While everyone is excited about the holidays, marketers have a lot on their plate. They can’t just settle into the festive season, without setting up a holiday campaign for the business, because the holiday season means a high inflow of customers.
Demand for holiday sales will be at a record high as many places have started to return to normalcy post the pandemic. The government has started to ease the restrictions; so businesses have to be one step ahead and be prepared to cater to the spike in demand.
Omnichannel Digital Focus is Vital
According to this study, almost 50% of customers admit to shopping online more frequently than they did before the pandemic. A marketer’s best bet is to stay prepared for this with a well-planned marketing strategy and a marketing automation tool that can handle multiple automation tasks across various customer touchpoints via omnichannel marketing.
The experiences have to be consistent, irrespective of the social media channel. This can’t be stressed enough but, a feeling of disconnect when switching channels through the customer journey is not a good sign and customers will despise this.
It’s like when you’re watching Superbowl and suddenly there’s a power outage. The moment has passed, and it can cost businesses dearly.
Presence across all social media channels is a given and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Potential customers are always randomly browsing and a good campaign can grab their attention, even if they weren’t intending to buy that particular item. An omnichannel marketing platform is a must-have arrow in your quiver.
Workflows and Triggers Helps Marketer Enjoy the Holidays a Bit More
A marketer’s task is sometimes overlooked. Right from sending out campaigns, capturing & qualifying leads, nurturing them, to finally converting them, it’s tougher than it seems.
Holidays are particularly stressful for marketers, as businesses are in full swing. As discussed earlier, covering all customer touchpoints is vital and this can complicate things if there isn’t a marketing automation tool that can help you create a workflow and important triggers that drive the campaign narrative, exemplifying its effectiveness by segmenting audiences as they perform a particular action in the workflow.
Marketers can benefit largely from this because they can build a great database of the segmented customer base that is a foundation for all campaigns going forward.
Having a well-designed workflow with well-crafted triggers also means that marketers can relax a little more during holidays while letting automation take care of distributing dynamic content ads, products, and services.
Relevancy is the Name of the Game
A big part of the online game is to build up an audience in the form of subscribers and followers. The holiday season gives marketers a lot more breathing space and opportunities in terms of content.
In a holiday season that revolves around the concept of giving, it is a great strategy to run campaigns that focuses on contests and giveaways. While it’s not possible for all the businesses to run contests and giveaways, providing discounts on this festive occasion is a great strategy to connect with customers, especially considering the pandemic has had a devastating effect on many people.
This can also help marketers build a database which is a long-term benefit and can help with qualifying leads, analyzing buyer personas, and designing dynamic content.
AI and ML Can Help Greatly with Personalization
Many times have there been instances where people have received irrelevant content in the form of ads, blogs, and product recommendations. This hurts a brand way more than usual and is a sure-shot way to make sure your campaigns along with your brand name end up in the spam category.
With an AI and ML-powered Marketing automation tool like Factoreal, a highly personalized content strategy can be implemented along with audience segmentation, customized workflows, and triggers, which don’t have the ‘human error’ problem.
This lets marketers schedule social media posts, and email campaigns well in advance, meaning marketers can enjoy the holidays without worrying too much about KPIs, campaign reports, and analytics.
In the background the marketing automation software is silently running ads, social media posts, and various other campaigns that are strategically scheduled by the marketer, segmenting customers, showing relevant content and categorizing them into various groups, and pushing them into the marketing funnel.
This way, marketers don’t have to worry too much about missing out on leads, as the automation tool will filter and only let through quality leads all thanks to the advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Marketers have to be well prepared with the plan, however, but that’s the interesting part. It’s the menial repetitive tasks that need to be done with, which is what marketing automation software does quite efficiently.
Conclusion
Creating the best digital experience across all channels requires audience segmentation and personalization. This helps marketers create a buyer persona which makes targeting ideal. Factors like demographics, location, age, and previous purchase patterns are key metrics that help in ascertaining this.
This concept of understanding customer values and staying connected with your customers goes hand in hand with the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday spirit!
The festive season is special for marketers too. A marketer’s task is a crucial one at a time where most businesses are online-centric. A marketing automation software like Factoreal is a perfect aid for a marketer who wants to take a break from this roller coaster ride while still being able to market like a PRO!