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A successful Holiday Promotion doesn’t happen without some thoughtful planning… and since you, my dear are a purpose-driven CEO you aren’t going to pass up the chance to snag a new client or two or ten!
And if you think your tiny business doesn’t have a chance against the big dogs of the social space, think again. Remember, people do business with people… and the more emotion and storytelling you do the more you are going to connect with your ideal clients.
Oh and if you need more reason to get out in front of your digital clients this season – holiday eCommerce sales increased worldwide 16.5% from 2017 to 2018. So there’s that stat as well.
A lot of people don’t know this about me, but I really struggled with finding a way to stand out within my direct sales company…. ESPECIALLY during the holiday season from other direct sales consultants. I was tired of using the same holiday marketing assets that every other rep in my company was using.
So a few years ago I paired up with my creative friend Jenny Taylor and we took Holiday Marketing Campaigns to another level that our teams loved and appreciated and we designed a portfolio of assets we felt great about promoting on social.
So today I’m going to take you through the exact steps I use for creating a Holiday Campaign Brand Strategy That Will Get You Noticed This Season.
I’m breaking this down into seven steps and even tell you how to get your hands on a free Holiday E-Commerce guide I have available right now.
7 Steps to Create a Holiday Campaign Brand Strategy That Will Get You Noticed This Season
1. Your followers need to know exactly what you are offering.
Decide on the precise promotion you are going to incentivize this season.
No, you can’t promote your entire catalog! Pick 1-3 products you will focus on and establish an incentive to catch their attention.
You need to come up with a special reason for people to buy what you are offering, and buy it immediately.
So think about the 1-3 products or services you are going to promote then think of how you can make it an extra special offer. An offer they can’t resist. Will you offer free shipping, buy one get one, free gift with purchase, etc… think of a promotion that makes sense for your offer.
Oh, and create a title for your holiday promotion… If you can give your promotion a name it allows your audience to talk about your offer more easily. Some of the ones I’ve done in that past for events are:
- Jingle and Mingle
- Reindeer Run
- Holiday Shuffle
- Giving and Glamming
2. Set Your Growth Goals
Instead of showing up this holiday season without a focus on what goals you want to reach, you’ll end up right back up where you started, throwing push ads on your feed without ever knowing if it was a success.
There are several GROWTH goals you can have for each promotional campaign and here are some examples:
- Build engagement
- Strengthen your community
- Grow your email list
- Improve Brand Awareness
- Inspire People
- Generate Sales
- Up Funnel Conversions
You know the impact a purposeful holiday campaign can have on your business.
And when I say impact, I don’t mean income.
Here’s why.
Sure, increased sales are great over the holiday months, but what I love more than anything is to see an increase in my niche audience consuming my content on the regular.
Meaning, whether I add new followers on Instagram, or better yet, more readers to my weekly emails, I would consider that growth goal a big WIN that unfortunately many business owners overlook.
Here’s the way I put it…
Would you rather have several one-time purchasers over two months of the year or several hundred paying attention to your content and products all year long??
So even if this holiday season you have a growth goal of sales, don’t disregard the fact that an impactful holiday campaign can also grow your email list, strengthen your community, or even improve your brand awareness.
3. Set your reach methods
Once you choose 1-2 key GROWTH goals for your campaign you then want to choose which way you’ll create this goal with these possible REACH METHODS.
Simply put – where are you going to show up this season and how? Here are some Reach Method examples:
- Social Media Posts
- IG or FB Stories
- Influencer Marketing
- Live Video
- Email Sequences
- Blog Entries
- Events
4. Build your timeline calendar
Whether you plan to run 1-3 promotions per week or only a few promotions during the holidays, it’s imperative to build a calendar showcasing your key promotion periods for the season. Timing really is everything when it comes to a holiday marketing campaign.
The Perfect Launch Timeline:
- Day 0-14: Pre-launch hype and teasers
- Day 15: Launch day
- Day 16-20: Post-launch follow-up
You want to have a scheduled start and end date for your holiday promotion.
What I’ve found is that having an end date it’s a great way to encourage people to actually make a decision either way.
When someone sees a promotion, they might think it’s something they’ll buy or get to in the future. But when there’s a deadline of some sort (like free personalization, limited number available at this price, or a percentage off before a certain date, etc.), people are more likely to make a decision within a set timeframe you give them.
The most important part of this process is creating a robust promotional calendar that ties back to the specific goals of your campaign. For example, if your focus is generating eCommerce sales, you need to break down how and when each product will be promoted in the lead-up to the holidays.
When you can break down your campaign per day or pre/post-launch you can start getting creative in how to share your content and your products… without having a lull in your marketing dates or using too much repetitive content.
5. Determine Your Social Strategy
Now that you have your goal and timeline set you want to choose which social channels you’ll be using. But whatever social channel you use, remember, each has a different language so your promotion on Twitter will look very different than your promotion on Instagram.
As I teach inside my Content Marketing Strategy + Planning System there is a different language for each social channel.
By knowing what content to create that is shareable, relevant, and value-driven this will ensure consumers will always pay attention to your story no matter what channel they go to.
Facebook: Storytell. Tell your audience the stories they want to hear that is relevant, fun, and useful.
Instagram: Create art/hi-res photos that align with your target audience. This platform is designed for people to escape reality so find a way you can entertain them and pull them in with a story so you can be relatable and create a connection with them.
Pinterest: Emotional wish list for users. Make your pins visually appealing using vertical photos with text over top. Sympathize with a user’s experience so your brand has a place in his/her life.
Knowing this, what types of promotional holiday content will you use where?
6. Creative Strategy
Lastly, as you develop your personal brand you are going to be required to find your authentic voice. Meaning no more copying and pasting what other people are using in their captions and taking it as your own words.
Every campaign should have its own brand identity including brand colors, fonts, imagery, and visual elements as well as its own timeline and promotional strategy.
When you know the concept behind the campaign, which products or services you will focus on and how this campaign can help you reach your business goals… you have a better vision on how you want your campaign to ‘look and feel.”
Creating original content in your authentic voice is a large part of your branding strategy and the more and more you put it out into the world the more and more you’ll gain confidence.
When you use your voice, and your audience starts to react positively, that builds loads of self-confidence and self-esteem and allows you to show up and add value in a meaningful, more purposeful way.
I remember when I started doing weekly live videos just a couple years ago and I was scared out of my mind. But the more and more I did them, the more I could loosen up and weave more of my personal story into the topic, the more I became confident in my teachings and the more I was gaining the attention of my audience.
FOUR CREATIVE CONCEPTS to consider:
- Creative Concept. Define the design style your campaign will follow… meaning Define the mood board or design style guide that your campaign will follow. Which color palette will you use? What web or design elements? What photo collections? Which font styles?
- Design Templates. Create templates to keep your campaign on-brand. Canva is a great free tool for this. To help keep your campaign on brand you will want to create design templates so you can ‘plug-play’ your captions and visual campaign elements for a much more streamlined design effort. Make sure these design templates will work across all social channels.
- Campaign Language. Nail down brand terms and messages to weave into your assets… What brand words are you going to use in your campaign assets and what type of caption style will you use? How will your message make your audience feel?
- Your Campaign Assets. Gather all the assets you are going to need in order to stay on track with your timeline. What campaign assets will you use? Photos, Videos, Graphics, GIFs
If you are promoting a physical product you will want to create photos and videos with the actual product. They could be a good mix of flat lay style, lifestyle photos, or a simple display photo.
Another episode you may enjoy is “6 REASONS WHY PERSONAL BRANDING IS A NON-NEGOTIABLE“
7. Schedule Your Content
Once you have all your content and assets, it’s time to put it all together and literally schedule and plan your social content.
There are several planning platforms to use but the three I use are:
- Meet Edgar – I use this platform for scheduling Facebook Business Pages, Facebook Groups, Twitter, and LinkedIn content.
- Plann Desktop and App – is a complete Instagram scheduling, analytics and strategy suite that is visually focused which I LOVE
- Tailwind – I use this for Pinterest scheduling but they also have an Instagram option as well.
You can find more information about all these and my favorite platforms that I use to run my business at kristinkorn.com/favorites.
In the end, how to not fail
The only reason this will fail is if you aren’t showing up consistently RIGHT NOW… before your launch, before your promotion, before your event.
The biggest secret to my success is showing up, authentically and with purpose for my audience. Day after day, creating content just for them for free.
By doing so I can create online and off-line conversations with them… I want to talk with them not just SELL to them.
By spending time 1:1 with my readers and clients I create trust with them… so when the time comes for my promotion, they already want to support my endeavors and this is when the referrals come in… it’s a snowball effect. When this starts to happen is when you know you are in the process of scaling your business.
“Oh, I heard about you from my cousin.” “Oh, I heard about you from my teammate.” “Oh, I heard about you from my aunt.”
So my best tip is don’t just use social media for your holiday campaign, but show up and use it every day. Don’t use social media to pitch and sell your products. Use social media the way it was intended to be used … to be social… connect with your niche audience, build trust and create conversations… once you do all that THEN you have the right to sell to them.
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