Here’s How to Maximise Your Winter Marketing

It sometimes feels like Christmas comes earlier every year, with retailers trying to get their customers into the buying mode with seasonally themed winter marketing well before the festive period gets into full swing.

Stand out from the competition with your winter marketing this Christmas

Christmas is an important time of the year for businesses across several sectors, especially so for their winter marketing. However, there are none that rely on December sales quite as much as retail. According to comparison experts Finder, one in 10 Brits begin their Christmas shopping as early as July, and this year the average British adult will fork out £548 on Christmas gifts in 2021 – a £72 increase from 2020s £476 average.

After the lacklustre lockdown Christmas offered by 2020, it’s little surprise that retailers want to ramp up their efforts earlier than ever, and shoppers are itching to spend their hard-earned pounds on presents that they will hopefully see their friends and family unwrap in 2021.

With so much potential for great sales, it’s essential for businesses to make the most of this crucial period.

Set your goals and stick to them

SMART goals are crucial to effective marketing. This is especially true at Christmas when customers are feeling extra spend-happy. There are a few common goals that all retailers can agree on when it comes to the festive season, including boosting sales, driving web traffic, generating leads, increasing engagement and building up brand awareness.

All winter marketing campaigns tackle one of these common objectives, so you’ll need to focus your tactics on where your priorities lie. For boosting sales, interactive content and influencer marketing has become a tried and tested solution in recent years. For driving conversions, targeted PPC traffic and SEO are a must. And for building awareness, paid partnerships and brand storytelling can be extremely valuable. With many different options and marketing channels available in 2021, the best approach is always to invest your resources into your priorities, not into activities that you want to try simply because others are doing it.

Research your audience and create a content calendar

It’s well worth planning out your content around the calendar this month and ensuring the campaign is designed effectively. It might also be nice to take the pressure off and get your content strategy scheduled during the busy season. This will allow you to put aside the necessary time to dedicate toward more critical areas of marketing. Time is short in business, so you never want to have to sit down and begin crafting content without a bank of ideas to work with.

The best content is based on what your audience wants to see, so take the time to engage in target audience research. Through tactics like mailing list surveys, social media posts and website analytics, you can find out what makes your audience tick – from free shipping to discounts to reward schemes.

Think beyond your Winter Marketing

Effective Christmas marketing might focus on the event itself, but it should also reserve some energy for the build-up and the come down from the big day. Mini campaigns throughout December can help build momentum and interest with your audience and give you a chance to see which incentives and offers produce the best results from your customers.

Make sure your content doesn’t come to an abrupt halt on Christmas day, while your strategy should be festively themed your focus should be on winter marketing as well as the holidays. A Boxing Day sale, a new year campaign, or a post-Christmas prize draw can help to keep interest in your campaign alive. Similarly, looking at the changing demand in specific search terms via Google Ads can help you to run cost-effective Pay-Per-Click campaigns at the right time.

Here at ROAR Digital Marketing, we specialise in offering a wide range of transparent digital marketing services with tangible results. So, if you’re looking for a North East digital marketing agency to help you make the most of your marketing at this crucial time of year, then lets talk!