6 Tips for Creating a Successful Holiday Advertising Strategy

The holidays come at us quickly, and as a business owner, you need to have a specific plan of attack for the holiday season. Buyer behavior changes and competition will increase. Creating a successful holiday advertising strategy will allow you to make the most of the busy holiday season in a way that will impact your bottom line. Wondering how to do this? We’ve outlined our best tips below.

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Start planning early

Every year the holidays sneak up faster than we think! The holiday season really ramps up in October, so having your plan decided and finalized by August or early September is a good goal. An organized, agreed upon strategy that is put in place well ahead of the holiday season will ensure you and your business are ready to jump in head-on.

Know what your promotion is for each holiday

Map out each holiday on a calendar and identify what promotion you are (or aren’t) running for them. Decide on the language the company is going to use to advertise that promotion. Consistent language across all of your advertising and marketing platforms creates a strong brand and a more successful campaign. Once you know which promotions you’re running for each holiday and how you want to talk about them, you can plan work backward to figure out when you want to start advertising for that promotion, and on which platforms.

Write content that is holiday-specific

The more holiday-specific you can be with the content of your marketing materials, the better. According to Google, 7 out of 10 holiday shoppers are completely undecided on what to buy when they start shopping for the holidays. The more relevant you can make your content to the wants and needs of searchers online, the more likely they are to engage.

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Emphasize your differentiator

When writing that marketing content, make sure to emphasize the part of your product or service that makes you different from your competitors in a succinct and enticing way. Due to the fact that the majority of holiday shoppers are undecided about gifts, it’s important that your offering stands out from other offerings instantly.

Know your budget

Your normal online advertising budget is not enough to really take advantage of the holiday season, you’ll need to increase your budget to advertise to a larger volume of shoppers.

It’s important that you decide on a budget for each individual holiday promotion. Search volume increases and buyer behavior is different than the rest of the year. Planning to spend more on advertising efforts during the holiday season is a great way to make the most of the increased search volume and buyer engagement. This slightly larger, short-term investment has the potential to have a big impact on your bottom line.

Have a mobile-specific advertising strategy

By now, we all know this: mobile is bigger than ever. Around the holidays, mobile search behavior surges. Google reports that 4 out of 5 holiday shoppers use their phone during spare moments. It’s important that whatever your advertising strategy is for the holidays, you include a mobile strategy to cater to the large portion of your audience that will be actively searching on their mobile devices.

For example, running mobile ads on social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram can have a big impact. These platforms work differently than Google because they serve ads to users who are not actively shopping at the moment. Ads are served based on their online behavior. If they are deemed a fit for what you’re advertising, they will see an ad. That way, if the user is browsing family holiday photos on Instagram, you can also deliver them gift ideas in the ad space of their feed.

Ready to launch your holiday advertising strategy?

We’re well into the holiday season, but some of the most important holidays haven’t happened yet! If you’re feeling unprepared, let us help! Get in touch and we can discuss how we might be able to assist in building out or executing your holiday advertising strategy so that you see success during these next couple of months.