Ad Strategies to ensure your business succeeds this holiday season
The winter holiday season brings with it cold weather, family gatherings, and up to 30 percent of the year’s retail shopping. Big names like Target, Walmart, and Amazon do massive amounts of business during the holidays, but that doesn’t mean that smaller companies can’t also cash in on this lucrative season.
For smaller businesses, it may seem like major holiday marketing is out of reach, but this isn’t the case at all. Here we’ve compiled a list of some of the easiest ways that small businesses can invest in holiday ad strategies that work.
Social Media (SPOILER ALERT. IT WORKS)
Social media advertising may seem like a game for only the biggest of corporations, but it’s actually pretty well-suited to smaller businesses. Organic social media engagement and advertising costs little more than time and can see big returns .
Social media provides a place for customer queries, traditional advertising, content marketing, basic company information and customer engagement all in one.
American businesses alone spend almost 8 billion dollars on social media advertising, and with good reason. Both paid and organic social media marketing can help boost customer awareness and your market share.
Text marketing
Text marketing is a way to send deals, advertisements and messages out to customers via text message. It’s a service that customers opt in for, and it can almost feel like an exclusive club. Many companies see great success by adding special deals to text messages that entice customers to return when they otherwise might not have.
Just make sure all your text marketing is above board. Only send texts to people who have signed up for them (never use third party applications or companies that promise you “millions” of phone numbers) and always allow customers to opt out of text advertisements.
Paid ads
Well-tailored search and shopping ads can generate a lot of good leads for small businesses. It may seem like online advertising is too broad of a market for a niche company, but online ads are getting smarter with each passing year. Even a small investment in Google Ads can see your ads reaching the right people.
Omni-channel marketing
Never underestimate the importance of brand consistency. During the holidays, people are performing more online searches than ever, and they’re likely to run into more than one of your pages. So make sure the content on your Facebook matches your website, your Twitter, and any other front-facing outlet you have. The content doesn’t have to be identical, but you should make sure that your voice remains consistent and that all your deals and offers are available and advertised on all of your platforms.
Videos, gifs, and other multi-media content
Video is some of the most effective content you can produce. Not only is video great for SEO, but it’s fast becoming one of the most popular marketing methods. People collectively rack up more than a billion hours of online video watching a day on Youtube alone.
Videos are more engaging than print ads. Gifs and other forms of short-form video or looping content are also more enticing to consumers than just words and photos. And while producing this kind of content can be more time consuming and expensive, it’s often well worth it.
And don’t worry about producing the next Oscar nominee. Even working within the confines of a budget, you can still create something unique and effective.
Pre-roll videos and holiday advertising strategy
Pre-roll advertising is a fancy term for commercials that air before video content. These ads are the closest thing the internet has to traditional commercials. Depending on your business and your target demographic, they can be even more effective than traditional local T.V. commercials.
There’s more upfront money involved in producing these ads, but they can make good evergreen content if you do it right. Once you have one advertisement filmed and edited, it is generally really easy to rework it for next year, so don’t delete those video files.
Embrace the spirit of gifting
It seems like now-a-days, the holidays are all about gifts. The increase in shopping during the winter months is almost entirely thanks to people buying presents, holiday decorations and food. So embrace this giving spirit. Use the holiday season as the time to roll out gift promotions. Put extra marketing behind products that are likely to sell as gifts and consider the kinds of bundles and giveaways that might appeal to someone trying to cross multiple people off their shopping list.
Remember that the holidays are the best time to advertise outside of your traditional demographic. Aim instead for the friends and relatives of your “ideal” customer, because these are the people likely to be purchasing from you during the holidays. (For example, a women’s clothing line may benefit from marketing towards men who will then buy items for their female family members as gifts.)
And don’t forget the sales. People have a lot of stuff they need to buy this time of year, so make it easier for them to get more of their purchases from you.
Still unsure how you can capitalize this season? Schedule some time with us! It’s free
