Oh, my goodness! Thanksgiving is next week, which means Black Friday is, too. How did 2017 go by so quickly? If you’re looking forward to a busy holiday season, then you’ve probably been planning your marketing efforts for a while now. There may be a few things you’ve forgotten, though. That’s why we pulled together this list of last-minute marketing tips so you can be sure you’ve covered all your bases before the shopping season officially begins.
Focus on Your Customer
The holiday season brings with it anxiety about the sales numbers you’ll hit. This might prompt you to create marketing materials that go for the hard sales push, but that’s not going to win you any new buyers. Your focus should instead be on the buyer. What are his needs this holiday season? What are the pain points?
Keep in mind that buyers at this time of year are often shopping outside their comfort zones. Grandparents are searching for items their teenaged grandchildren would like. Husbands and boyfriends are roaming the aisles and searching ecommerce sites for something special for their significant others. They’ll have questions, and it’s your job to answer those questions.
Take a look at your website, your social media posts, and your blogs. Are they focused on the customer or on your bottom line? Take some time to fix it up quickly. You still have some time.
Segment Those Buyers
During this time of year, you probably have several different email campaigns ready to fly at the touch of a button. Are you sending every one of those emails to every one of your contacts? If so, you’re cruising for some holiday burnout. Nothing slows your sales like a mass unsubscribe.
Instead, take the time to segment your buyers according to their personas so they receive emails that seem personalized to their wants and pain points. Baby Boomers don’t want to open emails that have obviously targeted Millennials, and Millennials won’t be moved by marketing geared toward older crowds. Beyond that, you don’t want to send out marketing content to those who have recently purchased the very product you’re promoting.
You can’t possibly have the time to treat each and every buyer like an old friend, but segmenting your email lists will definitely give your buyers the feeling that you know them and their needs.
Check for Mobile Responsiveness
It’s almost 2018. If you don’t have a mobile responsive website, you’re already behind the rest of the world. But mobile responsiveness goes beyond even your website, your company’s biggest marketing tool.
What about those emails you just segmented? Is the email client you’re using mobile responsive, too? Nothing frustrates consumers more than opening an interesting email, only to have it jumble into an incoherent mess on their phone screen. How can they see the offer, much less buy it?
Double check all of your marketing materials now—the website, your landing pages, your email messages, and yes, even your social media marketing images and videos. Test them for use on a mobile device, because 54% of emails are now opened on mobile devices, 80% of social media time is spent on a mobile device, and mobile browsing has now overtaken desktop and laptop browsing with 51.3% to 48.7%.
Have you discovered that you’re not as ready for your holiday marketing campaigns as you thought? There’s still time—but only a little bit. And of course, if we can help, we’re always here for you. Give us a call!
