Holiday Marketing 2013

Published on 2 Dec 2013 at 6:14 pm.
Filed under Marketing,Social Media.

The end of the year is fast approaching. We are here with a holiday marketing run down to help your small business finish strong.

Holiday Marketing: Search Engine Marketing

With online holiday sales expected to rise to $82 billion it is critical that you come up in search. SEO is a very worthwhile practice that you should engage in, but it is also time-consuming. It takes a while to build your rep. It’s not something that you can just flip a switch and automatically rank better than everyone else. If you do not already rank well for a given term then you need to turn to search engine marketing. By employing search engine marketing as part of your holiday marketing you will show up on the first page of searches today.

Holiday Marketing: Social Media Marketing

Be sure to make social media marketing part of your holiday marketing in 2013.Social media a huge thing in people’s lives. Many people cannot escape it if they wanted to. By increasing your social media marketing you can increase sales. Not just during the holiday season, but with people looking for gifts it’s a great time to ramp things up.

There are a few ways that you can go with social media marketing. You can use it to draw more business to your retail store. Alternatively you can use it similar to search engine marketing.

If you are looking to draw more customers to your retail location I suggest focusing primarily on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Instagram. Your should heavily focus your posts on clear, high-quality photos on the products in your store. You will naturally have the urge to immediately post all your photos. Resist this urge and instead just post a couple. Spread out your posts and post them at a different time each day. This will increase the range of customers who will see your posts.

Just a reminder that you should engage in local search engine optimization. Make sure your business not only shows up but also has a fully filled out profile in the primary local directories and local social networks. This means creating accounts for the following services:

  • Google+ Local.
  • Bing Business Directory.
  • Yahoo! Local.
  • Foursquare.
  • Yelp.
  • HERE Maps (aka Nokia maps).
  • YellowPages.
  • Express Update.
  • CityGrid.
  • CitySearch.

When signing up for these services try to do it at a time when someone is at the store and can answer a phone call. Many of those services can authorize that you indeed represent the business through a call-in pin. If you cannot you will have to wait typically 2 weeks for something to come in the mail.

If you are using social media marketing to draw customers to your website this holiday season then focus your efforts on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest. Make sure that your landing pages are marked-up with open graph products, microdata, Product Cards, and Rich Product Pins. By adding this HTML5 markup you will optimize your posts on these networks. By presenting a better customer experience you are likely to increase sales.

Holiday Marketing: Email Marketing

You can use email marketing to drive sales either through your ecommerce store your retail store. You can do this by sending them time-sensitive promo codes or coupons for your store. Do not go overboard with your email blasts. More is not always better. Of course the ideal frequency varies based on your audience. I would not recommend going longer than a week. I do not recommend sending multiple emails a day.

We here at Brand Builder Websites are very aware that it is difficult for small businesses to engage in these marketing campaigns on their own. Even when it’s just for your regular marketing, let alone holiday marketing. We do offer our services for online and search marketing that can help. Feel free to contact us to get started.

Thank you and keep building your brand.

This post was originally published as Holiday Marketing 2013 for Brand Builder Websites.

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