Sales Driven Marketing Hub

Just because the holiday season is approaching doesn’t mean your marketing team should slow down.

Let’s take a look at some marketing activities and how you should plan for them this holiday season. Here’s why social media, mobile, and email marketers need to stay engaged.

Social Media Marketing

According to a report by Accenture, there are predictable spikes in social activity during the holiday period. Furthermore, people are using social networking sites to “assist them in their holiday shopping.” At 13 percent in 2014 (the latest available report), the number of social media holiday shoppers has increased by two percent since 2013 and eight percent by 2012. Given these statistics, we can only expect this trend to continue to gain popularity. 

What does this mean for social media marketers? If anything, your social activity should increase during the holiday season. Up your budget for social paid advertising and increase your publishing frequency. The holidays are also a great time to invest in remarketing/retargeting campaigns.

Mobile Marketing

Similar to social media marketing, more and more people are using their mobile devices to browse the internet and shop during the holidays.

Accenture found that, at 36 percent, more than one-third of shoppers “said they would shop this year using a mobile phone, smartphone, or tablet.” Furthermore, 44 percent of respondents said that “an easy-to-use website would make them more likely to buy” online. 

Therefore, when it comes to mobile marketing, marketers need to ensure that their websites are mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. You don’t want to lose a potential customer because your mobile site wasn’t working properly or easy to use and therefore s/he bounced away.

Email Marketing 

The holidays are also a great time for email marketing. According to research by Yesmail, more consumers opened emails sent by businesses during both the 2013 and 2014 holiday seasons.

According a conversation Yes Lifecycle Marketing President Michael Fisher had with Inc. Magazine: 

“Brands are creating better mobile experiences, developing comprehensive segmentation strategies, and implementing advanced personalization. These practices translate into more informed campaigns that achieve better inboxing rates.”

A note to email marketers: make your emails holiday-themed. When sent at the right time, holiday-related emails had a 15.5 percent open rate whereas all other emails only had a 14.2 percent open rate.

Final Thoughts 

While the holiday season may seem like a great excuse to ease off on your marketing activities, the opposite is actually true.

Start getting your marketing affairs in order now so that you can start rolling them out as soon as possible.

If you properly align your social media, mobile, and email marketing efforts now, you’ll be ahead of the competition come quarter one of next year!