Things You Wish You Knew Before Launching Holiday Campaigns

With the holiday season just around the corner, what are the things you need to be mindful of as a marketer? How have consumer holiday shopping trends changed post the pandemic? What can you do to address the same?

MoEngage’s latest webinar covers this and more, featuring experts representing brands like Fine Tooth Comb, Holland & Barrett, LUISAVIAROMA, and AppFollow. 

Read on to know what all you can do to up your holiday marketing campaigns. 

The Current Landscape for Holiday Shopping

Jason, from MoEngage, kicked off the webinar by sharing noteworthy insights on consumer shopping: 

• Significant spending occurred during the 2021 holiday season, despite the post-pandemic recovery situation: Holiday shoppers spent $257B online in the US in 2021 and $1.14T globally, with 30% of all retail sales last year, coming from the holiday season.
• Mobile spending has increased: 67% of the holiday sales in 2021 were attributed to mobile devices. 
• Many consumers start their holiday shopping early:  45% of shoppers started shopping in the October of 2021.

Similarly, based on last year’s trends and recent consumer surveys, the following predictions have been made for holiday shopping this year:

• Holiday retail sales will increase by 3.3% to $1.262 trillion, despite the economic headwinds. 
• E-commerce holiday sales are expected to rise 15.5% to $235.86 billion.
• M-commerce is forecasted to capture 49.6% of the total e-commerce sales.
• Shoppers are planning to spend $10-75 on purchases for Halloween and Hanukkah, $25-100+ for New Year’s Eve, $50-150 for Thanksgiving, and $150-200+ for Christmas. 
• Consumers will be more conscious about their purchases and research thoroughly before spending their money. 

These insights showcase immense opportunities for brands planning to leverage the holiday season to acquire, retain, and engage their customers.

But the question is – What do consumers actually want from your brand? Knowing this is critical for planning your seasonal campaigns. 

Expectations of Holiday Shoppers  

With increasing competition, typical holiday offerings and communication can easily fail to acquire and retain customers. 

To address this, Jason summarizes his findings, from surveys and numerous interactions with customers, into the six things that holiday shoppers expect from brands:

1. Personalizing the Experience:

   Customers expect brands to know their choices and provide them with relevant product recommendations, personalized content, and attractive offers. This can be done by understanding their search history, purchase behavior, and other insights. 

2. Preparing for Early Shoppers:

   Many customers start their holiday purchasing in advance. Hence you must make sure that you have enough capacity to cater to the demand that comes early in the holiday season.

3. Being Where Your Customers Are:

   Use a well-integrated and personalized omnichannel strategy to reach your prospects and customers. If they are not active on one channel, find a different channel to reach them.
   

4. Offering Genuine Discounts:

   When customers compare different brands, they look for authenticity. Instead of first inflating prices and then decreasing them around the holidays to show that the products are on sale, start offering genuine discounts and promotions.

5. Having Flexible Payment and Delivery Options:

   Offer ease of purchase by providing multiple payment options, a next-day delivery facility, or even same-day delivery to your customers. 

6. Giving Excellent Customer Service:

   Understand the sentiment of your customers and act proactively when it comes to customer service. 

After understanding customer expectations and addressing them, you must also look at various strategies to prep for the peak season.

Preparing for the Holiday Shopping Season

To prepare well for the holiday season, the webinar panel spoke about the three types of strategies you need to get right – pricing, channel, and review management strategies:

• Pricing Strategy:

  • “Don’t just offer them a 60% discount. Traditional price reduction methods are not enough anymore”, Nicola from Fine Tooth Comb, says. This is because the purchasing pattern of customers has now become more agenda-based. They will go through an extensive research process before making any significant purchase this year. Hence, understanding their search patterns and what they are looking for can help you make a more favorable offer to them.
  • In case you are still struggling to understand their requirements, ask them questions and take feedback regularly. Let them tell you what’s better for them and what they want. 

• Channel Strategy: 

  • Reach your customers where they are with an omnichannel approach. But make sure your communication is clear and consistent across all channels, whether online or offline.  
  • Diego from LUISAVIAROMA adds to this by saying that it’s essential to “understand if they are buying for themselves or someone else and then customizing your message accordingly”. 

• App Review Management Strategy: 

  • If many customers are spending time on your app and doing a transaction, you must keep your app prepared for the increased traffic. 
  • Negative reviews can taint your reputation and decrease your sales so “while ensuring that the final product reaches them well, also ensure that the user journey on the app is smooth”, highlighted Denis from AppFollow. 

Strategizing in the Age of Digital-first

During the webinar, Diego expanded on how to deal with the changing landscape of mobile-first customers, from a holiday marketing point of view.  

According to him, the most important thing to remember is to be customer-centric. 

Nicola further added to the discussion by reminding us that at the end of the day customers are people. They’ve gone through a lot due to the pandemic and continue to deal with the post-pandemic effects and recession. 

Here are some things you can do to win over your customers:

• Physical and digital channels must co-exist together in harmony. Even if you are doing more sales digitally, strive to improve the offline shopping experience constantly. 
• When you reach out to your customers, communicate with empathy and help them in their buying journey. 
• Ask them how they want to be communicated and where. 
• Communicate your offer to them only when it’s the right time to convert. 
• Give them the freedom to explore your app or website at their convenience.
• Test, test, and test! See what works for you and then keep doing it better. 
• Focus on customer retention and not just on gaining new customers. 
• Don’t ignore your customers once their holiday purchase is done. Instead of focusing just on the holidays, think of establishing a long-term relationship with them. 

Creating Holiday Marketing Campaigns With Budget Constraints

Addressing a question from the audience, Nicola and Denis discuss how regardless of financial constraints you can still launch successful holiday marketing campaigns. Here’s how: 

• Automate processes using relevant technology.
• Leverage your existing strengths, work on improving them, and amplify them to your customers. 
• Win back disengaged customers. This is because getting back an old customer is easier and less costly than attracting a new one. 
• Focus extensively on the reviews and feedback you get. Use automated tools to help categorize your app reviews and topics, if needed. Start replying to all the reviews and ask customers who have a good experience to leave reviews. This will help you build goodwill and provide you insights into customer preferences and their buying journey.
  

Conclusion

The 2022 holiday season is here and it is going to be an exciting time for both you and your customers. But don’t forget that we are still coming out from the effects of the pandemic while experiencing economic uncertainty. Such times are extremely confusing and challenging for your customers, so you must showcase empathy in all your communication with them.

And while trends show that it’ll be a busy shopping season this year, don’t forget to keep your customers at the center of all your campaigns. Making everything about them instead of yourself is the mantra to win their hearts. 

Looking for more resources and ideas to gear up for the holiday season? Make sure you check out our Holiday Marketing Hub!