An Influencer Marketing Checklist for Your Holiday Campaign

After a survey conducted by ICSC, Financial Post mentions that the US alone spent about $226 million on holiday shopping in 2021. As we continue to heal from the lingering damage caused by COVID-19, and with the inflation prices continuing to increase, both shoppers and businesses are in for a surprise this holiday season.

After understanding how digital the world has become over the last few years, there are so many new marketing tools now available to marketers who are looking to level up their holiday campaign game this season, one of the big tactics being influencer marketing! Influencer marketing is your next step to having a successful and effective marketing campaign this holiday season! Who better to help promote your holiday sales this season than a social media guru?

Our expert team of digital marketers at Bold x Collective understands how difficult it can be to know how or when to start planning a holiday marketing campaign, especially with all the add-on pressure of the increased competition and the new marketing tools being used by competitors this season. In this detailed guide, we will discuss the importance of using influencer marketing and how businesses could benefit from this effective marketing tool for their holiday campaign for the upcoming season.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Living in a highly advanced digital world, many people and businesses have learned to make good use of influencers over the last few years.

Influencer marketing is known as one of the several social media marketing tools that are being used all around the world by many users, influencers, and businesses over the last few years. Influencer marketers can exercise their social influence across all their social media platforms and are known for expressing their honest opinion on the latest marketing and social media trends. They stay educated and keep up to date on all the latest popular social media trends and frequently used platforms that users are engaging with across all social channels around the world.

Businesses or brands that use influencer marketing are paying expert social media influencers who would use their social media knowledge and platforms to help advertise products and/or services to their users and followers, like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and much more.

Want to learn more about best practices for social media marketing? Here is a guide by Bold x Collective that can help!

Why is it Important to Have Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing has become a prominently used marketing tool for many business owners and marketers. However, it can be difficult to know exactly which type of influencer will work best for your holiday campaign, as there are many. 

Therefore, we recommend that you do thorough research on what kind of influencer will successfully promote your product or service during the holiday rush while standing out from other competitors on social media. Your research will help you distinguish what kind of influencer will bring you the best results for your holiday campaign while continuing to bring in an increase in traffic and engagement to your business, even after the holiday season.

Here are our top recommended influencer marketing tips that your business needs to know about this holiday season.

Provide Unbeatable Holiday Sales

The most effective way to attract customers during the holiday season is by providing unbeatable sales that no other competitor is offering. As sale prices continue to increase on almost all available products and services due to the recession, one of the features that customers will be looking for this season is the most cost-efficient discounts and sales for their holiday gifts.

Therefore, as a part of your holiday marketing strategy, it’s important to research what kind of discounts you can afford to offer on your products and services, without losing much revenue and return on investment. For example, for your holiday campaign, your business can choose to offer VIP access, giveaways, limited-time offers and much more.

Once you have figured out the set promotional sales that you would be offering for your holiday campaign, your next step is to strategize how you can promote your sales to your targeted audience while differentiating from the other competitors out there. Think about all the marketing tools available to you – ask yourself, how can you save money on advertising while effectively announcing your holiday sales to your target audience?

Influencer marketing is the correct answer! You have the option of collaborating with influencers who will effectively and efficiently promote your holiday campaign offers throughout their social media platforms. Influencers will use their social media influence to share your holiday campaign offers, which will help businesses increase their social media presence while attracting more engagement and organic traffic.

Promote Unique Holiday Offers & Gifts

The holiday season is known to be one of the most stressful times of the year for many people, especially for shoppers, businesses, and marketers. As mentioned earlier, many shoppers during the holiday season look out for the most budget-friendly holiday gifts, as they are usually looking to see which businesses are offering the best holiday discounts. Therefore, when planning out your holiday marketing strategy, it’s important to remember that for a holiday campaign, you should offer reasonable discounts that will help you stand out from your competition during the holiday rush. That means, offering sales, bundles, and gifts that your customers will not be able to find anywhere else.

To implement influencer marketing in your holiday marketing strategy, collaborating with influencers will help promote your creative and unique holiday sales to many new customers, outside of your niche targeted audience. Therefore, you want to make sure that the influencers promoting your holiday sales are matching your social media presence and brand with the style and theme of your specialized holiday campaign.

Another great way to utilize influencers for this specific holiday marketing strategy is by using your influencers to represent your business with any heartwarming and relatable holiday stories that could be shared with viewers. During the holiday season, many shoppers and businesses are seen to be more vulnerable due to the high-level stress caused by the holiday rush. Therefore, this would be a good opportunity for your business to have influencers promote that you are doing your part this holiday season to help those who are looking for budget-friendly discounts.

Promote Personalized Deals

Influencers have the talent of being able to reach out to users while attracting organic traffic just by sharing personalized and relatable content they know their viewers want to see. For an influencer to be successful with this approach, they must understand how to adjust personalized content that accommodates and interests all viewers. Furthermore, many influencers can naturally understand a brand’s purpose and mission to its niche audience.

During the holiday season, there are many people that are put in difficult positions with the stress that comes with the holidays. Therefore, as part of your holiday campaign, you want to promote your business as a sympathetic brand that isn’t just looking for an increase in revenue and customers but is also willing to help the people in need, especially those who struggle during the holidays.

Some examples of personalized content that your business can take part in this holiday season is by collaborating with charities and donation offices by donating holiday bundles and gifts to people in need this holiday season, or you can offer back-to-work holiday bundles that people can use when they go back to work after the holiday break.

Using social media influencers to help promote these personalized holiday ideas will help attract your niche audience while reaching out to new, interested customers that were engaged to your holiday campaign and deals through the influencers that they follow on social platforms.

It’s important to know the different types of influencers available on social platforms as each influencer attracts different users, for instance, micro-influencers, macro-influencers, nano-influencers & mega-influencers have different audiences to explore. Therefore, for this strategy, to help effectively promote your personalized offers during the holiday season, using micro and nano influencers will give you the best results as they can present content for ‘everyday people’.

Another way influencers can promote personalized deals is by narrowing down specific geographic targets using data, like customer location, interests or frequently used social media platforms, to reach the exact targeted audience for their holiday campaign.

Promote Stress-Free Shopping

Many businesses offer their products and services through many easy and accessible ways to their shoppers, like in-store or online shopping. Furthermore, during the holiday season, people will be seeking the most efficient and reliable business to purchase their holiday gifts.

For the holiday season, many people prefer to shop in-store for holiday deals, which helps them form a relationship and communicate better with the brand and business in case they have any inquiries or demands. Therefore, it’s important for influencers to share that your business is open for easy, stress-free shopping experiences for all your targeted, valuable, and potential customers.

Using influencer marketing will allow you to reach out to many interested shoppers who are looking for an easy holiday shopping experience while trusting that your business can accommodate their needs and wants as well. Furthermore, it’s good to know that certain kinds of influencers can reach out to a specific niche target audience better than others.

Some examples of stress-free shopping experiences to offer this holiday season include allowing shoppers to easily make last-minute in-store purchases, offer in-store holiday bundles, return an item, e-commerce options (live shopping), offer delivery services, contactless delivery and more.

Customer Diversity & Inclusion 

One of the many greatest advantages of utilizing influencer marketing is that it opens doors for new, interested customers. Influencers can understand their viewers and audiences, which helps them reach out to customers for businesses that they may have not been able to reach on their own. Therefore, it’s important for businesses to understand the diversity of customers that may come their way when collaborating with influencers to help promote their holiday campaigns and sales.

As mentioned earlier, it’s crucial to always be able to adjust your holiday campaigns and sales to accommodate the variety of customers that may be interested in purchasing your product. This will also help your customers build trust and rely on the service you’re providing while being completely biased. Influencers spend time studying the different kinds of people that are on social media and what interests and attracts their attention. Therefore, they would use their personal knowledge to help you adjust your holiday campaign to effectively reach your niche audience and result in happy customers and increase revenue.

Some examples of what to keep in mind when considering diversity and inclusion in your holiday campaign are:

Conclusion 

2022 has proved that influencer marketing has become a promising marketing tool for many marketers and businesses. Influencers give businesses the advantage to drive more engagement effectively to their business through a holiday influencer campaign. Furthermore, the influence they have on their users, and your targeted audience will continue to help build your customer relationships and revenue even after the holiday season.

Therefore, a business looking to have a well-executed and successful holiday marketing campaign for this season should consider including influencer marketing in their marketing strategy.

Need extra support to incorporate influencer marketing into your next holiday campaign? Our expert digital marketing team at Bold x Collective is here to help your business this holiday season. Contact the Collective for a complimentary consultation!