Introduction: If you’re like me, you’ve been planning your holiday marketing campaigns at least since January. You probably have a strategy in place, an eye on the competition and a list of keywords that you’ll target with your website or blog content. But if I asked how prepared your website is for the holidays, would you be able to answer? Web traffic can increase as much as 40% during peak shopping periods like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That means businesses need to make sure their websites are ready for increased traffic volumes and conversion rates—especially when it comes to mobile optimization. And while no one expects your business to have everything set up by mid-September (or even before), it doesn’t hurt to take some proactive steps now so you can focus on other important things later on!
Gauge your holiday marketing strategy
Before you begin, take a moment to consider what it is you want your holiday marketing strategy to achieve. Do you want to drive sales and conversions? Market awareness? Generate reviews, leads and referrals?
The answers will help inform the type of campaign you run and the tactics that will be most effective. If a customer-centric approach is what’s called for (more on these in a bit), then giving customers something special can be an effective tactic. If more visibility is needed, then search engine optimization (SEO) might be in order.
For example: if your business sells clothing online and has an established brand presence on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, creating holiday-themed posts that include links back to your site can drive traffic as well as brand awareness—and at no cost!
Understand the customer journey
Understanding your customers is the foundation of marketing, and it’s especially important during the holidays. Whether you’re selling physical or digital products, you want to know who your customers are and what they want. You also need to know how they buy and where they’re in their buying journey (e.g., researching, comparing options). To do this, consider:
- What are their pain points? This can be expressed as a simple sentence: “I have a problem.” Then ask yourself: How does my product solve that problem for them? Why should I care about solving this problem for them?
- Where do these people hang out online? Knowing where your target audience spends time online will help you figure out where to advertise and promote products on social media and other channels beyond just Google Ads (which we’ll talk about below).
Optimize your brand message for mobile
- Use short and snappy headlines.
- Choose bold fonts like Helvetica or Impact.
- Add bullet points to lists of gift ideas, or use them in your product descriptions to draw attention to key features.
- Use images on landing pages, but not just any old image will do. Make sure they tell a story and give the viewer an idea of what you’re selling or promoting before they even click through to read your copy (if it’s something like an infographic about holiday shopping trends in 2019, for example). Be sure that these images are optimized for mobile devices too!
- Include videos on landing pages if possible—this is a great way to show off your brand personality and build trust with potential customers who may be unfamiliar with your brand yet still interested in what you have available for sale.
Get an SEO audit
- Get a SEO audit. An SEO audit is a good way to find out how your website is performing and where it needs improvement. You can use the results of an SEO audit to improve your website performance, but also as a guide for planning future marketing campaigns.
- Make sure you have all the tools in place for following up on leads and keeping track of them over time. This includes everything from CRM software that allows you easy access to contacts stored on your site, to sales automation software that helps with lead management and tracking metrics like average response time or open rates on emails sent from Gmail accounts associated with each contact record in the system (more on this below).
Study Google’s search trends
Google Trends is a tool that shows you what people are searching for online, which can help you understand how to optimize your website and marketing campaigns. For example, if you’re selling clothing and jewelry, Google Trends will show you how many times people have searched for “mustard yellow necklace” compared with other colors over time. This data can help you determine when (and where) certain colors should be featured in your ads.
Improve your online presence
- Improve your online presence.
- Create a holiday landing page.
- Use social media to create a sense of urgency, community, and exclusivity.
Consider paid advertising campaigns on Google and social media
If you’re not familiar with paid advertising, here are a few of the most popular options:
- Google AdWords (Google)
- Facebook Ads (Facebook)
- Pinterest Ads (Pinterest)
- Twitter Ads (Twitter)
- YouTube Ads (YouTube).
You can’t wait until the holidays to prepare your website and marketing campaigns.
You can’t wait until the holidays to prepare your website and marketing campaigns. The holiday season is one of the busiest times of year for businesses, but it’s also a time when you need your website to be at its best. If you wait until the last minute, you will be rushing and making mistakes that could have been avoided if you had taken time beforehand to plan ahead.
It is important to start preparing in advance because there are many things that take time, such as:
- Learning how to use new technologies (e.g., social networks) so that they are ready for the holidays
- Creating videos or images that align with your brand image
Conclusion
Take the time now to prepare for holiday marketing campaigns. This will ensure that you can start driving traffic and sales as soon as November rolls around. If you’re a small business, focus on optimizing for mobile devices and search engines. If your company has an established website, it is important that it is optimized with keywords related to your industry or niche so customers searching online can find them easily!
