Businesses see a holiday season as an opportunity to boost sales and attract more customers. However, audiences can get overwhelmed with many campaigns popping up around them.
Holidays are an opportunity to build personal connections with your customers, and with the right social media strategy you can do so without being yet another product showcased in their feed.
In this article, we will disclose the secret ingredients for cooking a social media campaign that most appealingly improves your holiday sales to your online audience.
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Designing a Perfect Social Media Strategy
- Get to know your audience better
- Plan your content calendar early
- Engage with the audience
- Monitor and adjust
There are four main rules to crafting and running a holiday campaign for your brand. No matter what strategy you opt for and what creativity you put in, have these in mind at all times:
1. Get to know your audience better
Understanding your audience is a necessary element for all marketing and sales efforts. The holiday season presents a unique opportunity to get to know your target customers on a more intimate level.
For example, you can design a research strategy that combines various methods to get valuable insights into customer behavior and establish a distinctive holiday user persona. Here's how you can approach it:
- Conduct surveys to discover the stats about your customers’ favorite activities during the holidays. Ask them where they like to spend Christmas, with whom, whether they buy presents or make their own, etc.
- Ask open-ended questions and organize focus groups to collect qualitative data about customer needs and aspirations. Find out what their favorite holidays are, their dearest memories related to the celebrations, best gifts they received, and let them tell you the whole story.
2. Plan your content calendar early
Start planning your holiday social media strategy well in advance. Create a content calendar that outlines key dates, themes, and promotional campaigns.
This will help you stay organized and ensure your posts align with your goals.
3. Engage with your audience
Social media isn't just about broadcasting messages; it's also about building relationships. Respond promptly to comments, answer questions, and engage in conversations with your followers.
A personalized touch can go a long way in boosting customer loyalty.
4. Monitor and adjust
Constantly monitor the performance of your holiday social media campaigns. Analyze metrics like engagement, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
Use this data to make adjustments and refine your strategy throughout the holiday season. No matter how well you prepare for your holiday social media campaign, remember things don’t always go as planned.
For example, if you ask your users to create UGC (user-generated content), they might not be as involved as you’d expect.
Having a plan B and combining a few strategies at the same time will keep you away from any crisis meetings, and allow for your campaign to always run smoothly.
On the other hand, let’s say that you pilot three different strategies at the same time, for instance:
- Behind-the-scene holiday stories about your brand
- Holiday giveaway or a competition
- A partnership with an influencer
If you notice that one strategy is yielding better results than another, put extra effort into improving that game plan.
However, if one post type is receiving little to no response, put it on stand-by and replace it with another strategy you have up your sleeve.
Top 9 Ways to Drive Holiday Sales with Social Media
- Tell a heartwarming story
- Gamify your campaign
- Ask your customers to tell their story
- Run competitions and giveaways
- Create helpful gift guides
- Spice up the campaign with memes
- Partnerships for success
- Promote limited-time holiday discounts
- Combine social media with other marketing channels
Without further ado, here are the 9 best strategies you can use to generate a social media holiday campaign that drives sales AND doesn’t drive any followers away.
1. Tell a heartwarming story
Storytelling matters in all marketing and sales efforts we make. Just as you would tell an immersive story through your sales pitch templates prepared for investors, do so when addressing your customers via social media.
The road to your customers' hearts is through letting them into yours. Building a personal and emotional connection starts with sharing sweet and heartfelt stories related to your brand or employees.
2. Gamify your campaign
Some holidays such as Christmas divide people into groups–fans of real trees vs. fake trees, etc.
Different preferences your customers might have are an excellent opportunity for crafting a game-like campaign that entertains the viewers and inspires engagement.
Invite your audience to participate in interactive social media posts by voting for their favorite thing about Christmas. For example, create a set of stories such as:
Would you rather…?
- Christmas Eve / Christmas Day
- Gingerbread / Sugar cookies
- Spiced cider / Eggnog
- Give / Receive
- Christmas music / Christmas movies
- White Christmas / Warm Christmas
- Real tree / Fake tree
Seize the opportunity to increase audience engagement on social media and raise awareness of your brand at the same time.
Match an interesting game with your holiday sale and special offers, and let the content be shared among family and friends.
3. Ask your customers to tell their story
User-generated content can go a long way, and it can appear far less invasive on social media than any staged campaign. Moreover, it creates a stronger bond between your customers (content creators) and your brand.
Encourage your customers to share their experiences with your products during the holiday season. Repost their photos and reviews to build trust and authenticity.
This not only showcases your products but also engages your audience without overtly pushing sales.
4. Run competitions and giveaways
One of the fundamental lessons in social media marketing for small businesses is running holiday giveaways. But how exactly does this strategy work?
- Create an exciting offer for free products or a set of products you will gift to one or several followers from your page.
- Create a set of rules for followers to participate in the contest/giveaway.
- Invite your followers to like, comment, and share your post with their friends.
- Moreover, ask them to tag their friend’s handles in the comments and use hashtags to increase your reach.
- Make a public drawing contest and announce the winner.
- Additionally, you can ask the winner to create a post upon receiving their award and use a free UGC to your advantage.
For example, in their Instagram campaign for Valentine’s Day, The Tea Can Company launched a giveaway inviting their followers to tag their loved ones and tea lovers in the comments.
On top of that, they utilized the power of a giveaway to inspire additional sales by allowing additional entries for those customers who make a purchase on their website.
5. Create helpful gift guides
One way to provide value while subtly promoting your products is by creating gift guides. Suggest different gift ideas for various demographics or occasions.
Incorporate your products into these guides, making it easy for customers to see the value in what you offer.
Cool branded holiday-themed infographics are an excellent way to achieve this. These posts can be about creative ideas to pair your products with traditional holiday presents.
6. Spice up the campaign with memes
Another social media post idea you could use is to inspire positive reactions from your audience by using humor to put a smile on a scroller's face.
In their campaign, Good Housekeeping uses product videos combined with funny memes and relatable humoristic content that gets reactions, comments, and shares.
7. Partnerships for success
Influencer marketing is an efficient method to reach your target audience in a subtle, holiday-spirited way. Seek out influencers who align with your brand values and have a wide reach and engagement with your potential customers.
This way, the influencers with whom you partner can lend credibility to your products without appearing overly promotional.
For example, if you run a fashion outlet, promote your products by delivering them to fashion gurus on social media. Allow them to craft authentic content by combining your designs to make the perfect outfit for the holiday season.
8. Promote limited-time holiday discounts
Generate a sense of urgency by promoting limited-time holiday offers or discounts. Invite your audience to not waste another second and go to your website right away.
Limited offers are exciting, and some customers might even wait for a holiday discount to purchase something they’ve wanted for a while.
Moreover, countdowns and reminders can help create a fear of missing out (FOMO) among your audience, leading to higher conversion rates.
For example, Stacked Skincare created a holiday bundle with their bestselling products offering up to 50% off for a limited time. They piloted their campaign on social media, including their Pinterest page.
9. Combine social media with other marketing channels
Social media is one way to reach and communicate with your customers online. However, sometimes a joint effort from different marketing channels is the best way to get attention.
For example, brand Facebook pages don’t get much reach, especially since Instagram and TikTok took over the field. So, if you run an exciting holiday competition on your Facebook page, you can get more customers to sign up if you reach them via another channel.
Read more about Instagram marketing.
Here you could try a cold text messaging campaign, a simple SMS that goes like this:
Hey Jessica, did you hear of our Christmas getaway?
Check out our Facebook page and win your favorite face masks for healthy and silky skin this winter ❄️
Your Beauty Brand
A warm, friendly, and personalized text message can ping inactive scrollers and let them know something is going on this season.
Over to You
Holiday sales can be a powerful way to attract new customers and make a big break in retail. However, many of those customers can be one-time shoppers, intrigued by your gift idea or a sparkling giveaway.
Check out these 12 tips to use after holiday sales to keep your customers coming back for more and begin their journey to becoming your loyal and regular shoppers.
