Sports Thread’s Top 5 Marketing Tips To Sleigh the Holidays

Time to Prepare! The holidays are approaching quickly! We are not here to stress you out, we are here to help! Learn how Sports Thread’s Marketing can help your brand this season with our top 5 holiday marketing tips.

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1. Get on Theme

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A good holiday marketing campaign has advertisements that leave a lasting impression on consumers. Think about the classics. Can you picture a happy white polar bear drinking a Coke in the snow? Or Macy’s red stars and lights beaming everywhere you look? Think about Lexus. The red bow on a brand-new car with the bells chiming in the background is iconic. Even SNL made a skit making fun of Lexus because they always have a husband buying cars that could potentially put their family in debt (without consulting their partner). These classics have created a connection between their brands and the holidays, and you should too. 

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People love holiday themes and feelings. AdAges found that 49% of shoppers want festive ads, 43% want funny, 36% want heartfelt and 34% want to see nostalgic advertisements during the holiday season. Speak to your consumers with the humor, emotion, and/or the holiday appeal that they crave to be effective. The holidays allow for a different kind of advertising, you can have more fun to create positive associations with your brand.

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2. Take Advantage of Locations

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Once your messaging is perfected, it is time to think like a realtor, location, location. Location-based marketing allows you to reach your target market by using zip codes, cities, or geofencing. With this form of hyper-targeted advertising, messaging can be a lot more specific and personalized to your target audience. Another advantage of location-based advertising is the ability to catch people at the right place and at the right time(during their holiday shopping)! 

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This level of specificity has created a swell in demand for location-based advertising. For example, a boutique gym can place specific ads within a half-mile radius of the big brand-name gyms explaining what makes them better. A brick-and-mortar sports store could be geo-fencing within a mile of the physical location, at a mall across the street, and/or at the nearby sports field with an advertisement to attract their market. Or an e-commerce brand looking to reach parents could place advertisements within zip codes all around the country that have a larger concentration of families. No matter what kind of company you are, there is an advantage to location-based advertising. Getting creative with geo-locations and geo-fencing is the way to drive holiday sales this season! 

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3. Utilize Retargeting

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Retargeting advertisements appear in front of consumers after they have visited your website. Anyone who looks at your website is a warm lead, which means they have shown some interest in your brand. The goal of retargeting is to capitalize on this interest, by keeping your brand visible to your warm leads to drive conversions.

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Brands everywhere use digital marketing, but the brands that execute retargeting properly are the ones who see the most success. On average, it takes at least 8 touch points for a consumer to make a purchase. Retargeting, again and again, will keep your brand at the top of consumer’s minds.

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According to 99 Firms, the average CTR for retargeting ads is 10x that of display ads and retargeting can increase conversion rates by as much as 150%. Taking advantage of a retargeting pixel now will allow for touch points to begin now, making sure the 8th touch point will be closer to the holidays when buying intent is higher.  

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4. Learn and Confirm

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Optimization is key to ensuring a successful marketing campaign. No campaign gets it perfectly right on the first go around. Optimization is how we take what is working, and iterate upon that success. Constantly testing different creatives and copies helps eliminate guesswork and make sure your campaign is as successful as possible. This will attract more people to your product and website which will, in turn, increase sales. 

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If you are not running tests and constantly optimizing your marketing spend before the holiday season, you won’t understand your customers' patterns and behaviors by the time people are ready to spend. By testing, you can learn how your customers think and know what is necessary to get more traffic and sales by the peak of this holiday season.

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5. Start Planning Now!

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Planning ahead this holiday season is what will put you ahead of your competition. Figuring out your messaging, locations and starting holiday marketing now allows more time for people to recognize and engage with your brand. This will allow you to gradually ramp up sales and promotions as the season approaches to coincide with your 8th touchpoint.

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Also, remember that two key components of a marketing campaign, retargeting, and testing, don’t happen overnight. It will take time to fill a retargeting pixel and it takes about a month to truly optimize a campaign to its full potential. Starting to plan and implement clear directions early allows for great success when holiday shopping is at its peak.

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PLAN AHEAD WITH SPORTS THREAD MARKETING:

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We have the capabilities to retarget, use geolocations, optimize, and more! Use our top-tier technology and knowledgeable marketing experts to boost holiday sales this year. We would love to learn more about your company and help you reach your holiday goals-

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Check out https://info.sportsthread.com/contact to schedule a discovery call today!

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