For many small businesses, the holiday season can creep up on you! Suddenly, it’s back-to-school season; then suddenly, it’s Halloween; then suddenly, it’s Thanksgiving and you haven’t planned anything for the holiday season.
One of the reasons we suggest starting your holiday planning in July is because planning in advance will help keep you from being overwhelmed or caught off guard once November rolls around.
Something that can help with this is to break your marketing plans for the holidays into three phases, with strategies matched with each time period and what your customer is looking for online.
The Three Phases of Holiday marketing:
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- Pre-Holiday (We’re currently in the middle of the pre-holiday period) As we head into the holidays, this is the time to run an ad to collect customer data. Start driving traffic to your website so you can run a retargeting ad to these audiences during your holiday sales! Also, start letting your audience know what to expect from you for holiday sales. Build some anticipation!
- Black Cyber Weekend (Thanksgiving to Giving Tuesday) This is when you want to start going full force with your holiday sales ads. Retarget the audience you built from your pre-holiday ads, and create a lookalike audience based on that data as well.
If you’re a non-profit, the day you will really want to target will be Giving Tuesday, the day dedicated to kicking off the charitable season with a day of giving. If you’re a for-profit, maybe take this day to take a break from promotions and highlight some of your favorite charities. This builds good will with your audience, and you’re doing good in your community too! - End of Giving Tuesday to the End of the Holiday Season Keep going with your holiday ads. Look at the analytics from your Black Cyber weekend ads and make any adjustments to your messaging or audience based on what the data is showing you. Keep in mind your hard shipping date if you have a physical product. Tell your audience this is the final day to purchase in order to receive the product by Christmas. Especially this year, with COVID-19 delays, shipping might affect not only your supply chain but also your delivery. It is going to be very important to communicate this to your customers.
If you keep these three phases in mind, it will help all of your marketing between now and the end of the year run much more smoothly!
Already overwhelmed? Download our #30DaysOf Holiday Marketing Tips or schedule a call with us to see how we can help you through the holidays!