Black Friday is coming up! It is increasingly seen as the start of the retail holiday season, which ends after the Boxing Day sales that often last until mid-January.
At this time social media marketing can help your business to gain new customers and brand advocates, as a part of the overall marketing mix, along with increased revenue.
You can get your social media to work like a well oiled machine over the holidays if you implement the following tips:
1. Build genuine trust with your audience
During the silly season, you could noisily tout your wares like a old lady brandishing fish in a village market. Or you could use your social media to listen to the chatter and conversations about your brand and then respond and attempt to create a personalised, generous and positive interaction.
Unlike other forms of marketing, social media is a two-way dialogue with evenly distributed power dynamics. It's all well and good to blatantly sell on social media, but if the storytelling around your offer is non-existent, then your posts won't resonate with your target audience.
2. Plan, plan and then plan some more
In order to win market share it's a great idea to start planning early. The earlier you begin planning, even as early as July or August, the more your business stands to gain out of the holiday period.
When you start early, it's easier to avoid getting bogged down with BAU operational needs. Instead you can focus with laser-sharp awareness on long-term strategic marketing goals.
Also social advertising and search marketing gets expensive in December, so filling the top of the funnel in July makes more sense!
3. Don't be afraid to get creative
The more creative and edgier your holiday season offerings are, the more likely your business will be to stand out in a crowded room of competitors all tooting their own horns.
4. Don't forget brand storytelling
In amongst all the excitement (and pressure) of having to make yearly sales targets for the year, it's possible to lose sight of the long-game of growing and nurturing brand advocates and fans. The holiday season isn't just for selling stuff, it's about building loyal customers who will continue to come back time and time again.
5. Remarketing is important
Remarketing strategies through social media and PPC are going to attract huge returns during this time. In other words, the more frequently a relevant target audience sees your message, the more likely they will be to buy from your business. So make sure you wow them in your ads, so that they remember your brand.
6. Combine social with search
Search marketing is where you can really see some sales conversions. So be sure to change up your keyword strategy so that it's relevant for the holidays, along with adjusting your social strategy so that this is also relevant.
7. Social ads are a must
Even if your social strategy only goes so far as organic posts, it's always a good idea to initiate a paid campaign over the holidays. This is when the majority of shoppers will be primed and ready to purchase. Sweta Patel of Silicon Valley Start-Up Marketing found that social conversions can increase from 0.6% to almost 20% from social ads alone.
8. Up the ante with your ads
Your ads need to be memorable. To do that they must stand out and be compelling for prospective customers. Split test a broad variety of ad copy and artwork combinations on social media to find that magnificent combo that your audience resonates with.
9. Think broader than social media for your overall marketing
Social media platforms will be thoroughly saturated over the holiday period. So in your holiday marketing strategy, be sure to integrate unexpected guerilla marketing campaigns, and competitions to spice things up.
10. Consider Facebook groups for people with specific interests in your business.
After all, people prefer to purchase from an individual and not a company. They would like to engage in a two-way dialogue with an individual who can help them, not a nameless social account. Any sort of selling in this group needs to be incredibly laid-back and a subtle for it to be effective. The primary goal here is to resolve challenges that people face by offering solutions.
11. Email marketing and social combined are a cash-cow
Gift card offerings, competitions and last minute offers to email subscribers and via social are going to be highly effective for revenue growth. Start testing and retargeting your ad groups as soon as possible to get the most out of that opportunity.
12. Scarcity works
Create limited time offers and limited stock offers to generate FOMO with your target audience. You can do this by creating coupons and exclusive product offers that are only available until a certain date.
13. Visit and engage with people in niche online communities
Are you selling rental furniture to a young Uni crowd? Then visit the forums of a subreddit and post valuable information there. Avoid any kind of sales approach and instead aim to be solutions oriented and to take a personalised approach to resolving challenges.
By Athena Dennis: We hope that this guide to surviving the silly season helps you to seize the opportunities of social media marketing. The Clarity Business offer a comprehensive mix of PR, social media marketing, content marketing, message development and a whole lot more. Get in touch with us todayto find out how we can help your business to grow.
