Set it and forget it marketing for the holidays.

The Christmas, New Year and other holiday periods can be a challenge for small business owners. With limited resources at the best of times, it’s easy to see why marketing often falls by the wayside during the holidays.

Fortunately, you don’t have to give up your well-earned holiday break to stay on top of your marketing over Christmas and New Year. These days, you can schedule a lot of your marketing in advance and let the power of technology put in the hard yards for you. Try the ‘set it and forget it’ seasonal marketing tips below to get started.

Schedule your Facebook and Instagram marketing. 

Regardless of whether you use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media platform, it’s a good idea to have your social media posts planned out ahead of time so you can keep up your social media activity and encourage engagement over the holidays.

The good news is that most social media platforms allow you to create and schedule posts to be automatically published on a date and time of your choosing. So, with some planning, you can have all your holiday social media activity taken care of in advance.

If you have a presence on multiple social media platforms and want to go a step further, tools like Thryv allow you to manage and schedule all your activity from a single dashboard. This is especially useful if you’re running a holiday marketing campaign across all your social channels and want to minimise the work it takes to get it up and running.

Plan a holiday blog or two for SEO content.

A couple of well thought-out, keyword-rich holiday blogs can go a long way to boosting your SEO content marketing efforts over the holidays – but you don’t have to spend hours researching and crafting a masterpiece.

The key is to talk about subjects that you’re already knowledgeable about – which is what your audience will be looking for anyway – and keep it relatively short and easy to digest. Around 500 words is a good starting point for most blogs.

Here are some examples of holiday blog ideas for different types of businesses:

  • Florist: A guide to types of festive flowers and arrangements.
  • Hairdresser: A tutorial on summer hair care or hairstyles.
  • Doctor/fitness centre: Tips for staying healthy during the silly season.
  • Plumber/electrician/locksmith: How to find an emergency tradie on public holidays.
  • Mechanic: What to check on your car before going on a road trip.
  • Accountant: How to create (and stick to) a gift budget.

You can see that each idea ties back to the holiday and to the business (which is great for you, as you know plenty about the subject matter), and offers valuable information that your audience is likely to want to read.

RELATED: Evergreen content and how it can help your brand.

Take advantage of marketing automation.

Technology offers us many wonders, but few are as wonderful for a busy marketer as an automated marketing software. This is the ultimate set-and-forget tool, as you can use software to send emails, promotions, calls to action and much more, all while you’re off enjoying your third serving of Christmas ham.

With automation software such as Thryv, you can set up campaigns for new customers, customers who haven’t made a purchase in a while, customers who have birthdays coming up, and much more. You can create specific messages for each group, then the software automatically gets in touch with them when the time is right.

For example, if a logged-in customer visits your website and adds an item to their cart but doesn’t buy it, you can trigger an email to be sent 24 hours later (or any other time) to remind them about their pending purchase.

But don’t worry – you don’t have to make things that complex if you don’t want to. The idea is to use your email marketing platform to make your life as easy as possible over the holidays – whether that’s a simple ‘out of office’ response or a full email marketing campaign.

To save even more time, you can choose from a full library of pre-written messages and templates. Either keep it as is or make a few adjustments and you’re ready to go.

RELATED: What is marketing automation and how can it help you?

Jazz up your branding.

Your imagery should represent your brand’s personality and values and adding a touch of festive goodness will show that you’re approachable and in the spirit of the season. Add a bit of fun to your brand for the holidays with a Santa hat, bauble or Christmas lights on your logo, and don’t forget to update your profile photos on social media with your new festive imagery.

The best part about this holiday online marketing tactic? Once it’s done, you won’t have to touch it again until the holiday season is over (then you can use it again next year).

Use time-boxing to protect your holiday. 

We know marketing, and we know marketers. And we know that marketers often can’t help but log in and check how campaigns are running, make a few calls and send a few emails even while they’re off on holiday.

If that’s you, and if you know you’re going to want to stay on top of things even during the break, use time-boxing to protect your holiday. This is where you set a time each day – say, 10am – 11am, where you can work. This will give you enough time to check in, do a few vital tasks and catch up on emails, all before shutting that laptop down again at the end of the hour.

This will help you to protect your holiday and keep your work time to a minimum.

Bring in an expert marketing agency.

If there’s simply too much to do and too little time, our expert team is always happy to help. Yellow Pages has a range of products to help your business get ahead during the holiday season. 

Find out more here, or give us a call on 1800 670 722.

Looking for expert digital marketing advice? Get in touch with Yellow Pages today.

 

 

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