With virtually every brand, retailer, advertiser, marketer and online entity vying for consumers’ attention over the course of a shortened holiday shopping season, the resulting promotion noise is loud enough to make Rudolph want to slip his harness. Marketers that don’t adjust their content marketing strategies accordingly can easily find their messaging muffled by the competition’s jingling bells. So how do you make sure your holiday marketing season is merry⁠—and profitable?

Recognize the breadth of the opportunity

According to infegy, 54% of consumers begin researching holiday gifts in October or earlier. Even with Halloween candy still fresh on the shelf, forward-thinking gift-givers are building their lists and you need to be out there helping guide their decision making. Yes, being present this early will require careful strategy and planning, but if you wait until everyone is fully in the spirit of the season, you’ll have missed a critical messaging opportunity. 

By understanding what consumers are searching for during the holiday season your brand can retain relevance throughout the season. Holiday conversations begin immediately after Thanksgiving with planners looking for gift and decor ideas, but social conversations again spiked around December 17, 2018, with shoppers looking for meal ideas and simple holiday recipes. Tailor your messaging to fit the consumer mindset during these key stages in the holiday shopping journey. 

Approach this longer activity window as an extended opportunity to communicate with shoppers and keep your brand top-of-mind. The path to purchase (even during the holiday rush) can be prolonged. Therefore, it’s imperative that you engage with shoppers as much as possible at every step of their buying journey. Understand the consumer’s mindset during key discovery and purchase windows, and tailor your brand’s message to fit their specific needs. 

Stay true to your audience⁠—and your messaging

Optimizing the effectiveness of your holiday digital ad spend is, of course, a top priority. To do so, you need to be sure your ads (across platforms) are not only engaging but also finding your targeted shoppers where they’re looking for information and inspiration. That’s easier said than done, but the first step in ensuring relevance with shoppers and increasing contact with desired audiences is to avoid targeting less-defined, broadly-related holiday affinity groups.

When targeting your shoppers on social platforms, stay away from generic affinity groups such as “holiday shopping,” “Christmas,” “Christmas gifts,” etc. These groups are going to be too diverse in membership to represent a truly targetable audience, crowded with large numbers of shoppers who are not necessarily the ones you’re after and arguably more competitive as more marketers will choose to buy them regardless. 

Instead, target audiences based on the previously identified interests of your customer base and key characteristics of your target consumer’s mindset. Knowing the millennial shoppers are looking for stress-free side dish recipes during the holidays is a great indicator to add those keywords to your ad campaign and to serve that audience content for simple recipes to drive additional engagement. 

Invest in influencers

With its flexibility and proven impact, influencer marketing is a great tool for marketers⁠— whatever the season. The same kind of influencer authenticity and relevant information delivery that activates shoppers during cold and flu season and helps parents prepare for back-to-school is very much a motivating force during the holidays. 

Sixty percent of holiday shoppers surveyed on behalf of Facebook say that Facebook and Instagram directly influence their holiday shopping. And, according to insights provided by Pinterest, 87% of consumers say Pinterest helps them find the right products for the holidays.

Influencer content is a valuable resource for marketers⁠—their content isn’t affected by ad blockers, so your brand’s message can break through. Consumers also trust influencer's opinions, with one study revealing they are 13.8x more likely to be influenced to purchase a product by a peer rather than a celebrity. 

In spite of being time-strapped, large numbers of shoppers take time from their busy schedules to engage at length with influencers for help in planning their parties, decorating their homes and building their shopping lists. Seeking ideas and inspiration from influencers has become a sales-generating holiday tradition for shoppers and you need to be part of it.

Media channels may be as crowded as the city sidewalks during the holiday season, but your messaging can absolutely find its way to your target audience⁠—if you strategically focus and coordinate your outreach, messaging and use of targeted media. Driving holiday sales isn’t about trying to engage everyone but, rather, making sure you invite the right consumers to your “purchase party.” If you commit to identifying and pursuing those with the greatest buying potential, you’ll be looking at a very merry Christmas indeed.