The busiest time of the year needs no introduction, as we all know the mad-dash we face with getting all of the items crossed off our to-do lists. Let’s just list some of the holidays between October and December: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday (not federally recognized, but it’s a retailer’s holiday), and more that provide opportunity to increase sales and brand loyalty.

Wouldn’t it be nice to cruise right in to end the year with a well thought out plan of attack? Starting your Q4 holiday planning in July will help ease the stress of completing all tasks without the headache.

“Creativity is key in order to win mindshare. Yet, channel distribution is necessary in order to win sales. This is a balancing act between marketing and operations.”

Build your strategy methodically with metrics and complete content.

By taking advantage of a head-start on planning for the end of year, it will allow your company the opportunity to enhance and execute the creativity of your campaign in the right channel to make sure you have optimal placement for consumers to see and digest your messaging.

Early planning is the time to think about the whole marketing strategy:

• Selling your brand as a whole and not just individual products
• Personalize the holiday selling experience to consumers
• Include exclusive deals at the right time to the right audience
• Utilize data on which channel and audience are best and measure the success
• Decide how each marketing channel will support and execute the campaign to its fullest potential (email, retargeting, social, video, etc.)

Start with the numbers

By using previous year’s data, your company can start to pinpoint the highs and lows of your consumer’s shopping behavior. Is it Black Friday, Cyber Monday or the last minute Christmas shoppers that bring your year end to a great close? After carefully reviewing these metrics, the company can begin to plan out what where exclusive deals for certain audiences can be placed to ensure there is a constant flow of sales, with allowances for any flash sales events to further entice consumers.

Also, make sure the companies’ inventory is taken in to consideration, whether it’s products or people to complete a service. Retail buyers need to inform marketing what products will be new, still offered and confirm timing of in-store placement and materials need to be purchased to complete any labor-centric service. Properly resourcing based upon strong analytics will give your company a leg up when the holiday season comes barreling in.

Brainstorming your campaign

We have an offering, now what feeling do we want the consumer to convey when they are considering purchasing or convert to a user of the offering? Do we start with a theme and build that in around products or vice versa?

Does your creative follow the holiday season timeline: Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.? Do you need to provide marketing for each holiday within the season?

Creating a thorough and detailed content calendar for your marketing campaign(s) will ensure a cohesive holiday shopping experience that will then build a strong brand awareness for your consumers.

One small gem that many local businesses can (and should) take advantage of is the Saturday after Thanksgiving – Small Business Saturday. Yes, this gets sandwiched in between two of the largest shopping days, but local stores can use the biggest shopping weekend to their advantage with human interaction because Black Friday and Cyber Monday focus more on online sales. Building events, local partnerships, exclusive sales, and a fun atmosphere will help drive shoppers to your store and increase sales.

Pending the goals of your holiday season campaign, its need to be built with a purpose not just to sell. How do you grab someone’s attention, evoke the intended emotions and give them a full service experience when shopping?

Channel surfing

This is when the meat of the campaign begins to take shape – your theme and campaign has been evolving and now to round the complete strategy, you need to determine which channels will be best suited for each element of your campaign.

Do you need a direct marketing piece, such as a brochure or postcard? How many emails are going to be deployed during the campaign? What are the social media platforms that are needed and how will they be utilized? Stories, target posts, videos, etc.

Possibly, offering exclusive sales for a targeted group on social media will increase organic growth as current followers share to their community.

Partnering with an online influencer that will review or demonstrate your product will then in turn bring their subscribers to your webpage is a great social media tactic that can be used across platforms through static posts, stories, and videos.

Being able to fully lay out what channels and the timeline for each piece are needed in the development of your campaign to see the campaign in its entirety. This will also ensure that the targeted audience(s) are not overloaded with messaging from your campaign and potentially receive a thought out series of messages versus ad-hoc spurts.

One piece that many companies should not forget about is how your digital marketing pieces will be shown on a mobile device. Optimizing for mobile view is crucial for the holiday shopping season as it accounts for a large percentage of sales and how many people do you see NOT on their phone? How does this play in to your overall strategy, especially incorporating in to your online traffic, social media and SEO tactics?

Looking ahead

The companies within the thralls of the holiday season of 2018 saw an uncontrollable external factor enter: the U.S. Government shutdown. The National Retailers Federation saw that sales were only up 2.9% to $707.5 billion from 2017, which is just over half of the expected rise of 4.3-4.9%. Although, year over year results have shown an increase in spending, external factors play a part and cannot be controlled, which is why a sound marketing campaign utilizing the appropriate data and creative are crucial for success.

By consulting with Colleen Eakins Design, we can help your company take part in this anticipated record breaking holiday season.