As the holiday season kicks off, many businesses are preparing for shortened hours or closures during the coming weeks. You might find yourself wondering: "How will my digital marketing function while my business is closed for Christmas?" Not to worry!
In this post, we’ll offer best practices to help businesses keep digital channels productive amidst the holiday period. By thoughtfully optimising and automating digital marketing efforts, you can feel at ease knowing marketing traction continues even while you are closed up for Christmas!
Automated Email Campaigns
Stay connected with your loyal customers through automated email campaigns.
Setting up a holiday email marketing campaign ahead of time allows you to deliver timely, relevant messaging even when you are closed over the holidays. Automated emails can share product sales, holiday hours, seasonal content, and more with your existing subscriber list.
An effective holiday email campaign keeps your current customers engaged and informed and attracts potential new clients looking for the best Christmas shopping deals.
Consider segmenting your email list to tailor your messages. Personalisation goes a long way and, during the holidays, it's the little extra touch that makes your customers feel valued and appreciated.
Social Media Management While Away
The holiday season delivers a flurry of reasons to step away from business as usual. But don’t let your social media efforts fully freeze up just because staffing is sparse!
Sustaining your brand’s social media presence while closed over Christmas is very important. The right scheduling and management approach keeps digital marketing content flowing across social channels even when you can’t manually post in real time.
So before closing up over Christmas take time to:
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Schedule an array of holiday and seasonal social posts in advance to automatically publish while you’re away.
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Optimise social channels for sales by directing traffic to your online storefront. Ensure links, buttons, and bios all drive potential leads towards holiday deals.
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Engage social audiences with seasonal polls, user-generated contests and limited-time coupons to incentivise social followers to stay tuned in.
Paid Advertising Strategies
When you are closing up over Christmas PPC campaigns are a way to continue to drive traffic to your website. With the right mix of optimisation and automation, here's how you keep things running smoothly:
Consistent Visibility:
When the doors are closed for the holidays, your paid advertising is a great way to ensure your business remains visible. Platforms like Google Ads and social media continue to showcase your brand to potential customers actively searching for products or services. It's all about maintaining that steady online presence, even when you are off for the holidays.
Automated Reach:
The magic of paid advertising lies in its automation. With scheduled campaigns, your business stays on the radar without requiring constant manual intervention. This automated approach ensures your ads target the right audience, even during the holiday downtime. It's like having a reliable assistant keeping things in check.
Conversion Continuity:
Your well-structured holiday marketing campaign is more than just a click magnet; it's a conversion powerhouse. While you take a break, your ads continue working behind the scenes, turning interested browsers into customers.
Keyword Relevance:
Ensure your ad copy is armed with relevant keywords like "Christmas shopping" to align with seasonal search queries. This not only maintains the relevance of your ads but also captures the attention of potential customers actively looking for those irresistible holiday deals.
Minimum Monitoring for Maximum Results:
From a PPC perspective, a well-optimised campaign should be left to do its thing with minimal intervention. Before you step away for the holidays, double-check the essentials: budget, and targeting, and keep an eye on automated content creation. You don't want to come back to surprises. When everything is well-optimised you can ensure a minimum level of monitoring.
Customer Interaction Never Takes a Break:
Just because you're taking a break doesn't mean your potential customers will stop interacting with your business. Your well-optimised PPC campaign serves as the digital bridge, ensuring your brand stays engaged and discoverable. It's the silent worker that keeps your business on the radar even when you're off the clock.
So, as you take that well-deserved break, rest assured that your finely-tuned PPC campaign will continue to bring in traffic and maintain your brand presence. When you return, you can analyse your PPC portfolio's holiday success.
Optimising Your Website for the Holidays
Even though your business may be closed for a week or two of holiday festivities, your website needn't take a vacation! Keeping it optimised for the Christmas season ensures your online presence works hard even when you are closed over the Christmas period.
Consider implementing a few website updates before you switch the lights off this Christmas. Prominently advertise any holiday promotions or sales on your homepage banners to capture attention. Make sure discounted products get spotlighted across category pages and online stores as well.
Additionally, a special “holiday gift finder” section for B2C businesses or special deals such as a gift certificate offering provide helpful solutions customers appreciate this time of year. Having friendly pop-up reminders about order deadlines and winter shipping also ensures visitors feel reassured by the extended customer service flexibility while you are away.
A few small but strategic website optimisations prepare your online assets to drive leads and revenue with minimal holiday effort. Then you can relax knowing your site works for you even while celebrating the season! Come the new year, analyse performance and continue optimising based on season-specific customer behaviour insights.
Conclusion
As your business prepares for holiday slowdowns, taking time to follow our top tips sets you up for continued success even with reduced hours or closures.
Implement the tips covered across sections of this article to give your online properties the updates they need to drive holiday traffic and sales. Schedule social messages, automate emails, and refresh website content before shutting down daily operations for Christmas celebrations.
However, if tackling these crucial digital marketing preparations feels daunting amidst the flurry of the holiday season, the digital marketing experts at SpiderDigital are here to help!
Our team manages and optimises digital strategies for businesses across many different industries and sectors. Contact us today to sustain your marketing success this holiday season while you enjoy some relaxation and cheer!