8 Tips to Elevate Your Holiday Marketing Campaigns in 2022

No matter your industry, the holiday season presents a great opportunity for your digital marketing campaigns. In 2021, overall holiday spending in the U.S. reached $886.7 billion according to moneytransfers.com. Holiday spending is set to increase even more in 2022, so creating effective holiday marketing strategies is vital to capitalizing on these trends. 

Last year, we covered the basics of holiday marketing in our blog post Taking Advantage of Holiday Marketing. In this blog post, we’ll cover specific ways that you can improve your holiday marketing strategies in 2022. Try these eight holiday marketing ideas to increase your sales, build brand awareness, increase engagement, and set your business up for success beyond the holiday season!

1. Retarget & Remarket

If you’re not already taking advantage of retargeting ads, now is a great time to start. Retargeting ads allow you to show your ads to users who visited your website but did not complete a conversion. Serving ads to consumers who have already shown interest in your business can be an extremely effective Google Ads campaign. Remarketing email campaigns geared toward past customers is another great way to remind users who are familiar with your business about your products/services, deals, etc.

2. Embrace Email Marketing

Remarketing email campaigns aren't the only effective holiday email marketing strategy. Target new and past customers with enticing email offers. From early access to holiday sales to exclusive coupons and discounts, exclusive email offers can be a great way to get new customers to sign up for your email list. The following tips can all be incorporated into your holiday email marketing campaigns for optimal results.  

3. Show Your Business's Holiday Spirit 

The holiday season is a great excuse to switch up your website and social media content to create more informal and eye-catching content. Showing off your company's culture on social media, adding a festive homepage banner to your website, updating your social media profile pictures and cover images, creating fun and festive promotions, etc. are all great ways to grab your customers’ attention.

4. Switch Up Your Social Media

There are three main ways you can switch up your social media marketing to capitalize on the holiday season.  

1. What you post: The holidays are a great time to show off your company culture. Pictures of staff dressed up for Halloween or at the office Christmas party can be a great excuse to post more informal content. Festive, branded graphics can be a lot more eye-catching than the graphic style used during the rest of the year. This is also a great time to start posting more stories on social media, where you can easily encourage engagement with story polls, questions, etc.

2. Where you post: If you’re only posting to one or two platforms, the holiday season can be a great time to try out a new platform. Seasonal hashtags and content can help your new account reach more people and attract more followers. 

3. How you post: Switch up what type of content you post across different social media accounts. Post different types of graphics or pictures, use different hashtags, adjust the formality of posts, post to different platforms on different days, etc. 

5. Try Video Marketing 

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Even if your business does not have a YouTube account, video marketing can present a great seasonal promotional opportunity. Video testimonials, seasonal video ads, festive informational videos, etc. are all forms of content that can be used on a variety of platforms. Aside from YouTube, you can incorporate your videos into social posts, embed them on a website page, feature them in emails, and so much more. 

6. Appeal to Consumers' Emotions 

The holiday season evokes strong emotions in consumers from nostalgia to excitement to sentimentality. Create marketing campaigns (be it paid advertising, social campaigns, promotional emails, etc.) built around these emotions to create more effective content. Whether your content is festive and funny or moving and inspirational, well-crafted content can invoke powerful emotions, and in turn, better results. 

7. Team Up

People coming together is a central theme during the holiday season, so incorporate it into your marketing strategy! Collaborate with another business or organization to cross-promote and reach a whole new audience. This can manifest in a wide variety of ways from partnering with a charity to donating a portion of profits to working with another business relevant to your industry to offer co-branded product bundles, deals, and events. This not only helps you reach a whole new audience but can also help you create more attractive offers and promotions for your existing audience. 

8. Take a Page Out of Last Year's Playbook 

Fresh ideas and new tactics are necessary for success, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't revisit last year's holiday marketing strategy. Were there any specific campaigns that performed well last year? Any campaigns that did poorly? Having an idea of what will and won’t work for your business is an essential foundation for creating a more successful holiday marketing strategy in 2022. This doesn't necessarily mean doing the exact same thing that worked before or avoiding an area that didn't do as well. Instead, extrapolate and adapt specific factors that worked and see how they can be applied to the areas that did not. 

Avoid Common Holiday Marketing Mistakes

These holiday marketing tips aren't the only things to keep in mind when planning your holiday marketing strategy. When incorporating new tactics and ideas, don’t let holiday marketing mistakes hinder your success. A few common holiday marketing mistakes include:

• Waiting too long to start planning: Each year, holiday shopping starts earlier and earlier. Having a well-defined plan far in advance of each holiday is important in setting yourself up for success.

• Not trying something new: Using the exact same holiday marketing strategy as last year, or even worse, not adopting any form of holiday marketing limits the potential for success by failing to capitalize on new opportunities for your business. 

• Using the same strategy for different holidays: While all of the tips above can be modified to fit each holiday, your overall holiday marketing strategy and campaigns should be tailored to each specific holiday. For example, an heartfelt, inspirational post is great for Christmas, but an informal, funny post would be better for Halloween.  

• Failing to prepare for traffic influx: With more traffic during the holiday season, it's important that your website is equipped to handle larger traffic influxes. Make sure you have the stock needed to meet demand and the staff to provide high-quality customer service during this busy season. 

• Failing to upsell: Not only do you want to attract more customers with your holiday marketing strategy, but you also want to get the most out of each customer interaction. Encourage purchasing more products by offering free shipping on orders over x amount of dollars, offer email exclusive discounts to get more customer contact information, offer a percentage off of a customer's next purchase on the receipt or in a confirmation email, etc. 

• Inconsistent branding: While each holiday undoubtedly has its own aesthetic, you still want to maintain brand consistency. There are plenty of ways to do this ranging from branded seasonal graphics to ensuring your business's core values and message are reflected in holiday marketing campaigns. 

Make The Most Out Of Your Marketing All Year Round

From paid advertising services to social media marketing to graphic design services and more, Global Reach can meet all of your marketing needs all year round. Let us help you grow your business in new ways during the holiday season and beyond with our comprehensive digital marketing services! 

Get a FREE Digital Marketing Consultation Today!