Top 7 Holiday Marketing Strategies to Push Your Clients Ahead of Their Competition

By Darren Johnson on Sep 3, 2021

If you run a marketing agency, you know that the holiday season is one of the best times you can leverage to give your B2C clients huge spikes in sales. But with virtually every retail business trying to cash in on the holiday season, the competition for customer attention is intense. So, how do you help your clients outperform their competitors? What tactics can you use to help them break through all the festive noise and stand out?

In this article, we give you some of the best answers to these questions. We discuss seven of the most effective holiday marketing strategies you can use to help your B2C clients win. We also show you how white label digital marketing services can help your agency cope with the frenzy of the holiday season.

In addition to a potential uptick in sales, the holiday season presents an opportunity for your agency to help retail clients build long-lasting relationships with their target audiences. While there are several holiday marketing tactics out there, here are some of the most effective ones for capturing today’s customers.

1. Start Early, End Late

It’s never too early to start planning your clients’ holiday marketing campaigns. The earlier you do, the more prepared you will be and the higher your odds of success. Ideally, you should start planning in August or September and launch your campaign way before November.

Early launching can help you capture the customers that plan ahead and buy gifts early. Up to 50% of customers start their shopping research in October or even earlier. And up to 33% start making purchases during that period. Helping your clients capture these early buyers can give them an edge over their competition.

While some customers are early buyers, others procrastinate to the very last minute and miss out on the shopping deals offered by most companies. Extending holiday marketing campaigns to capture these customers can also give your clients a competitive edge.

2. Make the Most of Email Marketing

Email is one of the most effective means of communication during the hectic holiday season. Customers are looking for the best deals and they know that businesses are going to be reaching out to them with various offers. So, while most customers might not have the time to deal with phone calls, in-person meetings or physical mail, they are sure to be checking their email. And remember: proper segmentation increases open rates by up to 40%.

Optimizing several clients’ email campaigns can be tricky and time-consuming, especially if your marketing agency focuses on other channels. Using a white label digital marketing service is an excellent solution in this case.

3. Connect with Customers on Social Media

Considering the fact that up to 84% of US adults (18 to 29 year old) are active on social media, promoting your client’s business on social media is simply a must.

During the holiday season, many customers scroll through platforms like Instagram and Pinterest looking for gift ideas and great promos. This gives you the perfect opportunity to present your clients’ products to them. And one of the best ways to do this is by using social media ads. We talk more about ads later in the article.

Another tactic is to increase organic reach by optimizing your hashtag strategy. Since many customers are actively looking for great deals, adding promotional hashtags like #specialoffer or #discount to your clients’ posts makes it easier for customers to find their offers.

Coming up with branded hashtags is also a great way to promote your clients’ products during the holiday season.An easy way to get customers to use these hashtags is to offer an incentive. For instance, you can start a holiday-themed contest that gives customers the chance to win a prize. The contest could involve them taking a picture and sharing it on social media with the branded hashtag attached. The picture should be related both to your client’s brand and the holiday in question.

4. Optimize for Mobile Use

Every decent marketer knows how important mobile-friendliness is in today’s market. During the holiday season, it is doubly important. Because most customers are always on the go, they are more prone to browsing through online stores and making purchases on their phones. As such, ensuring that your client’s websites, social media posts and emails look good on mobile is crucial to boosting revenue during this bustling season.

5. Create Holiday-Themed Ads

If there is any time to leverage the power of paid advertising, it is during the holiday season. The higher purchasing intent of customers during this time can result in increased ROI for your clients. Here are a few tips to help you maximize ad potential:

• Choose the right platforms: The right advertising platforms for each client depends on their target audience and the nature of their products or services. For instance, Instagram is a very visual platform and its largest user group is 25 to 34 year olds. As such, clients with visually appealing products and an audience in that age group are likely to benefit from Instagram ads.

• Don’t neglect keyword research: Avoid the mistake of bidding on the same seasonal keywords year after year without doing your research. While your clients are going to have core terms that you can target every holiday season, new trends come up all the time. Using tools like Google trends, you might discover opportunities that can help you breathe new life into your clients’ campaigns.

• Use white label digital marketing services: From creating targeted copy to setting up analytics, ad management can be a laborious process. A fulfillment service can relieve your agency’s staff of these burdens while delivering excellent results to your clients.

6. Practice Remarketing

While remarketing can be an effective marketing technique all year round, it is particularly great for the holiday season. That’s because, during this period, customers are constantly on the go, and they make lots of fast decisions. They look through hundreds of offers trying to find the best deals.

Most consumers are very unlikely to buy from a brand at first exposure. This is where the need for remarketing comes in. It reminds customers of your client’s products and services, and increases the likelihood that a prospect will make a purchase.

It is important to remember that remarketing should be done more often during the holiday season. For instance, if you already practice remarketing and you’ve set things up in a way that retargeted customers see your clients’ ads every month, you can change the duration to every 14 days. That way, customers will be reminded of your client’s ads more frequently and they are more likely to make a purchase while the offer is still on.

7. Tap into Video Marketing

Videos are, arguably, the best way for businesses to share holiday messages. As compared to text-based content, videos are better at telling stories, engaging potential customers and influencing purchasing decisions. A survey by Animoto showed that up to 73% of US adults are more likely to make a purchase after watching a video explaining a product or service. So, including videos in your client’s holiday marketing campaign can prove to be extremely rewarding.

The great thing about videos is their versatility. Once your agency produces high-quality branded videos for clients, they can be used on various platforms including their website, social media and email newsletters. Adding videos to your clients’ seasonal emails is a particularly powerful tactic that can increase click-through rates by as much as 200-300%.

Get the Help You Need for Holiday Marketing

If your agency struggles with managing the campaigns of several clients simultaneously or would like to expand into new areas, you should consider outsourcing to a white label digital marketing agency. This will save you a lot of time and resources that you can channel into other crucial aspects of your business. In addition, the best marketing services reseller platforms give you access to industry-leading tools and highly experienced experts that guarantee excellent results for your clients. To learn more, contact us today.