Holidays are a special time where brands are presented with a great opportunity to leverage the market. Holiday campaigns on social media have immense potential when it comes to enhancing your brand’s performance and increasing brand awareness.

I’ve gathered up the best strategies you can use to promote your brand; including Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to holiday marketing. These insights are driven by success stories of local businesses who come to Media Explode for expert insight and advice.

Do: Produce Creative Themed Content

Themed content covers anything that’s related to a specific holiday. During holiday seasons, your business should unleash its creativity and do something unique with its marketing. For example, many brands prefer to create a series of special, relevant posts customized for the holiday – for International Emoji Day, we posted our team members’ headshots and replaced their faces with their favorite emojis.

It may seem like a simple tactic, but it will entice your audience and keep them engaged. You could also create a limited-time offering; for example, a special product your customers can only find during the holidays.

Don’t: Neglect Audience Retargeting

Too many brands try to maximize their reach by focusing on cold traffic thinking a wider reach automatically translates to higher sales. However, neglecting retargeting during the holidays is like deliberately missing your shot. While using ads to target new customers campaigns can help your business grow its client base, always make sure you aren’t neglecting your established customers. Look at it this way, if you run a Facebook Ad campaign targeting people who have already visited your website with a special promotion, they are much more likely to click your ad than someone who has never heard of your brand before.

Taking advantage of retargeting by showing messages to an audience that’s already familiar with your business is a huge strength that is guaranteed to yield higher sales rates – and holidays present you the opportunity to do so on a silver platter.

Do: Offer Special Discounts and Promotions

Even though it’s not new, this strategy never ceases to work. If you really want to make your mark, your holiday campaigns should include offers like discounts on different products or services, promotions, and coupons. Don’t think of this strategy as giving away free products, think of this as an investment in your business. With exciting offers, you have a better chance of grabbing attention during the holidays – which, as a result, will positively influence your reputation over the longer run. The better the offers, the more customers get hooked!

Keep in mind, your competitors are either trying to shine during the holidays with promotions or they’re missing out on the opportunity. Either way, by running your own promotional campaign, you get a leg up on the competition.

Don’t: Forget the Smaller Events

We all know Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Valentine’s Day – the list goes on.

While these holidays, of course, take center stage because of how popularly celebrate they are, there are many other events your business is missing out on. Take a look at national events like Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day, Small Business Saturday, Back-To-School Season and hundreds of food-related day celebrations. These smaller “holidays” give you an opportunity to promote your brand and engage your audience with a fresh new angle.

Do: Support Charitable Causes

Supporting charities and charitable causes during holiday times is a great way to grab attention. August was ALS Awareness month, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month – throughout the year, you’ll constantly find many causes your business can support. Not only would you be doing good, but also showing support to your community. Hitting this spot in your marketing strategy can be a great way to grab attention; you can encourage other local businesses or online influencers to join your cause – show your customers the trustworthy face behind your brand.

It’s September, have you started thinking of promotions supporting Breast Cancer Awareness next month?

Don’t: Start too late

Not sure how soon should you start planning? We know It’s easy to slip up and forget to think about holidays in advance, but in order to have your holiday marketing and branding ducks in a row, it’s actually never too early. If your business operates in an industry that tends to rely on holiday sales to boost your revenue – like retail or auto motives, you’ll need to start planning far in advance.

I always recommend that our clients begin planning their promotions at least a month or two in advance. Holidays and events are the best time to give out Promo Products that keep you on your customers’ minds.

Another tip you should always keep in mind is to give your Social Media Marketing campaigns the attention they deserve. By understanding the stakes – and potential, you’ll be more motivated to start planning your holiday promotions as far in advance as possible. This way you can be sure to make an impact in the market and create something of value.

If you follow all the right steps when it comes to holiday marketing, your customers will come back after the holidays are over. Planning Fall or Winter promotions? Drop us a line today!