Connect with Customers During the Holidays
By Sandy | Dec 19, 2018 (5 min read)
Wondering how you can make the moment count with your audience throughout the hectic holiday season?
As a digital marketing agency, we understand it can feel impossible to connect with new customers during the holidays when ads seem to flood inboxes and hundreds of sales are plastered across numerous websites.
But there is some good news: 73% of shoppers during the holidays shop at new stores and online retailers. This means there is an opportunity to welcome in new customers and convert them to loyal visitors.
Here are some tips for how you can make that special connection between you and your new customers during the holidays, and keep them coming back all year long!
Motivate with Emotion
There is no greater motivator than tapping into the emotions of a person. You will be able to have a positive impact on their decisiveness toward your product or service as well as gain a level of trust for your brand, which will continue to create that motivation for years to come.
According to the Harvard Business Review, “Emotionally connected customers buy more of your products and services, visit you more often, exhibit less price sensitivity, pay more attention to your communications, follow your advice, and recommend you more.”
The HBR study on a major retailer found their audiences’ key motivators were the feelings of belonging, a sense of thrill, and a sense of independence. By tapping into these emotions, the retailer was able to increase their number of active customers by 15%.
Holiday Marketing Tip # 1
One way to connect emotionally with your customers is to send a personal end of year email. You can thank them for a great year, let them know you appreciate the opportunity to work with them, and that you are looking forward to next year. If this is written in a genuine, personal tone, it can have an impact on your customers and keep them engaged for the year ahead.
Make Products Relatable
More and more brands are moving away from fancy, photoshopped product photography and toward realistic, authentic imagery. For ecommerce businesses, the best way you can show off your brand is giving your customers’ reasons why your products match their lifestyle.
Showing your products as they would be used in real life increases trust in the product, resulting in your customers envisioning themselves owning it more easily. Returns are also less likely if a customer trusts more in the purchase they make.
Holiday Marketing Tip # 2
Create a gift guide incorporating a few of your own products, showing how they would make great gifts for a loved one! Feature a discount or two, or alert customers about upcoming sales and encourage them to sign up for your newsletter to stay updated.
Market with Nostalgia
People love what’s familiar, and nostalgia is an incredibly strong feeling for people during the holidays.
According to Forbes, the recipe for authenticity can be as simple as returning to your roots. The example of Sprite re-releasing Sprite Remix, became a strong motivator for those growing up on the beverage to purchase the nostalgic drink.
What if your startup company doesn’t have those vintage roots to return to? You can try incorporating design elements that have hints of the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s to create that level of familiarity.
Holiday Marketing Tip # 3
Find a decade that has design elements that could work with your brand, then take some of those inspired holiday colors and elements and incorporate them into your website and social media marketing. Find ways to connect the design elements to your brand style to balance seamlessly with traditional and familiar designs.
With a season full of holiday traditions and special moments shared between loved ones, you can help your customers enjoy their holiday shopping experience with these fun, creative ways that make a lasting impression.
