Get Fresh Insights on the 2023 Holiday Season and Find Out What Seasonal Marketing Strategies Will Work Best
Now that summer’s over, businesses are looking to the last days of Q3 and a full Q4 to tackle their year-end business goals. This means thinking about holiday marketing. True, the leaves haven’t begun to change, but your holiday marketing strategy needs to start now.
When running a business, it’s crucial to have a strong understanding of planning and logistics to ensure your products and services get to market. The same strategy goes for your holiday marketing campaign. You can’t expect to plan and activate a campaign for the holidays at a moment’s notice.
Effective holiday marketing requires planning in advance, especially this holiday season. The 2023 holidays will require you to be more competitive than ever.
3 Market Insights to Inform Your Holiday Digital Marketing Tactics
Our digital marketing team spends much of our time reading industry news and economic forecasts, analyzing data, and having in-depth conversations with our clients and partners. These activities help us develop insights into what tactics will be most effective for businesses as we help them plan their holiday marketing campaigns.
Consider three insights that paint a picture of what 2023’s holiday season consumer behavior will look like:
- SalesForce suggests that social media ads will dominate for return on investment: SalesForce’s 360 Blog cites that 50% of shoppers are more likely to buy based on a social media ad as opposed to a promotional email. To compare more closely related tactics, social ads are twice as likely to prompt buyers to make a transaction than influencer-promoted marketing.
- Consumers are bouncing back from inflation – while getting even more deal savvy: RetailDive shares that consumers are less concerned about inflation than they were a year ago. Inflation reached its lowest point since 2021 this past July, and consumers are now more flexible with their pocketbooks.
However, RetailDive reminds us that these very same consumers got savvier during the past few years of economic uncertainty. They now have practice navigating various digital channels to find the best deals online, so your business will need to be just as smart to get their attention.
- Google’s “four Ds” of holiday shopping can help you understand consumers’ holiday mindset: Google’s Consumer Insights July report on holiday spending – an example of early thinking about holiday marketing campaigns – shares consumer mindsets for holiday shopping with four Ds: deliberate, deal-seeking, determined, and devoted. Each of these mindsets suggest how you might consider targeting audiences at particular mileposts in your seasonal marketing strategy.
- Deliberate shoppers start early to find pre-holiday deals and spread their income out across Q4, ensuring that they’re not spending too much at once.
- Deal-seeking shoppers start their hunt on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Determined shoppers need to buy now to ensure their gifts are ordered before Christmas shopping cutoffs or that final weekend, which this year happens to fall on December 23 and 24.
- Devoted shoppers have a product in mind that they want to purchase, but they’re willing to wait for early 2024 deals.
To summarize: consumers are ready to spend, but they’re better than ever at finding the best deals online. Social media advertising is one strategy that can outperform similar campaigns, and don’t forget to consider audience mindset at key times in Q4, including – of course – Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What do these insights mean? Your business has to match consumer behavior with highly effective marketing strategies.
Digital Marketing Tactics to Try This Holiday Season to Beat the Competition
Ready to meet your customers where they are this holiday season? It’s time to try these tactics for your holiday marketing campaigns:
- Google strategies: Google’s paid advertising services allow you to connect with customers wherever they are, whether they’re using Google’s search engine; other Google products like YouTube, Gmail, and Maps; and even when they’re out and about (think shopping mall screens). Paid advertising is highly customizable and centered on return-on-investment. You can set your campaign type to pay per conversion, so you’re directly seeking the lucrative customer interactions you want during this buying season. There’s no time to worry about clicks and impressions.
Further Reading: 6 Keys to Successful Paid Search Campaigns
- Streaming video: Gone are the days of producing expensive commercials for television. Hulu, YouTube, network television apps, like FOX Now and CBS Interactive, let you get short, appealing, to-the-point videos ads in front of large audiences while they stream their favorite content. Target highly specific audience locations, behavior, demographics, interests, and more to place your ads in the place where potential customers are looking: at their screens.
Learn More: How Small Businesses Leverage the Power of Video Advertising
- Social media strategies: Social media advertising allows you to deliver a variety of ad types, from static images to stories, on the most widely visited social media platforms. When these ads are placed strategically, you can focus on specific demographics, locations, user behavior, and more to ensure your ads are connecting with the right consumers. Ninety percent of the U.S. population uses social media regularly, so you can’t afford to not invest in social ads.
- Website optimizations: Once you’ve activated paid campaigns through pay-per-click Google, social and streaming ads, you have to ensure that those who click discover a website they want to stay on and take action. Your website needs to be attractive and easy to use, and it should provide the information customers need, while directing them to make a purchase or provide lead-generating information. Ensuring your website is optimized and making the right impression on interested customers will go a long way this holiday season.
Although each of these strategies packs a punch on their own, an omnichannel seasonal marketing strategy offers the biggest advantage.
Imagine this chain of events this October:
- View. A customer sees your holiday ad while streaming their favorite Hulu show.
- Scroll. Later, while scrolling on their couch, they see more information about your product or service in a social ad.
- Search. When they go searching the Internet for your product or service, there’s your brand again at the top of the search results in a sponsored Google ad.
- Find. They click on your Google ad and they’re instantly directed to your website. Following our advice, your website has been optimized to guide them toward converting on your special holiday deal.
That’s how it works. Businesses invest in the power of omnichannel marketing because this strategy leads to sales and business growth.
Learn More: Seasonal Marketing Made Easy
Partner with Our Team to Leverage Effective Digital Marketing Tactics
Holiday marketing is underway. Your competitors are already fine-tuning their holiday marketing campaigns, hoping to gain an advantage over you and tap customers who are ready to buy.
However, the ball is in your court. You have iFocus Marketing’s insights, analysis, expertise, and energy on your side. We’re ready to launch your seasonal marketing strategy now to ensure that the competitive edge is yours.
Request a discovery call with our team to discuss an omnichannel approach to holiday marketing, including Google strategies, streaming video and social ads, and website optimizations.
We want to see you meet and even exceed your business growth goals for 2023. In fact, we’re committed to it. Get in touch with us today to get your holiday campaign started.
Peter Mishler, senior digital copywriter at iFocus Marketing, is dedicated to using language to help clients find their audiences. He is the author of two books: a Kathryn A. Morton Prize-winning collection of poetry, from Sarabande Books (2018) and a book of reflections for public school teachers from Andrews McMeel Publishing (2021). His poetry has appeared in many national publications, including The Paris Review, and he is a contributing editor for Literary Hub. New to marketing, Peter taught English for 15 years.
