3 Easy Ways to Keep Your Customers Engaged Throughout the Holidays

As the years by, the holiday shopping season was initiated by the arrival of Black Friday and extended into Christmas Eve.

These days, however, consumers expect the shopping to start earlier, and for there to be massive Black Friday sales throughout the holiday season. Retailers, for the most part, seem happy to oblige.

One risk that such an extended stretch of sales some consumers might end up experiencing exhaustion. To help stave off such states, merchants need to know how to keep their marketing efforts creative, inspiring, and captivating.

With all of the extra operational activity on your end, it can be hard to make the time to keep the engagement going. That’s why you need solutions that are simple, but that yield solid results. If you are looking for the ideal methods to easily connect with your customers this holiday season and drive additional sales, search no further.

Here are three powerful tactics for keeping your customers engaged this holiday season.

#1: Choose the Right Kind of Ads

When it comes to social media advertising, a video has become the gold standard. In today’s social sphere, you can’t run an ad without utilizing some sort of moving visual that grabs people’s attention.

But the holidays are no time for experimenting with elements that may not perform as well as others. Research has shown that people remember 55 percent more information from video formats. Moreover, 64 percent of users who watch a video are more likely to buy a product online. What’s more, Facebook video ads tend to receive 10 to 30 percent more views in the newsfeed.

The bottom line is that short, yet captivating videos tend to be far more memorable than mere images. A video is also shared more frequently than image-based ads.

Still, creating video adverts is a daunting task to those who feel ill-equipped to deal with an unfamiliar medium.

Tools like Promo by Slidely cater to newbies. It can help empower anyone who wants to create professional-looking adverts. The platform features a library of millions of high-quality video clips and licensed music clips. In addition, it can help you create a stunning and resonant video tone and message.

Overwhelmed by millions of clips to choose from? You can select footage from Promo’s themed galleries of curated suggestions, including the above gem, which you can review their Christmas collection.

After pairing a video and song, you just need to add your logo and enter your message with the text editor. Just like that, you can craft an eye-catching social advert that has the potential to expose your brand to new audience members and increase sales.

#2: Design Irresistible Emails

Email marketing is still a holiday powerhouse.

In 2016, email marketing efforts drove more than 27 percent of Black Friday sales. Meanwhile, paid and organic search both failed to break the 20 percent goal. This illustrates that email is still a force to be reckoned with, and particularly during the holiday season.

While email marketing has its challenges, there are certain tactics that you should absolutely be employing for the sales season.

Firstly, it is vital to have a clear subject line that is attention-grabbing. It should be a sale, discount, event, or some other promise of massive savings. When consumers click on the email, ensure that you leverage unique images with just the necessary text. Images are eye-catching and convey large amounts of info instantly.

Don’t tell your customer how great your products are. Show them. Need free visuals to work with? No problem – HubSpot has you covered with a free set ready for download. You can easily add custom text titles, add your logo, and use free tools like Pablo.

In product-focused emails, it is especially vital to keep your most important or compelling information above the fold. Fail to do this, and certain folks will lose interest right away. You may even want to consider placing your call-to-action that drives customers to a discount page here.

Another tactic to consider using is the art of scarcity. Scarcity, especially during timely sales promotions around Christmas, creates a sense of urgency and tends to help products sell much faster.

Keep in mind that your brand doesn’t need to promote a plethora of products in its emails. Make sure you choose between one to three items to hype up and focus your message strategically around those.

Your emails may also want to offer consumers the prospect of receiving a special gift. This can be done by promising customers that each sale comes with an entry into a raffle for tons of worthwhile prizes.

Most importantly, make sure that you have fun with your email campaign. People respond to personality and original pitches. Craft a recognizable and reliable tone for your messages, and you’ll watch conversions soar.

#3: Host an Offline Holiday Event

Using the previous two tactics, you can create a ton of buzz for an offline event to help get people into your store. This is particularly effective if you leverage the raffle mentioned earlier.

A holiday event is a perfect way to thank customers for their years round support. You can hire a Santa Claus or other performers, serve free or inexpensive food, or host contests to encourage a family-like environment.

In the below example, the Sushi Lovers LA community has teamed up with local restaurant Maison Akira to offer a champagne brunch.

Of course, it’s also wise to pair these offerings with a special deal that won’t take place online. If you have a physical store, getting customers inside your doors is obviously the key to engendering brand loyalty and success.

By partnering with another organization with a similar audience to yours, you can share the promotional and event production workload. Also, expand your reach for maximum ROI on your efforts.

Keep It Simple, But Keep It Going

There is still a long way to go before the holidays are over. Start employing these compelling tactics to ensure your customers buy into your amazing sales instead succumbing to the shopping fatigue burnout.

Read more:

• Giving Back to Your Customers This Holiday Season