Your Last-Minute Digital Marketing Holiday Planning Guide

The holiday season is upon us and it's coming up fast! If you haven't thought about your digital marketing holiday planning strategy yet, there's no time like the present, but you'd better hop to it quickly! Below are a few quick tips to integrate into your already existing plans or those new plans you're about to hammer out. Take it from us, we've executed a handful of holiday strategies in our day!

11 Quick Digital Marketing Holiday Planning Tips

1. Plan ahead. 
   "We’re only human. Even though we think we’re going to put in the hours and attention needed during the holiday season, events pop up, last-minute campaign have to get launched, and there might even be a random snowstorm that kills productivity for a few days (at least for us Midwesterners). So plan ahead to prepare for the expected unexpected." - David "D. Fish" Fisher, Sales Coach & Speaker
   
2. Segment your audiences.
   Now that you are planning ahead, segment your audiences so that specific audiences are receiving messages that are highly relevant to them. Facebook advertising is a great way to do this. This also helps to tailor the warm and fuzzy holiday messages that are bound to happen to those audiences where it might have the greatest impact and avoid those audiences who might have reached their limit of holiday warm and fuzzies. Hey, it happens.
3. Confirm your discount offerings/sales, etc.
   You can't really plan ahead if you don't know what you have to offer, now can you? Additionally, without knowing who your main segments are, you can't come up with the most effective deals to offer them, right? Confirm with your sales, marketing and leadership teams what your big push is for the holiday season. Maybe you have a different focus for each upcoming holiday or each target audience, either way, figure it out. Once you know what you have to offer, then you can pin down exactly who you're offering it to and how to make sure they know about these great deals!
   
4. Set up an influencer giveaway.
   Influencer marketing is all the rage right now, but it's a great way to get your product in front of your target audience in a big way! "Partner up with five or so influencers to giveaway a holiday gift set. Here's how it works: Take a beautiful photo of a few products you would like to giveaway (at least a $200 value), have each of the influencers participating post the same photo. In the caption, ask their followers to follow your brand and the influencers participating on social media for a chance to win the gift set. This is a great way to increase followers and boost product/brand awareness while sticking to your digital marketing holiday strategy." - Shirley Yang, Muses App
   
5. Offer free shipping. 
   If Amazon Prime is going to deliver to your customers' doorsteps in two days for free, you should too. No need for further explanation.
6. Add value. Make it Fast. Make it easy.
   You're busy and so are your prospective customers. Figure out the content that would make their lives a bit easier and give it to them. Like right in front of their face. Do they need a holiday shopping list for the in-laws? Create one and push it out in those targeted Facebook ads. Are they looking for quality over quantity, share a side-by-side comparison of how your product/service stacks up next to the competition, so they don't have to create one themselves. Add value to make it easy for them to spend money with you. Let them know that you'll save them time because you'll deliver fast/immediate results. Done and done.
7. Create a holiday editorial calendar.
   You have a lot on your plate now with the first six tips, so one of the best ways to stay organized is to create an editorial calendar, so you don't miss important deadlines! "The editorial calendar should map out the weeks and months leading up to and through the holiday season with specific goals for each of the big days. The specific holidays you plan to target may vary based on your business and your customer base, but all businesses should be aware of the biggest shopping and giving days of the holiday season. Make sure to account for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving and Christmas for specials." - Alexandra Frumberg, ALX Creatives
   
8. Get personal with social.
   Use the holidays as perfect excuse to get personal with your audience on social media! "It's easy and fun to use your company holiday picture in your annual Happy Holidays email. The cost and time are very low and although you shouldn't expect a spike in traffic, it's a nice way to keep in touch and pass along a little holiday cheer." - Andy Crestodina, Orbit Media
9. A/B Test your campaigns.
   You should consider testing all of your campaigns, but especially Black Friday and Small Business Saturday as those are the first big holiday sprees that will hit. Take your learnings from those campaigns and flip them around to quickly prepare for Cyber Monday and the rest of your holiday campaigns. Learn which messages resonate best with your audience and use those to your advantage.
10. Double the sale with proper messaging.
    We're all guilty of holiday shopping and the classic "A little something for me too" line. Holiday shoppers are the kings and queens of "treatyoself" when it comes to shopping for others. Keep this in mind for your digital marketing holiday messaging strategy. People want to buy for others (largely because it feels good) but they also buy for themselves (largely because it also feels good). Don't under estimate the power of a "treatyoself" moment...or twelve.
11. Use local search to tailor your messaging. 
    Remember how everyone is searching for things online or places "near them?" Utilize Google My Businesses' posting feature to inform your nearby audiences of in-store sales and online exclusives that they won't want to miss. Using local SEO to your advantage goes a far way in today's search world.
12. Assign your graphic design needs now.
    Now that you've read this whole list, figure out your plan of attack and send your design requests to your graphic design team now. Seriously, now. They need time to design a comprehensive campaign and you need time for revisions. You could have the best deals and target audience outreach strategy, but if the creative isn't pretty and eye-catching, you've lost. So get on it!

As you know, there's so much more that can (and in many cases, should) go into digital marketing holiday planning to get the greatest impact for your investment. However, if you've found yourself caught up in a whirlwind and are just now realizing the holidays are right around the corner, have no fear, our quick tips are here.

If you keep these items in mind and act now (literally now), you'll be ready to go!