Ride Your Holiday Campaign Momentum Into 2019
Congratulations! You’ve survived the holiday season and have made it into the new year. Maybe you’re right in the middle of your busiest winter season now, or maybe this is your off-season and you’re spending some time working on your business rather than in it. Either way, now is the best time to review how your holiday campaigns performed because they are freshest in your experience. It’s important to leverage all that you can from them, in order to ride the momentum you’ve built over the last two and half months.
Here’s why: by riding the momentum of your holiday campaigns, you’re laying the foundation for building your audiences (think pixeling) this year. The earlier you start priming your audiences this year, the further you’ll go!
We’re digging into four ways to ride that momentum into 2019.
1. Re-engage with holiday customers with a personalized email as a follow-up, extended support, or a thoughtful offer.
Identify your holiday purchasers and consider how you can “support” them, while the iron is still hot.
There is a segment of your audience who have taken action on your holiday campaign—whether that’s to buy a $30 snorkel trip or a $3000 multi-day heli-skiing package—and they were excited when they did. You are in a great position to extend that excitement by sending them a specific email that not only wishes them the happiest of New Years, but that:
- Nurtures that initial excitement they had when they took action on your offer
- Presents relevant information related to their purchase (ie: what to bring along on their trip, which subtly highlights gear they can purchase)
- Offers a valuable upsell that directly supports their experience (ie: upgrading their trip from 1 hour to 2 for a discount)
This email doesn’t have to be a hard sale, in fact, it should not be. It can be an invitation to an upcoming event your adventure brand is hosting, or to participate in a social media contest. There is no limit to what you can put together with a little creativity, and by giving them a valuable reason to interact with your adventure brand again, you’re create the opportunity to strengthen their loyalty to your business.
2. Run a social media remarketing campaign driven by really good content.
There may be some people who visited your website during the holidays, but didn’t buy something, or who abandoned their cart, or who interacted with one of your holiday advertisements, but didn’t take any kind of action. Now’s the time to consider why they may not have taken the next step with you, where they are in their consideration process with you, and create a social media retargeting campaign that speaks to their pain points through really good content.
Why is this content-driven rather than sales-driven? Because after the holidays, people are typically burned out on non-stop internet-wide advertisements and they already spent their holiday budgets (or way more!).
Ideas for content-driven social media remarketing campaigns might include:
- A highlight reel of last year’s fun that your customers had with your company, with the invitation for viewers to tag themselves or share with a friend
- A social media contest
- An invitation to sign up for a free email series that teaches something relevant and interesting
- A free downloadable guide that is educational or helpful
Will running a remarketing ad backfire at this time of yet?
This depends. Typically, conversions are in the sub $1 range, as most businesses take a break from advertising at this time of year and there’s less competition. So, if winter is your busiest season, it may be worth preparing an ad campaign to the right audience.
3. Re-invigorate last year’s customers with an automated email marketing campaign.
Automated email marketing campaigns, also frequently referred to as drip campaigns, are a great tool for any adventure brand to implement—especially when it comes to reaching out to former customers who haven’t purchased in a year or more.
Consider creating a segment of subscribers who did not purchase from you in the last year, but who have in the past; send them a small sequence of re-engagement emails that are perfectly designed to let them wet their lips on all the new things you offer. Or, to re-remember the incredible times of your most popular offerings that customers return to year after year.
These emails do best when they’re conversational and more educational than sales-driven.
4. Make 2019 the year you dig deep into who your audience is and what they are most interested in with segments, tags, groups, and tailored marketing messages.
Once you’ve identified who your adventure prospect is and where they are in their customer journey with your adventure brand, you can begin to leverage your audience based on their own set of interests and needs. Platforms like Mailchimp make it easy for you to tailor your email messaging to them through list segments, tags, and groups.
The possibilities are as vast as your audience is unique; from creating a segment of your audience based on a specific action they may have taken on your last email send, or tagging customers who attended a recent special event so that you can send them an email to thank them, or creating an interest group for everyone who has booked a hiking trip in the last year… you have the opportunity to get more personal.
- Segments: These are “filters” based on information you’ve gathered about them either through their engagement with your emails, or through your website. This can include what they’ve bought if your eCommerce platform has been integrated with your email platform, what page they signed up from, what they’ve clicked on in a particular email, and more.
- Groups: Groups are specialized list fields that let your list self-categorize themselves, typically by interests or preferences. This can be based on how they signed up to your email list, interests they’ve indicated through actions they’ve taken and/or have selected during sign up, etc.
- Tagging: Tags are customizable labels for your contacts that you can use to organize your list. Create tags for sets of contacts based on data only you know about them. You can send directly to tagged contacts, or segment based on tag data.
By getting clear on what’s important for you to track within your email list, you can uplevel the messaging you’re reaching out to them with.
Ride that momentum…
By using the audience you’ve attracted over the holidays in this capacity, you’ll not only kickstart your adventure brand in a strong way for January, but you’ll set the stage for the rest of 2019. If you get stuck, our team is available to support you or answer any questions you might have about what you can achieve, too. Just reach out!
