Plans to engage holiday audiences differ from our everyday strategies? As a whole, the concepts remain the same, just at a slightly faster pace. During the Holidays, your audience is usually on a time crunch, more stressed, and focused on what value you can provide.
Is there a way you can reach your audience and help them save time? Reduce their holiday stress? Is there a way to demonstrate higher value from the services you offer? From social media posts to services provided, we’re reviewing Three Tips that will help you engage your audience this holiday and keep them coming back into the new year.
Make Offers Simple and Refusable.
With so many sales and discounts going on, your customers are bound to be faced with a ton of offers. And that’s great! You want to make sure you’re reaching as many people as possible.
Adopt your business for the new era
Visits to physical stores during the 2021 Black Friday weekend decreased by -21.7% compared to 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.
While COVID-19 remains a major factor in driving traffic away from physical stores, retailers can be encouraged by this decrease in the rate of decline.
In 2020, visits to physical stores were down -50% YoY (year-over-year) for the same period. Additionally, Black Friday weekend visits were down -40% YoY compared to 2019.
This year, however, shopper traffic increased by 34.2% compared to 2020, showing a progressively favorable outlook for retailers as we approach the holiday season and COVID-19 restrictions loosen up.
As expected during an ongoing pandemic, eCommerce showed a very strong performance once again this year: According to a report by CNN Business, “Real-time figures from Mastercard projected that overall sales totaled US$ 23 billion on Black Friday alone. That’s up about 9% from the day after Thanksgiving last year.” People are now back to their regular life. So the Sales during the holiday is Increasing much better than the previous year.
Instead, try something new this year. Sending out an offer that’ll only be relevant for Black Friday or Cyber Monday (and probably won’t be seen anyway), try something that’ll help people all year long.
One way we like to do that is by,
- Offering a free download or worksheet helps our customer plan their holiday budget.
- A challenge: Set a goal for yourself and see if your customers can top it.
- A mini-course: Offer simple training related to what you sell.
- A free sample: Some businesses sell items that require a personal touch — offer your customers a sample so they can see for themselves how great the quality is!
Though not super exciting to them, but they can use it throughout the year, and they still get rewarded for being loyal customers!
So think about what you can offer that’ll have some longevity, while also showing your customers how much you appreciate them during the busiest time of the year.
Launch an appreciation campaign for your customers.
We’re always looking for ways to show our followers we appreciate them. Some brands do this by running contests and giveaways (and sometimes even offering free products), and others use user-generated content (UGC) to give their customers a virtual shout-out.
For example, the skincare brand Curology often runs customer appreciation campaigns that act as a “soft promotion” for their business and products. They’ll ask followers to post about their skin challenges or swap product stories, asking them to use specific hashtags in the caption.
Many beauty brands also have been known to run UGC campaigns (user-generated content) by asking fans or subscribers to tag them in their posts or by commenting on one of their posts with #contest. This is a great way for you to curate content from your most engaged customers and reach new ones.
There’s one other way you can show your followers that you appreciate them — a way that’s especially effective if you have an e-commerce shop: offer a discount code specifically for your Instagram followers.
That’s what underwear brand MeUndies recently did when they offered a 40% discount on select products to their subscribers and followers during the holidays.
Say, Thanks.
What began as a parade after Thanksgiving day to announce the unofficial start of the holiday season soon grew into the biggest shopping carnival of the year in the early 1980s.
Thank your customers for shopping with you. Thank them for being loyal customers and for choosing you to help them celebrate the Holidays. A great way to engage your audience is to thank them for being your audience. You should thank them for being loyal followers on social media, thank them for shopping with you when they make a purchase, thank them for stopping in when they come and browse your store or website. A customer that feels appreciated is more likely to purchase.
According to Adobe Analytics, online sales during Black Friday jumped by 23.6% in 2018, clocking $6.22 billion. It was also the first time smartphones played a pivotal role, with more than $2 billion in sales stemming from it.
It’s no surprise that brands are taking advantage of this annual event to reach out to their audiences, but what’s important to remember is that most people aren’t focused on shopping — they’re focused on celebrating the holiday and having a good time with family and friends. So how can you make the most of this unique opportunity?
Taking the time to thank customers for their support is something every brand should do regularly-and doing so over the Holidays weekend can be a powerful moment for your social media presence.
So how do brands do their best to attract the people who liked their products during the Holidays? They create giving atmospheres. For example, Starbucks might give you free products for your encouragement in joining them their app, Target will fill its store with pine decorations to attract more people walking in, some companies might organize big sale events during the weekend.
There are many paths that you can take to engage your audience for the holidays. These strategies can be applied no matter how large or small your marketing budget is.
