Do you ever feel inundated with the gift guides, blogs, and ads in the lead-up to social media holidays (Fathers Day, Galentines Day, National Carbonara Day, etc)? We are here to give you a recap of all the buying habits and consumer trends from social media holidays. As we all know, it’s a sales opportunity for brands and there are many techniques you can employ as a brand to grab the attention of consumers. Here are our Top 5.
Planning is Key
For both digital and PR, it is essential to start planning at least a couple of months in advance of the holiday or event to rebuild awareness of your brand. To create new content you need to plan months in advance ensuring all photography and video assets are in place. For PR sometimes it’s even starting as early as 6 months in advance, if creating a gift pack can begin working 2 years in advance for packaging purposes.
Once this has been established, it is vital to begin showcasing the awesome range of products you have on offer. You will definitely benefit from starting to pitch to the media about your campaign or products ahead of time, this is particularly important if you are targeting print media.
It is important to differentiate yourself from rival brands.
Most consumers conduct research online prior to purchasing a product for a holiday or event. As such, your brand will need to craft a unique and compelling selling point that captivates consumers, convincing them that your brand, unlike the other brands, has the product they desire. To achieve this, it is important to be creative, to address a holiday from a new perspective or iterate on a previous campaign with a stylish twist that grabs the consumer’s attention. Whichever option you choose, you should always make an effort to personalise your campaign to your consumers.
Quick delivery options are crucial to brand loyalty.
Once captivated by your initial advertisement, a potential customer might visit your website. At this point, there are a number of pain points that might drive a customer to give up on the brand and look elsewhere. One of these pain points, understandably, is the speed of delivery, which we have observed time and time again to have a large impact on customer retention, particularly when purchasing items for a specific date. Customers take comfort in the knowledge that their product will be with them ahead of the date, and this is often a deal-breaker when it comes to completing a purchase.
PR helps drive sales.
PR is one of the most important methods to increase sales. Earned media ie media coverage not paid for with creative hooks that get you talked about, directly leads to an increase in search, building links to help organic rankings, website views, boosts reputation and ultimately sales. It’s a highly competitive time so making sure you target the right media effectively for your product is important to getting journalists’ attention as well as providing eye-catching photography and videography with a link to purchase directly boosts your chances of getting coverage.