27 Oct Holiday Digital Marketing Ideas for 2021
Holiday season is almost upon us, so we’re compiling holiday digital marketing ideas for 2021. We’ll break down ideas by marketing channel here, so check out our other post about how to prep for Q4, which focuses on time frames in November through Christmas.
Plus, before you start producing tons of content, remember to think about your overarching strategy! Your marketing channel tactics don’t translate as well without a strategy holding them all together. When you have a rock-solid strategy, the holiday digital marketing ideas below will translate easily in implementation.
Holiday Email Ideas
Email is the star of the show during the holiday season. You know that email list you’ve (hopefully) been building all year long? It’s time to use it to the fullest. Ideally, you should be sending out emails consistently (weekly, monthly, or quarterly) throughout the year. But if you’ve neglected your list thus far, the holiday season is a good time to take advantage of the opt-ins.
The biggest theme with email marketing is to TEST. An average open rate across industries is around 20%, so you want to try using different subject lines and email topics that make people engage at a higher rate. Because email performance hinges on open rates (because if people don’t open your email, they won’t be clicking it), here are some subject line ideas for the holidays:
- Percentage off during sale period. Reinforce a sense of urgency with a limited time offer; ex.: 30% Off…The Countdown Starts Now
- Dollar off during sale period. Similar to above, try phrasing the incentive differently to test conversion; ex.: $10 Off Orders $50+
- Puns. Try using puns that are relatable to your ideal client, ex.: Shop It Like It’s Hot
A few last tips with email!
Come up with one seasonal theme or template that’s different from your normal layout. Then you can use this template throughout the holiday season and plug in new images and copy. This keeps your holiday marketing in the same theme, while minimizing your workload.
Link everything. Different people click on different things (text, images, buttons), so give your subscribers the option to click through to your website in multiple ways.
Holiday Blogging Ideas
If you’ve worked with us before, you know that blogging is one of our top recommendations when launching a new site. Not only does putting out a new blog post each month help with SEO, it also gives you a landing page for email marketing and content for social media. As far as holiday digital marketing ideas go, blogging is a perfect place to start.
For product-based businesses, the holidays are the season for gift guides! Segment your gift guides by the different personalities of shoppers you see online or in-store to make the guides feel personal and specific to your customers. You want to post your blog early (think: early November at the latest), so that people have time to read your blog post, shop your website, and receive their purchase in time for the holidays.
For service-based businesses, the holiday season is a good time to report on trends you’ve seen throughout the year, expectations for the new year, and ways that you can help your clients during the holiday season.
Holiday Website Ideas
When it comes to your website, this is where holiday digital marketing ideas come to life and convert into sales. While most of the year you can keep your website relatively the same, it’s never a bad idea to add some seasonal-specific copy to banners and popups. You can also feature seasonal images and holiday-related blog posts, like the ones mentioned above. You don’t have to change your whole website, but certain sections that can be easily updated, added, or removed is a good place to start.
Other holiday website ideas include creating holiday product collections from existing inventory. If you decide to pursue the gift guide idea, you can curate product collections based on shopper personalities. Another popular option is creating collections based on price (ex. gifts under $50). New collections help your customers find what they’re looking for, and are good for SEO, too!
Holiday Advertising Ideas
Since we primarily work with small businesses, we’ll lay out the advertising caveat here, too. Advertising works great to drive traffic and sales to your website… any time besides Black Friday through Christmas Eve. Throughout the months of November and December, ad spend gets more competitive and large companies with large advertising budgets win the bidding wars for impressions. Not only does it get more expensive, but because every business with a digital presence (small and large alike) wants to run ads, your ideal customers’ attention is fragmented. This is where we redirect you back to the top, to think through your strategy and plan content for other marketing channels!
If you’re still considering advertising during the holidays, carefully consider which advertising platforms you’ll use! Facebook and Instagram are typically great for product-based businesses with beautiful imagery to share. But during the holiday season, these advertising platforms become the most competitive. Test out Google Ads with highly-specific keywords to drive lower-cost traffic (& sales!) to your website.