'Tis the Season: Holiday Marketing Guide

It might be hard to believe, but the holiday season is right around the corner. For businesses, this is one of the most crucial times for digital strategy. As shoppers plan their purchases earlier each year, businesses need to plan ahead to reach their audience in the holiday market.

As we prepare for the holiday shopping season, digital marketing strategy will perform a critical role in boosting your brand above the noise to connect you with consumers.

In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know to maximize your holiday digital marketing strategy—from website performance to post-holiday engagement. 

Significant Dates

Mark the following dates on your calendar:

• Black Friday – November 29, 2024

• Small Business Saturday – November 30, 2024

• Cyber Monday – December 2, 2024

These dates are extremely significant in the holiday season for businesses and consumers alike.

Black Friday, as we all know, is a major commercial holiday. Taking place right at the end of the month, this year, Black Friday blurs into the holiday rush more than typical in 2024.

Small Business Saturday is the time for you to highlight your brand’s personal message and place in the community. Shoppers increasingly support small businesses, so take this opportunity to communicate your value and story.

Cyber Monday is the most important day for e-commerce. Exclusive online-only promotions are vital in capitalizing on Cyber Monday. Beyond the deals you can promote, having your online presence in top shape is important to representing your business to potential customers. More will be visiting your website and social media on Cyber Monday than other days of the year, so don’t drop the ball.

Though these dates all run together in one weekend, it’s important to consider how you can distinguish them in your digital strategy with different messages tailored to each day.

Start Messaging Now

If you wait until there’s snow on the ground to release your holiday campaigns, you’ll have already missed your opportunity! The holiday shopping season starts now. Every year, more and more consumers start their holiday shopping earlier in the fall. Remember, before the purchase you have browsing, list-building, and deal-searching. The longer you wait to get your messaging out, the more consumers you risk missing.

Whether you’re announcing products, deals, or guides, starting now helps your brand register in the minds of your target audience. You need to stay on their radar from now until the holidays.

The risk of such an early start is potentially causing fatigue in consumers. Being one of the first to engage customers with holiday messaging can position your brand for success, but you want to maintain the momentum through the new year. By staggering campaigns, you can build the excitement and stay on consumers radars through the remaining months without annoying your audience.

Social Media Strategy

Digital marketing without a social media strategy is like Christmas with no tree. Every year, social media continues to gain prominence in the commercial space. In 2024, social media will continue its path as the primary platform for holiday commerce. Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok will facilitate marketing, flash sales, and exclusive promotions to reach consumers. Don’t miss out on these valuable channels for customer interactions and conversions.

We just discussed the potential of micro-influencer marketing in our blog you can read here. These influencers possess small but highly engaged followings, making them ideal for SMBs seeking brand affiliates to provide authenticity and trust. The holiday season is the ideal time to collaborate with influencers whose audiences align with your brand.

A holiday countdown campaign is a perfect way to engage your audience through social media with exclusive offers on select days. Social media is the perfect place for interactive content that engages consumers. Whether it’s through polls, giveaways, or live shopping events, use interactive social media campaigns to elevate your holiday strategy.

A general trend in digital marketing to capitalize on this holiday season is increasingly targeted ads. As competition for attention rises in the coming months, get ahead by increasing your social ad spend to reach a specific audience. Platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat, have rolled out tools to help target your ad campaigns.

If you haven’t been keeping up with social media strategy, it can be intimidating to try and get into the market for the holidays. Catch up on specific updates from this year by reading our blog here. 

The most important part of social media strategy to remember is promoting engagement. User-generated content (UGC) is irreplaceably valuable in amplifying your brand and reaching audiences that are historically difficult to sway. Encourage your audience to share content using branded hashtags or trends, generating organic buzz around your brand.

Email Marketing

It’s not all about Instagram and Youtube, email is still a significant channel to communicate with consumers. The holiday season notoriously overwhelms inboxes with promotional emails, making the task of standing out challenging. Plan your email marketing strategy carefully, ensuring that your emails are opened and lead to conversions.

It’s not just about offering discounts. Consumers aren’t guaranteed to open an email just because it has “25% OFF” in the subject line. Aside from promotions, provide useful content such as holiday gift guides, curated product bundles, or important reminders.

Somehow, the holidays always come sooner than we expect, placing a critical importance on conveying the limited time to consumers. Use countdown timers or limited-time deals to encourage opening the email and taking action immediately. There’s a delicate balance to this, however, as overuse of time-limited offers can create fatigue.

Just as with all things digital, you should use data to target your audience with email marketing. Sending personalized offers to specific segments of your consumer base based on behavior or preferences is key to maximizing your strategy. This includes creating exclusive offers for past customers!

If you’ve read any of our past blogs, you know to expect the word optimization. With your holiday email marketing, you want to test different subject lines, layouts, and calls to action. This way, you can optimize your approach to increase open rates and click-through rates.

When it comes to email marketing, personalization is key to preventing your brand from getting lost in the sea of holiday promotions.

Bringing Value Beyond Discounts

Limited-time offers and discounts are great ways to attract consumers, but providing them with long-term value will keep them loyal through 2025. Combine the timely with the timeless to deliver exceptional value through experiences rather than purely price cuts.

Here are a few tips to bring value beyond discounts:

• Offering personalized service through exclusive bundles, recommendations, or customization.

• Launching or promoting loyalty programs, encouraging your audience to engage and support your business through incentives such as early access to sales, free shipping, or VIP perks.

• Consumer trends have shifted to value experiences over expenses. Engage your audience with interactivity and exclusivity.

• Demonstrate your involvement in the community, engaging in local causes. Particularly for SMBs, many customers are drawn to brands that stay involved with the community during the holiday season.

Website Performance

We are always stressing the importance of a well-run website, but the holiday season truly makes this a vital aspect of digital strategy. Your website will serve as the central hub for holiday traffic, garnering more clicks than any other time of year. Now is the time to ensure it can perform under the pressure!

If your website is broken or poorly run during the peak holiday season, you risk losing revenue and potential customers.

Speed optimization is the most obvious and integral factor in your website performance. A slow website during this fast-paced season will cost your business. Keep your pages loading quickly and the server managing smoothly.

With so many consumers accessing your website from their smartphones, it is critical that your website has responsive design. Ensuring that your digital strategy is mobile-friendly is not optional! Test everything on mobile to eliminate errors that might sour the customer experience.

Remember, your website is a representation of your brand, so investing in it will pay dividends this holiday season. For more information on running an effective website, read our blogs on generating organic traffic and ownership.

Post-Holiday Engagement

Don’t let your holiday season come and go. As we turn our calendars into 2025, lay the groundwork for that essential post-holiday engagement. Transform seasonal shoppers into loyal customers.

This comes down to the value you’re providing consumers. Are you leveraging loyalty programs, re-engaging customers in January with post-holiday deals, or collecting feedback to improve future campaigns? All of these are valuable ways of keeping the ball rolling in 2025.

Internally, you want to be monitoring your success with data throughout the holiday season. This way, you’ll be able to analyze the performance of your campaign with concrete metrics to identify what worked and what needs improvement.

Conclusion

The 2025 holiday season is an opportunity to bring your consumers more value than any other time of year. With every business putting their hat in the ring, however, you need to prepare for success. Begin messaging to your audience early, reach consumers through multiple digital channels, and optimize your website to maximize returns. Above all, focus on long-term value and fostering loyalty in consumers.

Think of the holiday season as a launchpad, generating momentum into an even greater new year. Read our blog on your 2025 digital strategy here.

Contact us at Media Rebel to start your digital strategy today!