It’s the holiday shopping season, which only means one thing: Cue the sea of holiday-themed advertising and promotions filling your inbox and social media feed.

For small and large businesses alike, the holidays are a monumental time to increase brand awareness and sales. Come August, marketers are already hard at work creating holiday campaigns and finalizing budgets.

If you’re present in the e-commerce space, it may be helpful to know that 55% of people plan to do their holiday shopping online. Having a prominent online marketing presence — whether you’re a retail brand or not — will help engage your audience and get them in the spirit of the season.

Here’s a rundown of how your marketing can give you the upper hand this holiday season.

1. Have Actionable Goals

Reds and greens, bells and whistles, snowflakes and Santas — there are so many ways to make your content festive.

But don’t just launch a slew of holiday-themed ads for the sake of it. Think about your unique goals for the holiday season, whether that’s ultimately driving more traffic to your website, increasing social media engagement, or closing more sales. Is there a new product you could promote with your holiday marketing?

Every company — even as mundane as plumbing or lawn care — can create a memorable association with the holidays to leverage in their marketing plan. Sharing personal customer testimonials, providing a shopping assistant, or creating captivating videos can help you provide valuable content to your audience.

2. Get a Head Start

If you haven’t given any thought to your holiday marketing plan, you may already be behind. But you still have time — many people don’t start their shopping until Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the early days of December.

During the holiday season, companies send tons of emails in a fight to dominate their consumers’ inboxes. Getting a head start on your holiday marketing can help you break through the noise of all this content. Email marketing is a great way to kick start your holiday campaign, but be sure take a creative approach— over a third of people open emails based on subject lines alone.

To avoid getting buried among the cluster of seemingly identical emails, here are some ways you can build excitement with email marketing:

• Preview hot-ticket items

• Feature a timeline or countdown toward special holiday events

• Preview sales and promotions to look out for

3. Show your Gratitude

After all, this is the season of giving. A great way to show gratitude for your most loyal customers is to take advantage of contests or giveaways.

Starbucks may be known for their holiday-themed drinks and treats, but they also know just how to reward their customers. In 2017, Starbucks launched Project Give Good, in which they granted instant Gold Status to customers that made purchases through the Starbucks app. They also handed out $1 million worth of Starbucks gift cards throughout the month of December.

“The inspiration behind Project Give Good is simple, we want to brighten the holidays and delight our customers,” said Kris Engskov, executive vice president of U.S. Retail for Starbucks.

Lots of companies can learn from Starbucks’ charitable approach to showing appreciation. It's no wonder they’re the leading coffee retailer in the world.

4. Use Hashtag Marketing

Hashtag marketing around the holidays can be utilized in a variety of ways — from promoting a giveaway to showing loyalty to a certain cause, much like activity gear retailer REI did.

On Black Friday, REI empowered their employees and America with their #OptOutside challenge. They closed their stores and paid their 12,000 employees to get outside and document their adventures using the #OptOutside hashtag.

This campaign from REI proved to be a great way to build momentum for the holiday season. It also generated a wealth of user-generated content that would bring loads of awareness to the retailer at a peak time of year.

5. Build a Gift Guide

Jewelry retailer Alex and Ani puts a unique spin on traditional holiday gift guides. While most gift guides focus on a specific member of the family, their guide pairs products with personalities.

And not just average personalities. They created unique personas for their buyers — including The Dark Romantic, The Festively Feminine, The Sentimental Sweetheart, The Scene Stealer, The Modern Minimalist, and The Art Enthusiast.

Alex and Ani’s approach to holiday marketing is not only incredibly creative, but it shows they understand their target audience. This creative strategy both revolutionizes and eases the shopping experience for their consumers.

Key Takeaways

It’s never too early to start capitalizing on the most profitable time of the year. The holiday season should not just be all about driving revenue and sales, but more about establishing meaningful connections with your customers and providing them value for their year-round loyalty.

5 Ways To Master Your Holiday Marketing Strategy