Sleigh Your Holiday Marketing: 7 Tips for End of Year Success

Holiday marketing season is upon us, and with it comes the critical Black Friday, Cyber Weekend, and New Year sales period, where every move counts.

We know time is of the essence, so here’s the truth: there’s no secret strategy. Instead, your data is what makes your holiday marketing powerful in your acquisition, engagement, and retention strategies. In fact, 62% of retailers believe they have a competitive advantage thanks to data analytics.

Read on as we focus on what actually works and how you can leverage your customer data the right way for maximum impact.

4 questions to answer first

Suppose your goal for the peak season is to generate sales from your existing customer base. This hinges on keeping your customers engaged. Maybe you’ve already got this in the bag – but a continuous customer connection is more complex than it seems. It requires customer-centricity: putting the customer at the core of everything you do through your customer data.

A Customer Data Platform (CDP) should sit at the core of your MarTech stack as it helps you unify, structure, and enrich your existing data with compliant first-party data collection.

This helps you learn everything important about your customers and determine who is profitable enough to target in your holiday marketing campaign.

• Who are your customers?
• What are their interests and preferences?
• How do they behave on your platforms?
• What impact do they have on your sales?

6 customer personas for the Holiday Season

• High-Value Repeat Customers: Your data shows these customers had a high purchase frequency (more than once a month), high average order value (over $100 per transaction), and are among the top 20% in terms of Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). They also show high engagement with email and website interactions.
• Opportunity Seekers: Customers have made 1-3 purchases in the past year and recently engaged with your brand by opening emails or visiting the website in the last 30 days without making a purchase. Typically from urban areas with middle-range incomes, they often browse sales items and use discount codes.
• Loyal Advocates: Members of the loyalty program with high-tier status, these customers regularly engage in advocacy actions such as participating in surveys, writing reviews, and sharing products on social media. They consistently purchase new arrivals and full-price items and show a strong connection to the brand through their interest in sustainability.
• Recently Inactive: Customers who made a purchase 3-6 months ago, with 1-2 purchases in the last year, and a low to moderate spending level. There's a high likelihood of churn without proactive re-engagement.
• Sleeping Low Spenders: Customers in this segment have not made any purchases in over six months and historically have fewer than three purchases with consistently low spending. Although they show low potential for future revenue, they may respond to engagement-focused strategies.
• At-Risk Moderate Value: These customers have interacted with your brand within the last 4-12 months, occasionally making purchases with moderate spending levels. They are at risk of disengagement due to inconsistent experiences.

6 personalization strategies for each segment

These insights become your superpower to entice engagement and conversion. For instance, you may find it’s incentives, exclusivity, or a relevant deal on products they love. You can act on these insights by strategically adjusting your incentives per segment to cut costs and achieve a higher profit-margin, e.g. setting up tailored incentives—like a hefty 40% discount for inactive customers and a sweet 15% for regulars.

• High-purchasers: As these customers are already engaged, maintain their loyalty by providing continuous value through personalized messages on products they've interacted with or what similar customers have interacted with. Provide exclusive offers on these with a time-limit and encourage advocacy by offering priority access to your sales.
• Opportunity seekers: These customers are engaged but need an incentive to convert. This requires targeted offers that capitalize on their recent interactions and interests to convert engagement into sales.
• Loyalty advocates: To grow this group, offering advanced loyalty rewards, exclusive community events, and co-creation opportunities can further enhance their commitment and advocacy for the brand.
• Recently Inactive: Re-engage inactive customers by launching a "We Miss You" campaign that offers personalized discounts on items they've previously browsed or considered. This strategy aims to rekindle their interest and boost repeat purchases.
• Sleeping Low-Spenders: Enhancing their brand experience through newsletters featuring useful product tips, customer stories, or introducing a loyalty program rewarding engagement could rekindle their interest and potentially convert them into more active customers. Bundles offers can also convey more value for money.
• At-Risk Moderate Value: To retain these customers, offering exclusive benefits through a VIP club that provides early access to new products or special previews can help enhance their sense of belonging, increase their engagement, and purchase frequency.

5 personalization examples across digital channels

To pull this off personalization at scale quickly and accurately, dynamic content blocks are crucial to automatically pull in recent data and populate product information. For example, if someone abandons a purchase, a dynamically configured email template can include the exact abandoned products within an hour of the action. This timely, relevant message increases the chances of re-engaging the customer back onto their customer journey to potentially complete the purchase.

• Personalized Email Campaigns: Tailor email content based on the user’s previous interactions with the website. For instance, send a follow-up email featuring products related to items they viewed but didn't purchase, along with a special discount to encourage purchase.
• In-App Notifications for Stock Updates: When a previously out-of-stock item that a customer showed interest in becomes available, send an in-app notification to alert them immediately. This encourages high-intent shoppers to return to the app.
• Personalized Exit-Intent Overlays: When a customer is about to leave your website without making a purchase, display a personalized exit-intent overlay. This could offer them a last-minute discount on items they added to their cart or browsed during that session.
• Dynamic Social Media Ads: Use data from your CRM to create highly targeted ads on social media platforms. For example, if a customer looked at a specific product range but didn’t make a purchase, you can target them with an ad for that product range when they next visit social media.
• Customized Homepage Experience: Personalize the homepage experience for returning customers by displaying products based on their browsing history, purchase history, or what look-a-like audiences have interacted with. This can make the shopping experience more relevant and efficient, potentially increasing conversion rates.

5 automation workflow examples

After crafting the perfect content, the hard part is making sure your messages are seen. Once again, you need your data to understand the preferred channels to weave in and out, the best times to communicate, and what stage of the customer journey to take customers down the funnel.

With customer analytics and marketing automation, you can ensure that web, email, social media, push, SMS, and display—are not just running parallel but are fully integrated for a cohesive customer experience.

Marketing automation brings this to life with workflows. You’re able to build a flow of commumications with immaculate timing to keep your customers engaged in the build-up, during, and after Black Friday, right through the Holiday marketing season.

• Recently Inactive: Begin with your automated “We Miss You” email campaign in early October, offering personalized discounts on previously browsed items to reignite interest before the Holiday rush. Complement this with multiple touchpoints such as retargeted social media ads and mobile push notifications a few hours or days later, to remind them of their abandoned interests and encourage a return.
• Sleeping Low Spenders: Start sending value-focused newsletters and loyalty program invites by late September to engage customers for holiday purchases. Follow up with a content-rich newsletter offering product tips and a loyalty program that rewards engagement, then send timely, personalized SMS offers as Black Friday and the Holiday season peak to stimulate further interactions and sales. Consider exit-intent pop-ups for when they head to exit your basket page.
• At-Risk Moderate Value: Launch VIP club invitations in early October with several exclusive offers and previews for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Offer exclusive VIP club memberships via email to make them feel valued, coupled with in-app notifications for new VIP-only products or events.
• High-Value Repeat Customers: Roll out exclusive offers and early product access starting in early October and continuing through the holiday season to keep your brand top-of-mind during the peak. Deliver personalized emails with exclusive offers and early access to products, tailor their online experience to show them relevant products, and send SMS invitations to exclusive events.
• Opportunity Seekers: Initiate targeted email campaigns in mid-October featuring exclusive deals on products they've previously liked or saved. Complement these with in-app notifications to deliver real-time reminders about these exclusive deals, directly engaging them with personalized incentives to purchase during the holiday season.
• Loyal Advocates: Kick off with personalized event invitations and first access to initiatives beginning in September. Continue engagement with regular updates and exclusive offers throughout holiday season to leverage their advocacy. Engage this group with personalized invitations to special co-creation opportunities, highlight their contributions on social media, and offer them first access to sustainability initiatives through the app.

Tactics to merge your online and offline channels

You can use these interactions to collect details, such as in-store product inquiries, and use this data to send follow-up emails that continue the customer journey online, for a smooth transition between offline and online channels. Additionally, you can leverage demographics and transactional history to tailor in-store promotions to products of interest, such as offering exclusive discounts on items they have previously considered but not purchased, encouraging them to visit and buy in-store.

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[Free] Holiday Marketing Resources

• Video Series: Mapp's Black Friday Masterplan
• Infographic: 9 Tips You Need for a Successful Golden Quarter
• PDF: Surviving the Holidays