This article highlights the nine ways you can streamline marketing efficiencies to drive growth over Christmas, and other peak seasons.
Collect and enrich your first-party data
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: data is the number one contributor to success. Leveraging first-party data is not only crucial in navigating our evolving data protection landscape but also forms the foundation for campaign success. Brands need a strategic approach to optimize their campaigns well before the festive season kicks in, ensuring a setup that guarantees success when we hit Q4. This is where data enrichment comes in.
This approach emphasizes the future of personalization known as “Progressive Profiling”, where customer data is collected incrementally, resulting in more relevant profiles built on accurate and up-to-date information. Adopting this methodology improves the customer experience, gathers precise data, and drives increased personalization and conversions.
Think with a consumer first mindset
Implementing a consumer-first approach will be of the utmost importance during this holiday season. You should be putting your customers at the center of all that you do – offering personalization without sacrificing privacy – building relationships on ‘their’ terms.
To strike the right balance between security and personalization you will need to incorporate strong, consent-based frameworks for the data you collect and build in a value exchange to preserve the trust of your consumers.
Be mindful of financial realities and the diversity of your audience. While you want to encourage sales and drive awareness, it’s important to display understanding and sympathy for those with limited, if any disposable income, and the impact that the festive season may be having.
Reassess your measurement and attribution methods
More often than not we, as marketers, are misallocating our resources, as ‘old school’ attribution models are failing to account for the often complex nature of consumer decision-making. This can significantly impact performance across key sales periods, such as Black Friday and Christmas, with businesses over, or under valuing key channels.
To navigate this complexity, businesses should reassess their current methods of measurement and consider alternative solutions such as Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), Incrementality testing, and where feasible, Econometric Modeling.
Plan a discount strategy
Consumer confidence is still at a low with personal financial situations weighing heavily on discretionary spending – meaning consumers are becoming less brand loyal and prolonging their purchasing decisions to find the best deals and value for money. 52.9% of consumers are willing to switch brands if they can save money – with over 60% actively looking for the lowest product price when shopping. With this in mind, the holiday season will be saturated with bargain hunters, and brands that have a strong discount strategy in mind will come out on top.
A great way to approach this is to monitor your competitors’ prices and adjust yours accordingly. Consider dynamic pricing tools or repricing softwares to automate price adjustments based on market conditions. Striking the right balance between competitiveness and profitability is difficult, but well worth the time and resources.
Integrate data and creative
In today’s ever changing landscape, harnessing the power of data-driven creative has become a cornerstone for brands aiming to stand out, especially during key calendar events – such as Christmas.
Competition is at an all-time-high, and as consumers grapple with the ever changing cost of living, making an impact within your creative ads has never been more important.
The key is to; Plan Ahead, Get Personal, Use Data, Be Inclusive, Engage your Audience, Read the Room, Keep it Authentic, and Be Consistent. Take a look at our recent webinar, “Creative Solutions for Peak Performance,” brought together industry experts, insightful speakers, and a real-world case study that explores the pivotal role of creative in transforming your campaigns.
Leverage the ‘lipstick effect’
When financial times are tough, consumers will still tend to buy small luxury items (such as lipstick), even as larger ticket purchases have to be pushed back. Making them feel good without breaking the bank… Leveraging this need for ‘indulgence’ can help you tap into a new purchasing stream.
There can also be a good cross-sell opportunity here for last minute add ons so maximize any opportunities during the checkout process to capitalize on impulse consumer decisions.
Use AI, ML and Automation
Intelligent solutions, such as AI, ML and Automation are far from a new feat, but recent progress in technological advancements has presented significant opportunities for businesses and marketers – especially across Media, Commerce and Creative.
Tapping into this resource can help you significantly improve shopping experiences, foster customer loyalty, and add value for brands and retailers. The greatest impacts will be in areas such as:
- Automation of marketing campaigns and the creation of content for emails, landing pages, texts, social media, and apps using automated audience segments.
- Offering conversational site search across digital touchpoints for a more human and natural way to find the ideal product or gift.
- Providing a service that enables chatbots to understand, anticipate, and respond to questions with greater nuance and human-like expression.
Build an omni-channel presence
Brand perception and recognition is key, and a successful strategy is one that seamlessly spans across multiple channels, ensuring a consistent brand experience (and narrative). Your audience doesn’t live on just ‘one channel’, and providing them with multiple touchpoints will only strengthen their perception of your brand. Reinforcing awareness and consideration at a time when market competition will be at its highest.
This doesn’t mean you need to have a presence across every known channel. With increased competition CPCs are going up, and multiple businesses are competing for the same search terms – so only target the channels where your audience is most prevalent, and consider adopting alternative approaches to growth (such a branding or social commerce efforts).
Optimize your website
Website optimization is the key to better user experiences, increased conversions, and gaining a competitive advantage that extends far beyond the holiday rush. It’s about positioning your brand for success and ensuring you make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead. The best way to do this is by:
- Assessing Core Web Vitals Performance
- Tidying Up Your Code & Executing a Database Cleanup
- Optimizing Images & CSS
- Stress Testing Servers in Advance
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For more information, get in touch with our team of seasoned experts at Incubeta.