Are you Ready for Christmas?

My thoughts on planning your Christmas/New Year marketing campaigns

Value: [rating=5]

Our commentary: I would imagine most of you are cursing me at this moment in time and I cannot say I blame you, I mean, blogging about Christmas in October!! It shouldn't be allowed!

Unfortunately as marketers we need to be focussing on Christmas and New Year activity & campaigns now.

Every year we see the number of online sales for businesses grow and despite Global recessions my current bet is that the online sales figure will do the same again this year!

Timely preparation is key, not only for Christmas sales but also to free up time during November / December for focus to be put towards the start of a new year without the distractions of Christmas campaigns. Below I have outlined  a top level view on what you should start to think about & action for your Christmas campaigns.

Marketing implications: A lot has changed already in 2010, new tools have become available, new trends have started, social media as a marketing channel is becoming more widely accepted but what does that all mean for your business? Before you can look forward at planning Christmas activity its first key to understand the past, as this will help you plan forwards...

Christmas 2010 Activity / Campaigns

First things first... Research / Analysis

• What did you do last year? How did it perform? What should you do again vs not?
  • What campaign creative was used?
  • What sales promotions technique were enforced?
  • How did your site perform? Bounce rates, channel performance, conversion rates etc
  • Where did your sales come from?
    • New vs old customers
    • Transact online or via a telesales team?
• Has your marketing mix shifted throughout the year?
  • Have you pushed social media?
  • Have you improved how you delivery emails / sms / outbound calls
  • Essentially what can the last 9 months tell you that could help your Xmas campaign
• What new marketing trends can you learn from / leverage
• What new tools are available to help you become more efficient?

Objectives & Campaigns

• What are the business objectives for the festive season?
• How does that translate into Marketing KPI's - Traffic, Sign-ups, online sales, web-enabled sales etc

Once this is clear to the team its then time to set your campaign creative & work on your sales promotion techniques. Once you have this in place you can start to look at the channels & tactics available to you and how you can drive the most out of each.

Tip for the week : Remember such things as festive specific products / pages should be going live soon (even if you cannot buy them yet) as you need to make sure they are in the search engines index & you are link building to them in time for the festive season.

Over the next few weeks I will post tips by channel on how you can get the most from your online marketing during the festive season, in the mean time please share your thoughts, tips & ideas in the comments area below.

Recommended link: Google Analytics for ecommerce - How to guide!

Recommended link: Digital Marketing Planning Template

Recommended link: Campaign Planning Template

Update : Friday 15th October 2010

Getting Paid Search Ready for Christmas

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: Last week I wrote about the fact that Xmas is quickly coming round and as marketers we need to start to prepare our campaigns etc for this busy period. Paid Search is a channel which we can optimise and analyse in great detail which is great for times like this where you need clear data to help you make informed decisions. Looking forwards to Christmas we need to bear in mind things such as search volumes, costs as well as conversion rates.

Marketing implications: Pay Per Click can be a huge asset to you during busy periods as you have full control over scaling it up and down depending on various factors. Things to consider when getting your PPC ready for the festive season:

1. How did it perform last year
   • What keywords performed best?
   • What creative was the most popular & generated the most sales
   • Were there particular days / times that proved the best for your business?
   • Did specific landing pages work over others?
2. What are your business objectives for the Christmas period?
3. What are the KPI's & rules for PPC over Christmas period?
4. What keyword, ad-text, landing page changes do you need to take place to allow for an optimised campaign?
5. Is the process for monitoring & tweaking your campaigns in place?
6. What budget is required to cater for the increased traffic potential and when is it best to spend?

A lot to think about bit well worth the time and effort.

Have I missed anything or is there any advise you can pass onto other readers? Please let us know below.