How Marketing Agencies Can Prepare Clients for the Holiday Season
Strategic Planning for Peak Performance
As the holiday season approaches, marketing agencies play a leading role in guiding clients through a period characterized by increased consumer activity, heightened competition, and evolving market trends. Careful marketing planning is essential to not only promote maximum visibility but also increase sales and foster stronger customer relationships.
During this season, companies often face marketing challenges – and this applies to all businesses regardless of what you sell. Competition increases as businesses ramp up their marketing efforts to attract holiday shoppers and make the final impression as the year wraps up. This dynamic makes it difficult for organizations to stand out. The onslaught of advertisements and social media messages can lead to fatigue among prospects. For those who sell products, managing inventory and supply chain coordination is to meet the heightened demand without overstocking is a tightrope act.
Marketing messaging needs to resonate with diverse audiences, which can be tricky during a season filled with various cultural and religious customs. Lastly, determining holiday marketing campaign metrics can be complex due to the condensed period and the multitude of factors influencing consumer behavior.
The following highlights how marketing agencies can prepare clients to succeed during this busy time of year.
1. Start Planning at the End of Summer
By starting months in advance, a marketing agency and clients build a stronger foundation for holiday marketing success. Agencies should collaborate with clients to review previous holiday campaigns, analyzing what worked and what did not track. Early planning allows for the development of informed strategies and the allocation of adequate resources to determine key campaign dates, establish goals, and set budgets. By starting early, agencies and clients can avoid last-minute scrambles and focus on execution.
2. Develop Themed Festive Content
Add holiday themes, storytelling, and collections to your website, social media, and emails. Do not wait until November to prepare this content. Build your schedule with a September start date to allow for edits and approvals.
3. Suggest Client Gift Strategies
Marketing agencies that create gift guides to make shopping for client gifts easier provide value by making suggestions to get the ball rolling. Client gifts remain an annual end-of-year conundrum. Starting early results in a better selection of gifts at competitive prices.
4. Support a Worthy Cause
By partnering with a charitable cause during the holiday season, organizations foster meaningful customer connections and enhance brand loyalty.
Below are examples of successful holiday marketing campaigns that might resonate with a client:
Chewy: Coal, the holiday surprise – Pet product retailer Chewy created a memorable campaign featuring a dog named Coal who receives a holiday surprise. Pet owners enjoyed this ad campaign that highlighted the joy of giving.
Chick-fil-a: Legends of Evergreen Hills - Chick-fil-a commissioned a series of animated short films that conveyed uplifting holiday stories, creating an emotional connection with viewers.
Kroger: Share your food, share your heart – Kroger focused on the importance of community during the holidays. Their campaign encouraged people to share meals with loved ones during the season.
These campaigns created emotional connections with their target audiences and effectively utilized storytelling to convey their messages.
Successful businesses – whether they are Fortune 500 enterprises or solopreneurs working from home – depend on marketing strategies to promote their offerings, secure future growth, and earn more money.
Does your organization need a holiday season marketing plan? Rebel Road Creative can help.
Rebel Road Creative’s marketing services include a 1-on-1 Marketing Assessment Meeting and Marketing Strategy Planning & Marketing Asset Audit.
Reach out and schedule a free 30-minute meeting to discuss your ideas.
Elizabeth Tuico is a successful entrepreneur. She leveraged traditional employment opportunities with a series of side hustles to expand her knowledge base and create a path to financial freedom. Along the way, she worked with clients to amplify their brands by creating meaningful content and stronger revenue streams. Elizabeth formed Rebel Road Creative in 2018. The agency helps companies and solopreneurs fine tune their marketing and business development strategies.