Plan Your Holiday Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps

By Acadia Otlowski Content Marketing November 9, 2017

The holiday season is rapidly approaching and although it may seem too early for seasonal posts (like this), it’s a perfect time to start planning your holiday marketing strategy.

Learn how to plan for and execute great posts this holiday season, which will help catapult your brand into this festive time of year.

1. Start planning now

Like, right this second.

Thanksgiving is November 23 (in the United States).

You should have started your holiday marketing strategy before Halloween and Day of the Dead. But if you didn’t catch along soon enough, at least try to start planning holiday content before Thanksgiving

2. Determine what to celebrate

You need to sit down and decide which holidays your company will recognize publicly through social media and content marketing.

This is easier said than done. You have a few choices:

National holidays – This is pretty common. Your brand can publicly celebrate major holidays in the nation that it is located. If you have a large number of clients from other nations, it may be worthwhile to note those holidays as well.
Not all holidays are created equal though, be mindful of not recognizing any particular holiday that could be polarizing, such as Columbus Day. This holiday is not well-loved in today’s socially-conscious world.
Local holidays – If you sell to of local (could be city or state) customers, try to connect your business with a sense of place. It will allow you to connect with customers over familiar local imagery.
Even non-local businesses will appreciate the sense of place they receive from seeing what the culture is like where your company makes the magic happen.
Non-secular holidays – This is something you have to be very careful about, to the point where I just wouldn’t unless you are very sure it is worth potentially alienating a percentage of your audience.

If you are a B2B vendor, there is no reason you should be directly celebrating non-secular holidays. That doesn’t mean ditch them, just use neutral, non-specific language.

3. Choose when to celebrate

The are many time periods for choosing when to send out holiday content including:

Basically, as long as you aren’t posting content after it is timely, anytime surrounding the holiday can be an opportunity for some seasonally flavored content.

4. Figure out what to say and when

Remember to keep the habits of those who are viewing your content in mind while figuring out what content to send when.
For example, sending a simple holiday greeting email or social post is acceptable on Thanksgiving Day. Posting an in-depth piece of content ensures that it gets lost while your customers tuck into dinner.
Figure this all out long before the holidays begin, otherwise, you will be rushing to create and schedule appropriate content.

5. Create the content

Create festive seasonal blog posts, infographics, videos, images, etc. These are great to hold over your social channels while members of your team travel.
Additionally, if your company holds any seasonal events, like a potluck Thanksgiving team meal or winter holiday celebration, do take a few photos of your team feeling festive (cue the groans of your colleagues). But showing these behind the scenes moments gives your customers a rare sneak peek of your team outside the office.

Just, you know, keep the photos appropriate. And maybe wait until the next morning to post anything. The whole “create drunk, edit sober” rule.

6. Include some gifts

Have some really valuable material in your content. Even consider doing a discount or special promotion for your offering at varying points over the holiday season.
Send out email campaigns with promotions on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Send out early holiday presents or late holiday presents or even have new year, new budget deals.

7. Schedule the content

Set up all the holiday posts before your team members leave. That way nobody has to worry about them while they are enjoying the holidays.
Do have someone check in periodically over whatever time your team has off to ensure everything has gone as planned and nothing went wrong with the posts.
Festive holiday content is a great way to link your business to those events which are centered around bringing people together. Take advantage of those festive feelings and surprise and delight your audience this holiday season.