Brands’ competition is at its peak during the holiday season, and the race has already started.
Over the last five years, holiday sales in November and December have averaged about 19% of total retail sales*, most of which were driven successfully by influencer marketing strategies. More precisely, 49%* of Christmas sales happen during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but there’s still that 51%* will purchase all the Christmas gifts during the following month.
Holiday influencer marketing campaigns are typically prepared well in advance to benefit from this crucial sales period.
How to approach Holiday season campaigns
From micro- to nano-influencer to macro-influencers, as a brand, you will see that the ones that click with your values and vision are the perfect fit for your campaign.
Influencer Marketing has become a much more complex solution than it used to be. This is why we want to share the essential tips to succeed in the Holiday season campaign.
Technology is there, then use it!
Since 2013 at SamyRoad, we have developed predictive technology aimed at enabling brands to understand crucial variables such as Brand Affinity, an index that quantifies the affinity between the brand itself, the influencer and the audience, or the Content Affinity, which means the identification of the subjects with the highest volume of mentions and interactions through social listening.
Be emotional and diverse, be authentic
Influencer marketing is not just about finding the right influencer; we must remember that the message and the way we communicate are essential too.
Our target audience is slowly losing their capability of attention, it’s hard to accept, but it’s true: they feel overwhelmed. When you think of all the messages they see simultaneously, only the ones that reach their mind will succeed.
Entertainment is king
Entertain your audience, and make it exciting for them while you keep the brand’s values on point.
Stay away from the static world; try experimenting and introducing the video format to your campaigns.
Think out of the box
Paid media must be part of your brand’s strategy to increase traffic, sales, and a conversation around your product and brand. You will reach your target and future audiences faster through paid media, especially if you use it accurately and truthfully. The more tools you can use for a more successful influencer campaign, the better outcome you will get from it.
It’s time to make a choice: consideration or performance
It is essential that there is strategic planning in your influencer marketing campaign to be able to define an action plan that is aligned with what the brand expects to obtain from the campaign.
That’s why as a brand manager you need to define what you expect to obtain from the campaign and whatever you decide it should be easily linked to any of these two goals: consideration or performance.
Consideration campaigns in Holiday season
Back to the basics. When you look for a higher consideration towards your brand, you need to either educate or re-educate your customers on all the benefits and features that your brand, products or services offer. Once your audience knows all these positive things about your brand, you need to ensure that they are aware of them during the purchase process and ready for any problem or urgency.
Here are the main tips to boost the consideration of your brand:
Be part of the influencer’s storytelling
As a brand, we cannot intervene as outsiders inside the influencer’s storytelling; you need to be part of it. It needs to feel natural, not an imposed collaboration. The more the brand lives inside the influencer’s story, the more the audience will believe in your brand.
Use your product to generate higher empathy in Holiday season
Create content based on moments or situations the audience will experience in the coming days. Content that empathizes with the audience generates a greater bond with them. The more authentic and relatable content, the more your audience will listen to what you say.
Teach your audience how to use your product or when its best to use or consume it, especially for these special dates.
If you are in the food industry, have your influencers cook the perfect Holiday season recipe with your product. If you’re in the makeup industry, have your influencers show how they will use your product for New Year’s Eve.
Explore the power of Hashtags
Choose your format according to the medium you will use, and remember the power of hashtags. Using a hashtag that sticks throughout the campaign will make it easier for your audience to track you. It’s a way of organizing your content under the same folder.
Performance campaigns
We’ve seen during black Friday how influencers not only shared a discount for specific brands but also shared which products they love from the brand. This helped users choose the product from the brand because their influencer uses it.
Make the audience desire the product.
The more the influencer leads and guides how to use and when to use specific products, the more the audience will feel like buying them.
Guide the audience through the influencer
Using a live format, having the influencer create live content and giving your audience a testimonial about specific products will help them decide and buy the product in less time.
Be accessible, always
The more accessible the audience to access the products, the more traffic your website will get. Therefore make sure that your social media links to your website and your Instagram shop, and make your audience swipe up their favourite.
“How to create the perfect influencer marketing campaign? Combining all the mediums and platforms we have and constantly reinventing ourselves through creative strategies. And by not living by the book and experimenting with different formats such as case studies, Ebooks, In-person events, podcasts, videos and other types of content.”
Ricky Pombo Head of Brands & Campaign Strategy At Samy Alliance