Are you a small business owner that thinks they can (or should) wait until after Halloween is over before you begin your holiday marketing? Think again. Shopping for the holidays has already begun, for some consumers as early as June. Couple that with a distracting election (and higher bidding for media space) and a shorter holiday shopping season this year and, frankly, you’re a bit late already!
Now, before you accuse the author of being a Dickens-style ghost sent to scare you, there is plenty of good news:
- Holiday spending in total is projected to be up about 2.3 to 3.3% with online shopping up 7-9% over last year.
- The port strike being avoided will mean fewer supply chain issues and shortages.
- Over a quarter of consumers will be shopping for a gift for themselves. It’s been a tough few years, post-pandemic!
And in terms of marketing, there are best practices and even better news to consider:
- There is still the lion’s share of shopping ahead of us this season:
From: https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/deck-the-halls-for-2024-holiday-retail-success
- Pay-per-Click ad campaigns such as Google Ads are fast and nimble. You can write a short ad today and it will be reviewed this evening and shown to searchers starting tomorrow. Compare that to changes on your website, which may take a month to be noticed by Google and Bing and another week or two to be shown in organic search results.
- Offering free shipping can be as effective as offering a whopping 40% discount. As long as shipping costs are less than that discount, you’ll be ahead to offer that important incentive.
- Business owners have a tremendous amount of consumer data at their fingertips. If you already utilize a CRM or e-mail marketing, now is the time to fire up some great holiday content and offers. Customers who already know you are the easiest to reactivate.
- On social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, you can create an “audience” of your past and present customers (another Dickens reference!) and show your ad to consumers who already like your brand. You can go a step farther and create a “lookalike audience” that will be shown to people just like your customers. Facebook and IG have an estimated 60,000 data points on their three billion and two billion members, respectively. They can find you brand new customers.
- Stumped for content and/or short on time? Turn to artificial intelligence for a quick fix. A straightforward prompt at Perplexity, the author’s favorite, of “create holiday content ideas for a shop selling Irish sweaters” yielded actionable promotional strategies, social media engagement ideas and thematic content. It even identified a special event that your author had never heard of, Culchie Shopping Day on December 8, which is a traditional shopping day in Ireland and would target last-minute holiday shoppers.
- Influencer marketing is a thing. And, no, we’re not talking about Kardashians. We’re talking about micro-influencers who have a tight, targeted list of 100K to 500K followers. Shoppers have extraordinarily little time and fewer ideas. A good influencer can have a 10% conversion rate to drive traffic to your web site or store!
- Effective marketing will likely be multi-channel, utilizing a bit of all of the above.
- Play to your strengths. Consultative sales, fast order processing, dependable quality, accessible returns, and responsive customer service are the hallmarks (if there’s a contest for holiday references, I intend to win!) of small business owners. Temu can’t touch you.
So, leverage the powerful tools that are available to you and get that holiday marketing sleigh warmed up and airborne. The season is now. One last A Christmas Carol quote to spur your inner Rudolph: “No space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused.” Or one’s holiday shopping season.
