The holidays are fast approaching- and I mean like CRAZY fast. 2021 has flown by and the holiday season will be just the same, so it’s important to get a jump start on your holiday marketing ASAP. In a world that has dramatically shifted focus to online platforms over the last two years, digital marketing becomes imperative to your holiday sales strategy. Here are a few of the trends that we’ve seen growing and increasing in popularity for this year.
Overall 2021 Holiday Trends & Themes
Express gratitude
The theme of expressing gratitude in your marketing messaging is all but required at this point. Showing thanks for your customer base, your support system, your employees, it goes a long way. Expressing gratitude humanizes your company, allows people to connect with you, and shows you care more about humanity than anything else.
Customer-centered advertising
Focusing on the customer’s needs and desires is becoming an overall sales tactic and will be amplified by the holidays. Customers want to see the value that your products or services will bring them, not read a dissertation on how great you are. Another part of customer-centered advertising is meeting your customers where they are. If your product is tailored to Gen Z girls, you probably want to focus efforts more on Instagram, investing in advertising and listing your products in the shops. If you’re gearing your marketing towards older CEOs, LinkedIn is the place to be.
Start early
“If you’re not early, you’re late”. Some businesses start planning for the year’s holiday season immediately after the last one ends. For other companies, that kind of long-term planning may not be feasible, which is okay. But it’s still important to get a jump start on the holidays ASAP. According to a survey done by CreditCards.com, 51% of shoppers plan to start buying holiday gifts before Halloween 2021.
Ecommerce
As we all know, the world is shifting to a majority online focus. In 2020, there was a 47% increase in e-commerce sales during the holiday season. The survey done by CreditCards.com reports that 62% of people surveyed plan on making most of their purchases online. If your business isn’t already selling online, now is a great time to start. If you are selling online, consider expanding into a variety of channels to meet your customers where they are, as well as heavily pushing advertising towards your e-commerce storefront.
Social Media Holiday Trends
Appeal to emotions
People use social media to connect, express solidarity, share their stories, and form communities. While there is still a lot of smoke and mirrors, Instagram vs. Reality kind of situations, marketers have seen great success appealing to the emotions of their following. With the way the world is shifting, people want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves, so including emotional appeals in your 2021 holiday marketing campaigns can go a long way.
Use video in your social media
Video marketing has been an ever-growing medium for many years now. With the explosion of TikTok and Reels, it has become even more essential. Working video into your social media strategy needs to be a cornerstone for your holiday social media marketing success.
Advertise directly to FB/IG Shops
Along with the push for e-commerce shopping comes the ability to sell your products directly on Facebook and Instagram. Shops overall is becoming increasingly popular and we expect to see great revenue pushed through the features this year. List your products on Facebook and IG shops and push some ads to your products- you won’t be sorry.
Email Marketing Holiday Trends
Sales Emails
Advertising sales through email marketing allows you to once again meet your customers where they’re at. Knowing that lots of people are shopping online this year, targeting people with emails to advertise online sales can help you boost your revenue. Just be sure you’re meeting in that sweet spot of decreased prices and increased sales.
Build up excitement
Email marketing is a great way to help your business stay on top of your customer’s minds and to build up excitement for a coming event. Say you’re having a huge Black Friday sale- advertise it through email marketing the whole month leading up to it. That way, when it comes time to buy, your customers know that you’re having a sale and remember to buy from you.
Personalization
In today’s world, everything is personalized. Your email marketing should be no different. Customers want to feel like they’re important to you and personalized emails help them maintain a connection with your business. You can of course personalize easy things, like their name in the email and the subject line. Another way of personalizing your emails is through things like abandoned cart emails or sending people emails for sales items they were looking at already.
Google Ads Holiday Trends
Cost is higher – be prepared
The biggest 2021 Google Ads holiday trend (and also a trend we’ve been seeing grow over the years) is an increased cost for advertising during the holiday season. Because so many people run ads during the holidays, your cost per click may be higher than it normally is. You need to prepare for this increased cost and work with your team to specifically build and target your ads to ensure they’re optimized as best as they can be.
Utilizing the wide variety of different ad types
In the world of Google Ads, many different ad types are available. Search text ads, display ads, shopping ads, service ads. All are important, but what is even more important is for you to strategize which ad type will be best for your business. For example, maybe you’re currently paying for search text ads. But, in your industry, search text ads get placed below shopping ads or worse, below the fold. Figure out where your competitors place ads and where you typically see success in your ads and strategize the best ads for you.
Incorporate brand awareness ads into your strategy
With display ads and branded search text ads, ads focused on generating brand awareness are inexpensive. Businesses should take advantage of brand awareness ads to generate exposure and keep their brand in front of potential customers. Companies often forgo the use of brand awareness ads because they don’t always show direct ROI, but every impression made on a potential customer can influence a sale.
All of these ideas and strategies work together to bring your business success during the 2021 holiday season. However, we know that it can be tough to figure out exactly which strategies will work best for you. If you’re looking to really ramp up your marketing efforts to see amazing success this season, reach out to our team. We would love to help you with one final push to round out the year and continue that success with you into 2022!
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