STORE IS SHUTTING DOWN, BUY OUR PRODUCT BEFORE CHRISTMAS! (just kidding, made you look!) DO: Looking for a BIG LAST MINUTE DEAL? <insert big discount here with fun imagery>. Remember, what your ad looks like and the content in it is just as important as driving sales as the discount. If a person doesn’t like or notice your ad, then they won’t be bothered to acknowledge the price cut!

The Big Holiday Takeaways?

So what were the big takeaways here?

• Start early to strengthen your retargeting audience
• Ease your audience into sales
• Use meaningful content to drive leads
• Give Helix House a call to create and manage all of your holiday marketing campaigns for you