Effective marketing happens all year long
The change of seasons brings with it different holidays, temperatures, activities, and, for a marketer, new opportunities to capture unique audiences. But this is easier said than done. As you formulate your seasonal marketing strategy for the upcoming year, you might be missing the mark on some key approaches.
In this blog, we will highlight five potential pitfalls you might encounter as you prepare your marketing strategy for the new year and ways to course correct before another season goes by.
1. Your timing is off
As the saying goes, timing is everything. And when it comes to marketing, nothing is more important than the timing of your campaigns. Sending out marketing materials too early or too late can have a major impact on the success of your campaigns. If you start too far in advance, your audience might not be ready to purchase your product or service. However, if you wait too long your audience may already be on to the next thing. Finding a good middle ground is key, but that balance looks different for every business.
The vertical your business falls under could help you determine the timing of your seasonal marketing campaigns. For example, tax apps would focus their ad spend between the months of January and April to acquire new customers or reengage past customers, but would spend very little, if anything, during the rest of the year.
On the other hand, ecommerce apps spend a majority of their budget during the holiday season between October and December when many people are buying gifts. While the holiday’s are a very lucrative time for many businesses, marketers are spending a premium on ad space. You could discover that another time of the year is better suited for your marketing spend. Don’t compete at premium rates if you don’t have to.
2. You’re using limited marketing channels
You want your campaigns to stand out but they might not be making the impact you’re hoping for. With seasonal marketing, there’s an influx of advertisements on a variety of platforms. If you’re not utilizing a range of marketing channels, your campaigns might be getting lost in the chaos, and you might not be reaching the audiences you’re hoping to target.
Paid digital marketing on platforms like Google and Facebook is a common and effective strategy. In fact, 68% of marketers say that paid advertising is “very important” to their marketing strategy. However, it shouldn’t be the only channel you advertise on. Other platforms you can utilize include:
- Social media
- Websites/blogging
- Video/podcasts
Most marketers leverage three or four channels so if you’re only advertising on one or two channels, consider adding another one to the mix. Over-the-top (OTT) and connected TV (CTV) have seen dramatic growth in the past few years with millions of viewers across multiple streaming services and a predicted $210 billion media revenue by 2026. While advertising on OTT and CTV platforms might seem daunting, it has proven to be a very effective channel. If you want to explore this ad platform, there are plenty of solutions and tools that can help get you started.
Adding more channels to your seasonal marketing media mix will extend the reach of your advertising and allow you to target different audiences across more platforms.
3. Your communication is inconsistent
Even though you might be focusing much of your ad spend during a specific season, you shouldn’t be focusing all of your advertising during this time. When you don’t communicate with your audience regularly, they tend to drop off and could forget about your business entirely. It costs more to acquire new customers than it does to keep the ones you have.
You should be reengaging current customers throughout the year to avoid high churn rates and low retention. If there isn’t room in your budget for paid advertising, consider bolstering your own media strategy during the off season. Email, social media, website, and push notifications are just a few marketing channels that could prove to be cost effective and successful.
4. You don’t really know your customers
If you don’t know your customers wants and needs, how can you capture their attention? And if you can’t capture their attention, how can you get them to convert? Understanding your customers is vital to any successful marketing campaign, especially when you’re spending a lot of money during a high selling season.
Work on the relationships you have with your customers to gain direct insights into their experience with your product or service. You can do this by:
- Sending out customer surveys
- Asking for feedback or product reviews
- Gathering social media engagement data (eg, likes, comments, shares)
- Creating robust customer profiles
With this information, you can better understand what your customers find important and what areas in your business process you can improve. From there you can create marketing campaigns that speak to your customers at a more personal level, making them feel seen and valued.
5. You’re not measuring your campaigns
The last thing, and probably the most important, is measurement. If you’re not measuring your marketing efforts or if you’re not using the measurement data you gather to influence your marketing initiatives, you’re probably not getting the campaign results you want.
An easy and effective way to get started with campaign measurement is to work with a mobile measurement partner (MMP) who can help you track, organize, and visualize your data for a unified view of campaign performance across all of your channels, platforms, and partners.
MMPs can help optimize your campaigns even more by ensuring that your attribution data is accurate. Seasonal marketing can be a pricy time for advertising so you want to make sure that any impression, click, or conversion is attributed to the right campaign. MMP platforms like Kochava, allow you to configure your attribution windows so that you’re only paying for conversions truly driven by your campaign partners.
Let us help you avoid these seasonal marketing pitfalls
While the seasons come and go, your marketing shouldn’t. Effective seasonal marketing happens all year long. Avoid these pitfalls and many more by working with us. We can help you identify areas in your campaign strategy that need improvement and provide you with the tools and solutions to maximize your marketing efforts.
If you want more tips on optimizing your holiday marketing, learn more on our blog.
Get started with Kochava. Contact us or email support@kochava.com. Happy marketing!
