No Holidays For Marketing

Marketing has no holidays. Unfortunately, holidays are the best times of the year to hype campaigns and make them more effective than they would normally be. Why do you think Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day and even seemingly not-that-important occasions like Mother's Day and even Grandparent's day are becoming such big deals?

I have nothing against it, it's actually great that more people start remembering dates like these, I bet the receiving end doesn't feel so bad either. But anyway on to our Holiday campaigns. It is Halloween and it will soon be Thanksgiving, followed by Christmas and the New Year.

The time to start thinking about Holiday marketing though is RIGHT NOW. I have already made a marketing budget projection for our holiday spending. Some questions to consider for the holidays:

• How much did we spend in previous years and what returns did we get from them? Will it be worthwhile to do the same this year?
• What are the current trends and market behavior leading to the holidays that might be able to highlight certain product lines?
• On what days were we exceptionally active and on which days did we lay low?
• What offers are we planning to put out? Will there be a boxing day special?

After you've considered the holiday factors and established with management the holiday strategies to set in place, here are some tips on implementation to make the most out of the holiday shopping spree:

• Segment and target your customer base, differentiate people who purchase on different holidays. An email marketing campaign or direct mail campaign to the right people at the right time can generate extra sales.
• Always be timely. Customers will appreciate you sending them a card at the right time. If you're thinking of doing direct mail. make sure you mail out the pieces with the right lead time. Nothing worse than a client getting your coupon past the deadline - I should know. I've tried.
• Try a greeting card instead of the typical letter. Although the commercial nature of the holidays have stigmatized so many people. Holidays are still good reasons for people to justify their purchasing behavior. That's the spike in spending during the holidays otherwise called holiday shopping.
• Try not selling them anything. Just being thoughtful is enough to create goodwill and encourage the customer to revisit your site every now and then.