If you are having trouble deciding on a campaign for the holidays, step back a bit.
What is it you want to “move off the shelf” or sell? What do you want to focus on?
Do you have promotions you want to run each year?
The bottom line is that at this time of the year customers are looking for, expect, sales on our products.
Once you have an idea of what products or services you want to focus on, then you can begin building a campaign or two.
Set a timeline.
Once you decide on what you are focusing on, then decide on a target date for your launch. From there work backward accounting for how long you need to run your campaign.
Make sure to include some buffer time for anything that might go wrong.
Are they going to land on a landing page, in a shopping cart, or in your store? How will they buy?
I recommend having a dedicated page for holiday specials or one for each special.
It will make it easier to track your success and funnel your traffic to your specials.
For example, at some point, you will put your special on Facebook (social media) and you will want to use a specific URL link back to that page. Don’t send them to the homepage hoping to find the special on their own.
You may also promote your special in an email. The same thing applies here, send them to your unique page.
The anatomy of a digital campaign
Your digital campaign can be very complex or be very simple. Either way, the advantage of a digital campaign is the ability to measure.
It should look something like this:
Conversion
Product
Landing page
Content Channels:
Social media – paid or organic
Website – Other pages send them to your landing page
Emails – announce specials with a button/link to the landing page
Anatomy of a Digital Campaign
If you haven’t been emailing your subscribers, now is the time to get them warmed up. The worst thing is sending an email at the holidays asking them to buy something on sale when you haven’t emailed them in over a year.
Make sure your website is ready to go meaning you have completed your maintenance, made software updates, and shored up any speed issues.
You will likely need to create some graphic assets for your website, your email, and social media.
Consider doing regular content updates starting in November. (Actually, do them year-round, don’t wait till the holidays)
Start with your blog. You may ramp up publishing to keep your business top of mind. Once you have created your content calendar for your blog, turn to your email.
Be sure to send emails. If you are going to send more than normal, let your list know and give them a chance to opt-out.
Explain you have specials coming up and you may send more emails than you normally do.
The blog articles you publish are great jumping-off points for your emails. Be creative. You can use something like the Twelve Days of Christmas to create content each day for twelve days.
Last year I created a parody of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas for my client’s blog. You can have fun.
There are many holidays at the end of the year, so if your customers are from all religions, you may need to pay attention to all the end-of-year holidays.
Plan content >> write blog articles
Use your blog articles as core content for social media and emails.
Make sure to send your readers to your special holiday page.
Once you have your content ideas in place, take a look at your timeline. You can begin charting the content with your timeline and you have your content campaigns set.
Wrapping it up
So, what are you planning to sell for the end of year holidays? Have you started planning yet?
If you need a content planner for the final quarter –or next year– take a look at the Content Creator’s Planner.
My friends Kim and Jodi are the creators, and they are people I trust. They have specials going on right now so make sure to pay attention to the coupon code!
Questions? Hit reply. I’ll see if I can give you some help.
