The holiday season is around the corner. In case you have not planned your PPC strategy, this is the time to do it for better profits. To start, review your previous year’s outputs. That can be a good place to seek answers to:
- Which campaign types and channels that worked should be revisited?
- Which creative thing was the most impactful?
- What viewers performed the best?
- Which kind of promotion drove the most buys?
- In what regard did you top your competitors? Is it promotions, customer service, reliability or experience?
If you do not have last year’s data concerning these, it might be a good idea to gather information on how your competitors are planning for the holidays. Even if you do have the data from the last year, it is not necessary that the same would work this time too. Still, it is worth employing the tried-and-tested strategies, along with adding a few new ideas to replace those things that did not work.
Planning the Campaign for a Wider Audience
There is no time like now to begin preparing your promotion mix. As you plan SEO and PPC campaigns that you would like to try, think about how you will move each prospect through the funnel. Audiences are a wonderful way to fill the gap between promotions and there are plenty of targeting options, which you can use to create a multichannel funnel.
Think about audiences that you have as of now and those that you would want to build over the subsequent months. When building audiences, also consider how they could be leveraged across different platforms and how you can track the performance. Examples could comprise, but not limited to, the following:
- Those who created a wishlist or visited a gift guide
- Sign-ins or sign-ups to loyalty programs
- Regular and high-value customers
- Recent and new visitors, who viewed your content, spent time on your website, or came back for more
- Those who engaged with your social media content
The holiday season brings traffic, and buyers who are not usually in the target market are less likely to be regular buyers. So leading up to the holiday period would be a good time to reengage customers from the previous year – even if they are not frequent buyers.
Your targeting should expand to potential customers too. It can be tough to think about reaching fresh audience at this time, but there are some ways to achieve that without spending too much on your campaign. For instance, with the audience that you have built, you can expand the list of keywords to wider areas than what you were targeting before. Including holiday gifts related keywords would be a smart move here; of course, you can always consult with your PPC marketing manager for more ideas.
Engaging the Audience and Brand Empowering
With the holiday season around the corner, it is a good time to begin building momentum around your brand name too. Gift givers can be of two types: people who choose to surprise receivers and those who need a wishlist to buy something. You need to reach both these types of gift givers. The best way for that can be by employing user generated content.
User generated content is actually a great method to drive a buzz around any brand any time, but the time leading up to the holidays is particularly known for this. In a way, it contributes to Search Engine Optimization outputs with advantages like:
- Capturing the attention of friends of content creators who may have interests similar to them
- Capturing the attention of people who are planning to buy gifts for that customer group
At the same time, creating campaigns around wishlist can be useful to support those gift givers who like specific instructions. Target those who remain loyal to your brand, which could comprise those who built from regular buyers, loyalty program sign-ins or email lists, and followers on the social media. Offer items based on their web browsing and buying habits, and make it simpler for them to share. Bonus points if you sugarcoat the deal with a promo for wishlist creators or repeat buyers.
Consistency
Some holiday shoppers are a touch surprised by the distinctions in on-site versus in-shop experience. Some of that is tough to control, because of large number of people visiting the store. However, some things can actually be controlled, such as:
- The price of products online versus in the shop
- Promotional strategies
- Common ease of navigation as well as checkout
Shops and websites have their own set of advantages and flipsides as far as the experience is concerned, unless you are deliberately attempting to incentivize a particular action, producing consistency tend to reduce the confusion. Less confusion typically means reduced frustration for people, and that is sure to reflect on your overall revenue.