PW Media | December 14, 2021

5 Common Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid This Holiday Season

Know the best tips and tricks for making your holiday marketing count!

The holiday season is here! As a small business owner, it’s time to strategize your marketing efforts for the holiday season to prepare for the uptick in consumer spending. 

As you continue to build out your holiday digital marketing strategy, let’s talk about common holiday marketing mistakes and how best to avoid them.

Five Digital Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

This time of year can be stressful to anticipate and prepare for. Not only does it come with the expectation that it will likely be your largest quarter of earnings all year, but it’s also accompanied by an abundance of pressure to prepare, perform, and profit. 

As a small business owner, that can be a lot to live up to.

However, by identifying your goals and objectives, performing the necessary preparation, and becoming aware of common failures and mistakes many small businesses make during the holiday season, you can set yourself up for the ultimate holiday success story. 

Below are the three (3) most common digital marketing mistakes during the holiday season: 

1) Failure to Adjust Your Marketing Strategy for the Holidays 

Small businesses need a cohesive and effective digital marketing strategy in place that creates an expanding roadmap for success. This strategy typically consists of SEO, content marketing, social media, paid advertising, website development, and more. 

However, many small businesses fail to adjust their digital marketing strategy leading up to the holidays. Instead, they choose to stick to the status quo of their general marketing strategy. Such a decision is a gigantic no-no. The most effective marketing content and campaigns are catered to particular seasons and holidays and distributed across multiple channels. 

Combat this error by creating a holiday calendar for particular weeks and months as part of your overall marketing plan. Choose the most effective marketing channels that will benefit your business’s holiday objectives for your specific audience. 

Here are some great starting points for devising your holiday-specific digital marketing strategy:

Create seasonal content both for your social media and website

• Know how different marketing channels can cater to different audiences
• Introduce creatively relevant promotions for the holidays
• Schedule profitable events for major holidays

2) Not Effectively Leveraging Social Media

Eager to continue on a growth trajectory and find innovative ways to serve your customers? The question to ask yourself is, “How can I use social media to help my small business better serve my customers and my bottom line?”

Here are a few practical ways to leverage social media during the holiday season: 

• Add location to post
• Get creative with your photo captions
• Implement hashtag campaigns effectively
• Utilizing call-to-actions within a post
• Create holiday-related content 
• Launch holiday-relevant promotions 
• Upsell or cross-promote products & services

Social media is a powerful tool to amplify your brand’s message and create stronger loyalty through customer engagement. 

3) Not Investing in a Chatbot

‘Tis the season of impatient crowds, long lines, and even longer wait times on the phone. One way to alleviate stress and frustration for both staff and customers is to add a chatbot to your team. These interactive agents have tremendous advantages in delivering consistent and valuable customer care during some of the busiest times of the year.

Need an extra hand—or ten? Chatbots can engage any volume of customers any time of day (or night!) and provide immediate and consistent responses to FAQs, scheduling options, and service and product offerings. They can increase qualified leads and decrease time and money spent finding those leads. 

Chatbots are becoming ubiquitous as an effective and affordable customer experience enhancement across the marketing landscape. These AI assistants bring enormous value to your customer experience at a fraction of the cost compared to a new hire. If you’re interested in creating a chatbot for your business, we have one that can help you!

4) Ignoring the Power of Local SEO 

Want an easy local SEO win? Prioritize the update to your Google My Business (GMB) profile. 

Google My Business is an essential tool consumers use to discover basic and necessary information about your business. It’s also a highly versatile tool that helps give businesses a competitive edge in their local market. 

Here are some essential GMB optimizations and updates to execute during the holiday season: 

• Update special holiday hours of operation
• Upgrade imagery and photos
• Respond to Q&As and messages from customers and prospective buyers
• Create a holiday-themed Q&A for your business
• Use the “Updates” section as a way to advertise services, coupons, and discounts

Not only will this boost your SEO score, but it will increase traffic, boost conversion rates, and ultimately improve your customers’ satisfaction. 

5) Not Creating Seasonal or Holiday Landing Pages

Bringing temporary, seasonal flavor to your website through fresh content and design is always a smart marketing move, but creating seasonal landing pages for specific services, merchandise, or discounts is smarter. 

A landing page is a lean, mean, conversion machine. Unlike business homepages that allow viewers to browse and explore, landing pages are highly optimized, campaign-specific webpages that convince visitors to take only one action. That action can be anything from buying a specific product or service to filling out a form for more information. Landing pages increase conversion rates because they are hyper-focused and don’t allow any distractions, such as additional links or navigation bars. 

Once the user clicks on an offer or fills out a form, they have officially become a lead, and your business can nurture that lead through additional marketing. 

In Summary 

The winter holiday season is arguably a business’s annual revenue peak due to increased consumer spending. According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales during November and December alone can reach as high as 25% of annual sales for many businesses.

It’s worth noting that these percentages are much the same for online eCommerce businesses, as well.

Digital marketing efforts are crucial for all large and small businesses, allowing them to increase sales and profits, acquire new customers, keep their brand top of mind, and even clear out excess inventory to make room for the new year.

Help Your Business Shine This Season

If you need a little extra help bringing some holiday cheer to your digital marketing strategies and campaigns, we’re always here to lend a helping hand. We serve SMBs of all verticals, franchises, and large organizations. Our customized solutions help promote your business any time of the year by amplifying your online marketing and maximizing conversions. Contact us today!