Get Your Digital Marketing Ready for the Holidays

It's almost that time of year when the weather gets a little bit colder, people begin decorating their houses with festive lights, and soon they'll be buying gifts for their families. But this is also one of the most competitive times of the year for local businesses, whether they provide products or services. Get ready now before the holiday rush begins! In this article, we'll go over what you need to make sure your digital marketing strategy is prepared for the holidays.

Website

During the holiday rush, you'll want to make sure that your website is running perfectly and that your customers are quickly able to recognize where you want them to go.

• Create new landing pages. Rather than having your social media posts, email campaigns, and search ads leading customers back to your home page, create special new landing pages for the holidays that promote your offers and match up with your ad keywords.
• Update your pages. Make sure your homepage and other key pages are updated with holiday images and terms. You'll also want to double-check that any coupons you are offering on your site are up to date.
• Make sure it's easy for customers to reach you. Check that phone numbers are correct, and update as needed. You'll also want to make sure the "Contact Us" forms are up and working properly. If you are using a live chat function, make sure you or other staff members are scheduled to answer questions throughout the holidays.
• Utilize pop-up ads. We've all seen those websites with ads that pop up right before you're about to leave. To a visitor that requires some extra persuading, these pop-up ads can present an enticing offer. You can also get to the people who have left your site through "remarketing" search ads with Google and other vendors. Once these people have seen an offer that is exciting to them, they'll return to your site.

If you haven't invested in a website for your small business yet, you'll definitely want to! Check out this article on why it's so essential for your local business to have a website.

Search Engine Marketing

When it comes to search engine marketing, you'll want to be mindful when it comes to the timing and messaging with your paid ads.

• Be conscious of your budget. It can be easy to run through your budget quickly when you're trying to expand your reach, but be careful not to burn through those dollars too quickly. Keep an eye on your spending and be prepared to change things up by focusing more on your well-performing campaigns or lowering your bids if you need to.
• Use trending search terms. While you may have been in business for a while now and have holiday-specific offers and keywords that have worked for you in the past, take the time to enter those old terms into Google Trends to see if any new related search terms come up. If you have a search bar on your website, check your Google Analytics to see popular search terms your visitors have made. Lastly, you can check AdWords Keyword Planner for more suggestions.

Email Marketing

Email inboxes always seem to be filling to the brim as it is, but during the holidays email users get more and more crowded with marketing messages, and people become choosier about the ones they'll open.

• Make your subject lines interesting. You'll want to make it more interesting than "Check out our holiday sale!" because EVERYONE is having holiday sales. If you want people to open your emails, you'll have to make them enticing and worth their time. Give your readers special offers or specifics about services and products on sale.

Your subject lines are essential, but so is the content in the email itself. Check out our Guide to Writing Newsletters for some great tips and instructions for making your emails interesting.

• Send emails to small segments of your email list. Unless you are sending out a lot of email marketing messages on a regular basis, a sudden increase in volume can make you appear as a spammer to email service providers.

Are you looking to grow your email list before the holidays? Check out our article on Tips for Growing Your Email List. They're all easy strategies that can be implemented rather quickly, and it's amazing what a significant impact they can have!

• Schedule your emails accordingly. A study done by Yesmail found that:

  • Thanksgiving-themed messages were more well-received in early November rather than closer to the holiday.
  • Black Friday themed offers performed best when being sent last minute.
  • A good strategy for Christmas themed emails is to send them 10 days leading up to the holiday, emphasizing a countdown.

Social Media Marketing

Social media stops for no one - but you and your staff will likely be closed for the holidays.

• Avoid making posts that ask for responses from your audience. You and your employees are most likely going to be enjoying quality time with family or going on vacation, so don't invite your readers to make interactions that you won't be able to handle.
• Make a posting schedule. While this is a good strategy for any time of the year, it's especially important during the holiday season. Create a list of posts and schedule them out on your calendar. You don't want to cram these posts, visuals, and sales announcements in at last minute, so do whatever you can in advance to save yourself the stress and headache. There are social media scheduling tools on the market that automate the process of planning and posting to numerous social networks.
• Ensure someone is monitoring your social media accounts. Nothing says "nobody cares about the store" more than unanswered questions, comments, complaints, and even compliments. Even during the holidays. So, to combat this, someone needs to be manning social media throughout the holidays, at the very least to handle the customer service aspect.

Are you new to social media marketing? Check out our guide on How to Drive Your Online Sales with Social Media Marketing.

Conclusion

The holidays are a busy time and now is the time to start preparing! I hope you've found this small guide helpful for getting your digital marketing strategy ready. If you need help getting your website ready for the holidays, reach out to AnoLogix to see what we can do for you. Check out this page for a full list of services and if you'd like more tips on marketing, check out our Complete Guide to Marketing Campaigns.