Holiday seasons are some of the most significant moments in the business calendar. Christmas and the winter holidays present an excellent opportunity for digital marketers to capitalize on the peak season shopping frenzy and close the year strongly. The 2022 holiday season is particularly unique, unlike the past two seasons that were significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
1. Find a suitable influencer
Choosing an influencer for your marketing campaign is one of the most critical steps to nailing your holiday season sales drive. Choose an influencer who is respected and recognized in your industry or business niche. Working with a reputable influencer can make your marketing campaigns seem more natural and authentic.
More importantly, it helps to work with influencers who meet and match your consumer personas. For example, you could use kids or teen influencers when promoting products targeting kids or female influencers when marketing cosmetics and other beauty products targeting women.
Lastly, Make your campaigns more effective by partnering with brand ambassadors who can share a positive real-life experience about your brand. Start by identifying existing clients with a high social net worth and have them share their experience with your brand and why they love it.
2. Start your influencer marketing campaigns early
Holiday seasons are busy times for most people, including influencers. It helps to confirm the availability of brand promoters because an influencer could have multiple marketing gigs running concurrently during the holiday season. Save yourself the last-minute rush by planning your promotion campaigns a few weeks or months before the onset of the winter holidays.
Starting your campaigns in advance allows you to refine your campaign goals, book your favorite brand ambassadors, and budget appropriately for the festive season.
3. Choose an appropriate marketing platform
Choosing a marketing platform should be at the top of your agenda when planning for the holiday season. Social media presents an excellent platform for running product promotions and collaborating with niche marketers in your industry. Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest are just a few platforms that boast millions of active daily users. When choosing marketing platforms, it's important to consider where your target audience is most concentrated. For example, Facebook and Instagram could be your best option if you run a fashion or restaurant business. Similarly, LinkedIn could offer you a better gateway to clients than most other marketing platforms if you run a professional services firm.
4. Pick the right services and products for your campaign
The holiday season can be stressful for many shoppers because they are often bombarded by many brands and products claiming to offer the best solution for their shopping needs. Product pricing is often a significant factor for many shoppers when making purchase decisions. With that said, it helps to include products or services that have the capacity for attractive discounts and free shipping while remaining profitable.
Choose products that will blend seamlessly with other influencer marketing campaigns you intend to run during and after the holiday season.
5. Combine influencer marketing with paid promotions
Paid promotions are an excellent way to make the most of your influencer advertising campaigns. While influencer marketing helps you connect with high-quality leads, paid promotions will boost the visibility of your campaign by placing it at the top of your target audience searches.
Paid adverts are an excellent way to generate interest around your brand at a time when many people are actively seeking solutions to problems your products or services can solve.
6. Tracking the results of your influencer campaign
Tracking your campaign helps you determine how effective your influencer campaigns are in achieving your business goals. Some good ways to measure and track your influencer campaigns progress include:
- Use affiliate links to track and measure actual revenues against target sales.
- Use promotional codes for each product you advertise.
- Use marketing analytics software to track marketing metrics that matter to your business.
Tracking and measuring your influencer campaign results helps you learn and adjust from your challenges and success.
