Dear PR Matters,
I do some marketing consulting for various companies and am often asked how to include a social-media package in my presentations.
With the holidays just around the corner, we are often asked for more innovative ways to use social media, and hopefully generate more sales. Of course, we have our usual platform—Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. But how can we utilize these to amp our sales?
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
Katherine C.
Dear Katherine,
Christmas sales accounts for a big chunk of a retail or consumer company’s annual revenues, and it is understandable that your clients would seek of new ways of making their presence in social media.
“Advertisers and retailers have a huge opportunity on social media, with holiday campaigns on Twitter alone generating $6.67 for every $1 spent by advertisers last year,” Paul Herman says. And he shares some tips with us in an article in Marketing Profs.com, “Seven ways to maximize social media this holiday season.”
Define your holiday wish list
The first step in launching any successful marketing campaign is to define a set of goals. “Every holiday campaign should be built around these two simple questions,” Herman adds. “What actions to you want your customers/prospects to take, and how will your social strategy help?”
These goals can be wide ranging, “from lead generation and driving sales to boosting brand awareness among a specific target audience.” But when such goals are in place, Herman says that being able to measure success or evaluate a campaign’s performance is just as important. Key metrics for marketers for looking to improve brand awareness may include social shares, likes, comments and call-to-action click-throughs.
Herman adds that successful brands will set specific, measurable goals for improvement like increasing the number of twitter. But, “regardless of the goal, if it is measurable and clear, it gives the brand something to chase an an ultimate purpose for the campaign.”
Know the people on your ‘nice’ list
Herman believes that “understanding the customer journey is crucial to optimizing a campaign. Brands should create a buyer persona for their key consumer base, outlining who the customers are, what matters to them, where they go to make purchase decisions and who influences them.”
By better understanding an audience, marketers can figure out “how to reach them, which is often the biggest hurdle in building a successful campaign.”
After all, “content may be king for the holidays, but context is queen—and they work best in tandem.”
Listen to your audience (not just sleigh bells)
Too often, many brands are caught up in their own preferences that they fail to listen to what the customers really want.
For Herman, “social media doesn’t exist just to spread a brand message, it’s also an important medium for listening. Through social listening, marketers can identify major trends and product keywords in their industry. With that information, they can make smarter decisions about where to spend their money and which products or services to promote each platform.”
What are they happy about? What makes them frustrated? What kind of things are they looking for? “The more a marketer knows about his or her audience, the better and more effective a message will ultimately be.”
Give the gift of relevance
When we’re making a list, we make sure that the gift is a match for the recipient’s likes or needs. It is the same in social, where “adding geo-targeting to your campaign makes your ad or message more likely to be relevant.”
“Targeting not only provides a way to reach specific audiences, but also makes the most out of crucial dollars,” Herman says.
Be a secret Santa (but don’t be creepy about it)
In online shopping, shoppers take their time and often browse before checking out the items on their shopping cart. This behavior, Herman adds, makes the remaining top of mind a huge challenge for brands, and that’s when retargeting comes into play.
Some retailers show ads with complementary products customers might be interested in even after they have made their purchase. “This method can be effective,” Herman says, “but also has its limits. Marketers need to make sure messages naturally fit into the content customers are already reading online.
Surprise and delight
One can nurture a customer relationship through surprise and delight tactics that will stay with the customer long after the promotion has ended. “Today, sharing is the new commerce,” Herman adds.
He cites how KLM Royal Dutch Airlines surprised and delighted customers in Amsterdam during the holiday season last year. Realizing that many holiday travelers spend their transfer time in the airport alone, KLM decided to surprise its customers who sat down around a KLM tower in the airport with a “Bonding Buffet.”
“Once the stools were filled, a literal buffet of food came down from the top of the tower,” he says. “That thoughtful gesture, which drove positive attention on social media, highlighted the spirit of the holidays and brought travelers together for a uniquely memorable time at the airport.”
Don’t be afraid to start new traditions
In the hectic world of social marketing during the holiday season, “brands should not limit themselves to one kind of content.”
“Customers can experience fatigue if they receive similar content from the same source,” Herman adds, “and that type of fatigue should be avoided. With this, marketers should develop creative out-of-the-box concepts like videos to generate more customer interest.
All in all, Herman says it is best to use social media to make it a happy holiday season. And keeping in mind these seven approaches can make all the difference between ending the year on a solid note and missing out on a huge opportunity.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier association for senior professionals around the world. Millie F. Dizon, the senior vice president for marketing and communications of SM, is the former local chairman.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer the reader’s questions about public relations. Please send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com.