12 Profitable Holiday Marketing Ideas To Make This Your Best Year Yet
If your holiday marketing ideas aren’t ready to roll by the middle of October, you’re going to be behind. Don’t start your digital marketing from behind – that doesn’t help your customers connect with your amazing product, and it doesn’t help your bottom line, either.
Below you will find a nice even dozen of our favorite holiday marketing ideas for 2022. Consider these our free gifts to you in an effort to make this wonderful time of the year the most successful for your business.
Offer Some Limited Time Holiday Deals (Even If You’re In B2B)
Although Black Friday is looking less and less like the insane rugby scrum of years past, it is still “a thing” after the world of retail essentially canceled it in 2020 at the height of the global pandemic.
If there’s one thing we associate with Black Friday, it’s getting those amazing deals.
You might think this kind of strategy only makes sense with retail, but it can work for B2B marketing, too. Don’t forget that even though your office may be closed for the holidays, there are many companies that are open during the holidays because they are serving those who are traveling or taking time off. Aside from traditional consumer retail, other industries that regularly operate during holiday time periods include:
- Convenience Stores
- Emergency Healthcare
- Entertainment Venues (think movie theaters, sports arenas, etc.)
- Hospitals
- Hospitality
- Pharmacies
- Restaurants
- Travel and Transportation
For a few standout holiday marketing ideas, you could offer a discounted rate for one of the services you offer tailored to these specific industries. Or a coupon code that accomplishes the same thing. Just remember to make these offers redemptive. Instead of simply giving the deal away, offer it in exchange for completing a contact form, or gate it off with a form to capture some basic information.
If you identify these markets as high relevance for your products and services, prospective clients working during holidays will likely interested in your discounted services.
That’s what we call some “solid leads,” what about you?
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Setup A Google Performance Max Campaign
If you have an e-commerce site, there is no reason not to run Google Shopping ads. As far as holiday marketing ideas go, Google Shopping should be your bread and butter if you rely on digital channels to generate direct response sales.
However, in today’s modern digital advertising landscape, there is only one way to get your ads showing in Google Shopping… setup a Performance Max ad campaign in Google.
One of the things we’ve always liked the most about Google Shopping is that the ads are a combination of text search and visual ads. The user sees a picture of the item and also relevant information pulled from your feed by Google.
When it comes to setting up a Performance Max campaign so that your ads can be seen in Google Shopping, we are taking a more cautious approach. Instead of telling you to go all in on Performance Max, we strongly suggest running it with a “test and see” mindset.
If this is the first time you are hearing about Performance Max, or simply want to learn more about the basics of Performance Max campaigns before deciding to go all-in on them for your 2022 holiday campaigns, learn more by pressing play on the video below.
Once you are up to speed on Performance Max and have your campaigns set up to run Google Shopping, here’s the most important thing you can do when running a this campaigns: optimize your feed! Without feed optimization, you will be completely dependent upon Google to show your product for the right searches.
Like we said above, you should be taking a “test and see” approach to Performance Max campaigns. So, while you can still have some type of manual control over where your products are being shown, we recommend you continue to use it.
Along with that, if your feed is optimized, Google will be able to automatically pull information such as free shipping and place it in your Product Ads.
During the holiday shopping season, it is more important than ever to keep your feed as updated as possible. What do you think happens if someone clicks on an ad for a product, only to find out that you are sold out? They go somewhere else.
Don’t miss out on sales because of Google’s machine learning putting your products in front of the wrong buyers or because you have overlooked your feed management.
If you have doubts that your Performance Max campaign is ready for the holiday season – mind if we take a look with a complimentary PPC consultation?
Submit Your Product Feed For Free Clicks
At the beginning of the pandemic, we shared an important update Google made to it’s Shopping platform – online retailers could sell products for free through the platform.
Fast forward more than two years later… and those free to sell options are still available on the platform.
If you haven’t submitted your product feed to Google so that your products can be listed in free “Popular Products” search results like the one shown above – what are you waiting for?
Sure, we know these search results look awfully similar to the Google Shopping ads shown above, so how can you tell the difference?
Simple… shopping listings that are supported with advertising will always be labeled with “Sponsored” or “Ad” in the heading before the actual listing.
If you already use Google Merchant Center or Performance Max, you do not have to change a thing to receive these unpaid clicks. While the amount of impressions your products will receive for unpaid clicks will not be as high as if you were paying per click in Performance Max, this can still be a revenue generating strategy for the holiday shopping season.
Want to review your Merchant Center to see your unpaid clicks?
Learn How Here.
Change Up Your Ad Text
Customers are so used to seeing “50% Off. Order Now!” or “Great Deals!” Instead, show them what they want to see… specifically what it is you can offer them this holiday season.
So, be creative with your marketing campaigns!
If you sell gloves, use some copy that reads, “Baby, it’s Cold Outside! Warm Up with a New Pair of Gloves.”
If you sell products that are irrelevant to the cold season, no worries. You can still find ways to use the season to your advantage and inject a little “holiday spirit” in your campaigns.
Dynamic Search + Shopping = Re$ult$.
Learn How This Online Retailer
Improved Sales 115% During Busy Season.
Embrace Retargeting
When done right, retargeting can take your accounts to the next level when it comes to low-cost conversions.
This is the nice thing about retargeting: based on how your audiences are built, you can segment customers by intent.
If you have an audience for an informational page such as About Us, you know that there is some interest, but the customer is probably not ready to buy yet. You can tailor ads specifically for that audience with messaging to entice them to come back and learn more.
Along with that, if you have an audience for cart abandoners, you know there was intent to buy there – but something changed that. If you create ads that give the customer a reason to come back, you can create conversions from missed opportunities.
Lean On Email, Social, And Automation
Your messaging doesn’t need to slow down too much while you’re sipping eggnog, spinning the dreidel, lighting the candles, prepping for a fast, or ordering Chinese food with your dog.
And you don’t have to be on the stick (or at the keyboard, if you’re not a pilot) prepared to make a correction.
Most people aren’t going to be sitting in front of their computers or visiting their favorite websites for new content during the holidays. Rather, this is a perfect time to engage them where they are: on their phones, scrolling social media, and reading email.
The great news about those avenues is that you can write your social media and email marketing messages early, and then schedule them to roll out at predetermined times.
Just make sure nothing newsworthy happens that might make your subject lines or messaging seem tone-deaf.
List Holiday Sales Prominently
No one can participate in your sale if they don’t know it exists. To help boost your 2022 holiday sales, make sure your biggest promotions are front and center.
One of the best ways to do this is by incorporating your sale into your branded color design, using a holiday themed banner or other top-of-page display. This immediately makes the connection between your holiday promotions and the holiday shopping rush. Add a call to action and a link to your perfect gift products, or gift cards, and you’ll be ready to go.
Discounts should also be displayed prominently, especially around top selling products. In addition to displaying discounts on product cards and pages, special Black Friday deals, holiday specials, and gift guide call outs can be displayed both on your product pages and other holiday campaign landing pages.
Make It Easy To Convert
This is a year-round tip, but it’s especially important during the peak of the holiday shopping season.
Make sure each product on your landing page is designed with a clear purchasing path, which can be used on both desktop and mobile devices.
In the simplest instances, you can create a button that adds the product directly to the shopper’s cart. You can also display a sidebar with the current cart contents, allowing customers to see what they’ve chosen, and seamlessly check out when they’re ready.
For all your sales processes, the key is to minimize the steps it takes to purchase. The easier the conversion path, the fewer abandoned carts you’ll see all year.
Optimize Your Pages For Mobile Devices
According to Forbes, holiday spending on mobile reached $88 billion dollars last year. While the pandemic brought a lot of us in front of our bigger screens, mobile sales still increased as the calendar flipped closer to the big holidays.
Suffice it to say if your holiday landing pages aren’t optimized for mobile, you’re losing out on a huge consumer opportunity.
To optimize your seasonal landing pages for mobile:
- Make sure that the buttons are large enough to be seen and interacted with on smaller screens.
- Format holiday banners for mobile devices, keeping text size in mind.
- Don’t overload your mobile landing pages with too much text.
- Ensure that getting from products to checkout is simple, minimizing the number of “touches” between your product and cart pages.
Don’t Forget About Microsoft
Think Google is your only option when it comes to search engine advertising for your holiday marketing campaign? Think again. Microsoft can be one of those great holiday marketing ideas because it is an easy to deploy, high volume secondary platform to use to reach your target audience. Why would you want to pass up 20% of the search market?
Microsoft does not have the reach Google has, but it has an audience that has spending power. Microsoft’s search advertising solutions on Bing and across their entire network are great for reaching those that are not as tech-savvy (*cough* parents and grandparents *cough*) because they are less likely to use a browser, or a search engine, other than what Windows devices provide as the default.
Create A Sense Of Urgency
This is true for all product pages, all the time, but the holiday season is a fantastic time for retail sites because the urgency is already built-in!
What you can do is emphasize the timeliness of your sales on your site, reminding your customers that they need to act now if they want to surprise their special someone on time.
One of the best ways to do this is with the popular holiday countdown timer. You’ll see Amazon do this with their Cyber Monday deals, counting down the hours until each product special is gone forever—and it works.
Display your timer above the fold or along a sidebar, where your customers can easily see how much time they have left, and prepare to watch this be one of those holiday marketing ideas that will automatically push your holiday sails up!
Finally, Don’t Forget To Be Sincere
Your employees love each other, even if they fight like siblings sometimes. Your clients think you’re doing a great job, and you’re thankful for the ability to provide them with goods or services this time of year.
The holidays are also about love, acceptance, and gratitude. Don’t be afraid to show that side of yourself to the people who matter to you. We could all use a little more joy these days.
Don’t shy away from incorporating some of these timeless feelings and emotions that well up in the people who will consume the content you create for your holiday marketing strategy.
You might be surprised how far a little “I appreciate you” or “We understand what you’re going through” messaging can go in spreading more of that holiday cheer.
As the calendar year draws to a close, do you find yourself behind pace with your lead generation or sales goals? Even though the holidays are drawing close, there’s still time to meet, achieve, or exceed your goals. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how our digital marketing services can help you accomplish your best year yet!
