Retailers everywhere are gearing up for the 2022 holiday season. As Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday continue to gain popularity with consumers, leading retailers are coming up with new strategies to stand out from the crowd.
How can your retail marketing strategy thrive this holiday season? Here are some tips on how to get your strategy holiday-ready so you’ll be prepared come November. Whether you’re a large retailer or an eCommerce store owner, it’s important to understand what drives traffic during the holidays and how you can take advantage of that as a business.
You also need to be ready for whatever surprises might pop up. The holidays are a great time of year for testing new ideas, working with partners, and getting unexpected exposure through partnerships and viral videos. Read on to learn more about how you can get your retail marketing strategy ready for this upcoming holiday season!
Plan your marketing calendar
The holidays are an incredibly busy time of year, and it’s important to plan ahead so you’re not caught off guard. If you already have a marketing calendar, now is the time to review it.
If you don’t have a marketing calendar (or aren’t sure what that even is), you need to get one in place right away. A marketing calendar is simply a way of planning out your entire year of marketing activities. It’s an extremely important part of running a successful business, especially during the holidays.
When you have a marketing calendar, you know what’s coming up, what you need to do about it, and when you need to have everything in place.
This also includes any events that might be taking place in your area that you want to be a part of, like festivals or other gift-giving occasions. Your marketing calendar should be an item that’s constantly being reviewed and updated.
Get the right tools in place
The holidays can be a great time to experiment with new tools and technologies to see what works best for your business. If you haven’t already, now is the time to try out a new email marketing platform to see how it compares to your current solution.
You might also want to try out video marketing for the first time. There are a lot of easy-to-use tools available that can help you create great video content. Another important tool that you should be using is a CRM (customer relationship management) or marketing automation platform.
A CRM helps you organize your sales pipeline and keep track of all of your leads. You can use your CRM to create automated workflows to help you save time and manage your leads more efficiently. If you’re using email marketing, your CRM should integrate with your email marketing platform so you can manage your leads and follow up with them easily from one platform.
Build a solid email marketing strategy
Email marketing is an important part of any retail marketing strategy for the holidays. In fact, many retailers see an increase in sales during the holidays because they’ve invested in email marketing and they’ve been sending out sales and discounting emails all year long.
There are many different strategies you can try out with your email marketing this holiday season. One of the most popular strategies that retailers use during the holidays is a countdown to the holidays.
This is where you create emails for different holidays, like Halloween or Thanksgiving, and you count down the days until each holiday. The emails will have content related to the holiday and discount offers associated with that holiday.
Another popular email marketing strategy for the holidays is sending out “Wishlists.” Wishlists are emails that are sent to your customers that have a Wishlist feature associated with their account.
Customers can add products to their wishlist and set them to private so other people can’t see them. Wishlists are a great way to create more sales and customers can shop from their wishlist at any time during the year.
Create great ad copy and video scripts
The holiday season is a great time to take advantage of ad marketing and run festive ads to drive new customers to your store. With that in mind, it’s important to put a little more thought into your ad copy and video scripts than you may normally do. You want to make sure your ads are festive and on-brand.
That doesn’t mean you need to talk about how your retail store is ready to celebrate Christmas. Instead, focus on what your customers want to hear. What are they looking forward to at this time of year? What do they need? You also need to make sure that your ad copy is as targeted as possible.
You want to make sure that your ads are showing up for the right keywords and that they’re reaching the right customers. If you have access to the data from your ad platform, examine it and make sure your ads are as optimized as possible. Get feedback from your team on what they think would make the ads more effective.
Make Influencers a Part of Your Marketing Strategy
In today’s digital landscape, brand recognition is more challenging than ever before. To cut through all of the noise and stand out among your competitors, you need a marketing strategy that will give you a leg up on the competition.
An effective way to do this is by investing in influencer marketing. It may seem like something only massive corporations can afford, but the truth is that even smaller businesses can—and should— implement an influencer marketing strategy.
Influencers are people who have credibility with their followers on social media or another online forum. They are trusted advisors who can endorse products in a way that feels natural and unforced for the audience they have built. If you’re ready to leverage the power of influencers to help promote your business, keep reading to learn how!
The idea is to tap into the trust that your audience has for these people and translate that trust into brand loyalty. For example, you could partner with a fitness YouTuber to create an online training course that promotes your protein bars as an ideal snack while they’re exercising. The YouTuber will get a commission on the protein bars you sell and you’ll generate sales from their devoted fanbase
Why Use Influencer Marketing?
It’s no secret that people are more plugged in than ever. Today’s consumers are constantly glued to their phones and computers, which means that digital marketing is crucial for businesses. But finding the right marketing channels and setting them up for success can be time-consuming and complex.
This is where influencer marketing comes in. It’s an easy way to build brand awareness, drive sales, and save time and money. All you need to do is find influencers who align with your business and product, then reach out and make a deal.
When you work with influencers to create sponsored posts, you can get your marketing efforts off the ground quickly and with minimal investment. It’s a reliable way to get your products in front of a new audience and see a positive impact on your bottom line.
Add Sponsored Content As Part Of your marketing strategy
Sponsored Content is content that is created and published by an influencer that’s essentially an advertisement for your brand.
This could take the form of a blog post, video, podcast episode, or social media post. When you’re ready to launch your sponsored content campaign, find out the best way for you to pay your influencers. Some marketers prefer to pay a one-time fee, while others negotiate a rate for each piece of sponsored content published.
Whatever you decide, make sure you have an agreement in place. This includes details such as the content you’re hoping the influencer creates for your brand, the amount you’re willing to pay, and how your brand will be acknowledged.
Final Words
The holidays are a great time of year to be creative and try new things. If you’re not doing something special during the holidays, you’re missing out on a lot of potential sales.
There’s no better way to get your retail marketing strategy ready for the holidays than to start early. Now is the time to plan out your strategy, experiment with new tools and technologies, and get your ad copy and video scripts ready for the busy season.
As with any marketing campaign, retail marketing requires a sound strategy and a bit of patience. It’s unlikely that you’ll see immediate results from your retail campaign, but it’s important to be patient and track your progress over time.
You may want to start small and work your way up as you hone your skills, and make sure you have everything in place before you launch your first retail marketing campaign. You’ll want to create a detailed plan that outlines what you want to accomplish, how you’re going to reach out to your audience, and how you’ll track your progress. When you invest in retail marketing strategy, you can expect to see a positive impact on your sales and brand awareness.
