Now’s the time to begin thinking about your marketing strategy for the 2021 holiday season. Getting ready early will help significantly cut through the noise during the festive season. The months leading up to the year-end are some of the busiest sales periods in the marketing calendar and trying to stand out is a hard, but achievable task.

Milligram has done a fantastic job in the past standing out with unique holiday campaigns that are beautifully designed and are intended to make it easier for the shopper to find that perfect gift. Whether it is a countdown to Christmas with their “12 Days of Gifting” campaign or their “Christmas Within Your Budget” email, which sorts out gifts according to the price from lowest to highest, Milligram’s holiday campaigns are on point.

1. Optimise your sign-up process

Shoppers will be looking to discover new brands during the holidays, so now is the perfect time to begin optimising your subscription process. It’s critical to understand what works with your audience. Are you incentivising the process? Have you tried gamifying the sign-up? Do popovers drive more sign-ups with your audience?

There are a lot of different strategies you can test in the lead-up to the holiday season. By taking the time to try some other tactics, you’ll be able to maximise your list growth during this period of heavy traffic.

2. Collect zero and first party data

Shoppers will be looking to discover new brands during the holidays, so now is the perfect time to begin optimising your subscription process. It’s critical to understand what works with your audience. Are you incentivising the process? Have you tried gamifying the sign-up? Do popovers drive more sign-ups with your audience?

There are a lot of different strategies you can test in the lead-up to the holiday season. By taking the time to try some other tactics, you’ll be able to maximise your list growth during this period of heavy traffic.

4. Refresh your welcome program

Welcome programs are vital for all brands, everywhere. They’re the first impression a new subscriber gets of your business. There are a couple of things you should be doing at this early stage of the customer relationship.

• Introduce your brand – what sets you apart from the crowd?
• Get to know your customers – what do they want out of the relationship?
• Drive action – what actions are you looking for readers to take?
• As you approach the busy holiday season, you should think about refreshing this essential automation. What can you do to improve performance? When was the last time you changed the design or tested your CTAs?

5. Test your abandoned cart and browse automation

Abandoned carts and abandoned browse are guaranteed money-making automation programs. To ensure these drive the results you want, you need to constantly test and optimise these programs, especially around the holiday season.

Try new design elements and tactics to discover what generated more revenue before your heavy sales period. AI-powered product recommendations are a great tool to increase average order value. Alternatively, you can direct subscribers to FAQs or peer reviews to remove blockers to the path to purchase.

6. Expand your marketing channels

Before the holiday season kicks off in earnest, it’s time to think about what marketing channels you have and which you are using. Customers are on the go and demand immediate responses – is email alone enough?

dotdigital empowers marketers to connect channels and communicate across mediums with ease. Retargeting ads during the holidays aids in driving brand recognition and sales. SMS is perfect for driving action among your engaged audience. A well-timed text message alerting customers to new products, upcoming sales, and back-in-stock items can guarantee a boost to revenue during the holiday season.

7. Key marketing dates

Last but not least, make sure you mark the important dates on your marketing sales calendar now. You don’t want to miss those marketing events because you focused on other future events. In addition to the most popular holidays ahead, the following are equally crucial for increased sales.

• Click Frenzy (Australia) – 9 November 2021
• Singles’ Day – 11 November 2021
• Black Friday – 26 November 2021
• Cyber Monday – 29 November 2021
• First Day of Summer – 1 December 2021

With the increasingly complex demands of the modern shopper, it’s never been more important to have your marketing strategy working for you to ensure you don’t get left behind. I hope these key considerations will help you make the most of the upcoming season, and beyond!

This piece was written by Ian Tilson (Head of Partnerships, APAC, dotdigital). dotdigital and Convert Digital are proud partners, and work with several retailers, including Milligram, Rusty, Outdoor Elegance and Westlab, to name a few. Contact dotdigital to learn how they can help you take your holiday campaigns to the next level.