As we head into one of the busiest marketing seasons of the year, new technology and innovative techniques are changing the holiday marketing landscape. This season, it's all about mobile. Mobile is driving 60 percent of e-commerce traffic this year, up from 34 percent last year, according to Zeta Global. Even in-store, 71 percent of shoppers use mobile devices to read reviews, make purchases and more. In other words, digital mobile marketing is where it's at. So how can you set your campaigns apart from the millions of others floating around? Here's our early holiday gift to you: three key tactics that will take your holiday marketing to the next level.
With the ease of asking a question and receiving an answer as if by magic, it's hardly surprising that voice search is rising as one of the hottest tech trends on the marketing scene. As such, knowing how to optimize campaigns for voice search is essential for marketers who want to stay at the top of their game. According to a Think with Google study, half of all web traffic currently comes from mobile use, and 46 percent of all local searches per day are using voice search. A large part of utilizing this is understanding the nature of voice search and how people use it. With voice search, it all comes down to location and immediacy, says ClickZ — people want something specific, and they want it soon and nearby. In fact, a recent study shows that 63 percent of voice searches are seeking local results. This makes voice search especially relevant around the holidays, when customers are often out shopping, in a rush and looking for an item or service as quickly and conveniently as possible. As such, marketers can give their holiday strategies a powerful boost by optimizing a voice search strategy. Step one is finding out what questions customers are asking — what they want, when and where — and targeting marketing based on that data. With your business only a spoken word or two away, you'll be ready to take on the holiday season.
With the amount of data floating around these days, generalized marketing ploys just don't cut it anymore. Personalization has a huge impact on marketing effectiveness, offering a key to improve relevance, build loyalty and drive conversions, according to Zeta Global. This is where data collection comes into play. Facilitated by new data collection and analytics technology, marketers have more tools than ever to gain insight into customer identities, attitudes, behaviors and intent. Especially during the holidays, studying content searching habits online and identifying and creating customized offers for loyal customers can be extremely effective. In short, this gives marketers a valuable toolkit to optimize customer experience — to appeal to specific needs and preferences, to build strong relationships, to make customers feel as if an experience or product is made just for them — which is particularly powerful on the crowded, noisy holiday scene. Real-time, personalized techniques like location and item-specific suggestions and advent calendar email campaigns and interactive elements such as contests and user-generated content can take holiday marketing to a new level and capture in-demand user attention.
Why be satisfied with a static image when you can have live action? Between YouTube, IGTV and more, no one needs to be told video is big right now. According to MarTech Series, Facebook users watch a combined total of over eight million videos per day. Moreover, a study by Promo found that 58 percent of consumers said they react to videos they watch online, and 70 percent said they visit the publisher's website after watching. Translation: marketers can't afford to neglect video as a medium to reach customers. Again, considering the shift to mobile and the deluge of marketing materials at this time of year, the holiday season is a more crucial time than ever for marketers to create a video strategy. This includes collecting data on the video platforms and style/approach your customers most respond to, and then developing video content for campaigns.
With these tools in hand, you'll be ready to take on the holiday marketing season at the top of your game, shopping stampedes, snowstorms and all. To learn more about taking your digital marketing strategy up a notch, check out our capabilities.