Tips For Developing a Holiday Ad Campaign That Resonates With Customers

With the holidays approaching, businesses are gearing up to leverage an anticipated influx of shoppers who will be on the hunt for deals. With strategic planning, your business can cash in on the holiday season and come out ahead of the game. The following tips will help you develop the most effective holiday ad campaign.

Things to Keep in Mind When Designing Holiday Ads

Before you get to work on planning your holiday ad, there are some things you should remember. The holiday season evokes different emotions in different people. Prior to making a plan and creating holiday ads, you’ll need to figure out what the holidays mean to your target audience and how you want your ads to make them feel. Connecting with your audience’s emotions will help you gain the trust of potential customers. The rapport you build will translate to sales.

During the holidays, people pay even closer attention to ads. Now is the time to think carefully about how you audience will perceive your brand messaging.

In addition to thinking about how you want your ads to make people feel, you should also choose a clearly defined goal. Generating sales seems like the obvious choice. But, depending on where you are in your business, your goal may be different. For example, the holiday season is also an opportune time to raise brand awareness. If you already have a large audience, you may want to focus on an ad campaign that increases customer engagement.

Creating Impactful Holiday Campaigns

The key to creating holiday ads that leave lasting impressions is to choose messaging that effectively tells an evocative story. You can tell a story from a variety of different perspectives. A narrative that illustrates how your brand can help during the holiday rush may depict a character who is anxiously looking for ways to finish a long list of last-minute holiday tasks.

Avoiding Critical Mistakes With Your Holiday Ad Campaign

The holiday season only comes around once a year. Therefore, there are some common missteps you will want to avoid making in order to best capitalize on this annual opportunity.

Getting a Late Start

Planning your holiday ad campaign one or two months in advance is customary. But the truth is you can never start too early. Procrastinating deprives you of the opportunity to think carefully and strategize effectively. A rushed campaign is more likely to include missed opportunities. Creating a comprehensive marketing timeline will allow you to plan ahead and make adjustments ahead of time if necessary.

Neglecting SEO

The success of your holiday ad campaign will likely depend on potential customers’ ability to find you online. That’s where SEO comes into the equation. Implementing best SEO practices will allow you to attract more organic traffic, which means more eyes will view your holiday marketing efforts.

Not Leveraging Multiple Holidays

Different people in your audience may celebrate different occasions during the holiday season. The beauty of the holiday season is that it begins in October and runs through February. Therefore, you will have several opportunities to reach your audience on the occasions that matter to them the most. Instead of just focusing on Black Friday and Christmas, your holiday season ad campaign should focus on multiple holidays throughout autumn and winter.

Forgetting to Say Thank You

Gratitude is a running theme throughout many of the fall and winter holidays. Showing your appreciation to your audience will allow you to connect with them on a deeper level. There are multiple ways you can say thanks to your audience. Some examples include a personalized email, a special discount, or any other way you can think of that is consistent with your brand.

Ignoring Audience Segments

A generic email will likely miss some members of your audience while catering to others. To capture your entire audience, you should adopt the practice of segmentation. For example, some of your audience may celebrate Christmas while others who celebrate Eid will appreciate receiving well wishes from you for their upcoming holiday. You may also find success by segmenting your audience according to other characteristics like age and personal interests.

Being Unsocial

If you don’t actively engage with your audience on social media, you may be overlooking a very important tool that may support your holiday ad campaign. During the holiday season, you can really have fun on social media. For best results, include a mixture of interactive conversational posts, product or service reviews for your brand, gift guides, and promotional deals.

With forethought and planning, your holiday ad campaign can take your brand to new heights. While it may seem as if you will need to invest a lot of detail into crafting the perfect message, your ad is more likely to be successful if you focus on reaching your audience with authentic, relevant messaging.