Tis’ the season for the busiest marketing time of the year. The holiday season is approaching, and marketers must start strategizing for the holiday season to meet those EOY revenue goals.
In the U.S., retail spending will rise 4.5% to $1.3 TRILLION for the 2023 holiday season—that is a LOT of potential revenue for brands to capitalize on during the last few months of the year.
How can marketers use the retail spending jackpot during the year’s busiest shopping season? One word: influencers.
Influencer marketing is among the best strategies to include in your EOY holiday season plan. With consumers searching for holiday gift ideas, sales, latest trends, etc., on social media platforms, marketers must ensure they meet their audiences where they are most active.
Influencers drive consumers down the sales funnel, so marketers should develop partnerships with influencers to increase brand awareness, trust, and revenue.
Keep reading this post to learn how brands can succeed at holiday influencer marketing campaigns and build effective campaigns with Skyline.
1. Get an early start on the holiday influencer season.
Early shoppers get the best deals; the same goes for marketers. Marketers who plan their holiday marketing campaigns early will get the most engagement and conversions.
With the rising popularity of influencer marketing, getting an early start is a must, as influencers’ calendars can book up quickly. Brands are competing for influencer partnerships, especially considering influencer marketing is now a $21.1 BILLION industry.
Not only are influencers in high demand, but pricing increases as the holiday season draws nearer, so making a list of and contacting specific influencers you want to partner with is something marketers should do before November.
The benefits of working with influencers are their personal experience with a product or service and the ability to produce a quick turnaround time for content. Content creators know consumers prefer campaigns tailored to meet their needs and interests and tout honest reviews.
Holiday influencer campaigns provide brands with effective and efficient communication. Influencers can create content communicating a brand’s products and other brand information a consumer may be interested in based on consumer data.
2. Be sure to set a holiday influencer marketing budget.
Before you can create festive influencer marketing campaigns, marketers need to set aside a budget for influencer marketing.
The most important aspect of influencer marketing planning to remember is that planning ahead is crucial to saving your brand marketing spending costs—over 80% of marketers have a dedicated influencer marketing budget.
As mentioned, the fourth quarter is particularly busy for content creators. The closer we get to the Thanksgiving holiday weekend (aka Black Friday/Cyber Monday), the more likely brands will have difficulty booking influencers within budget.
Like marketers, content creators have a content calendar they adhere to for planning and budgeting, so allowing creators ample time to execute a holiday campaign is essential to both your budgets.
According to Forbes, marketers can expect a 25% or more rise in rates for influencer marketing campaigns once the holiday season is here.
Marketers can keep within budget with existing influencer relationships or with the help of a creative services agency like Skyline, which tends to have relationships with influencers already or can reach out to influencers and negotiate contracts with them.
Remember to strategize and budget for your EOY holiday influencer campaigns because partnering with influencers provides consumers with brand authenticity and consumer retention.
Book a quick strategy call with our marketing experts!
3. Give the gift of creative freedom.
Like other creatives, influencers want and appreciate creative freedom, so brands should give the gift of creative freedom to influencers they are working with for their holiday campaigns.
Allowing content creators creative freedom is crucial to the quality of content brands can expect produced from influencers.
As experts in social media marketing, influencers know what content works best on specific social media platforms. Depending on the social media platform where an influencer receives the most engagement, they can easily target their audiences since influencers know their followers best.
In case you were wondering, Instagram continues to be the most preferred platform for influencer marketing, with 72% of marketers saying they use it to work with influencers and creators.
Many influencers have years of experience creating content for their followers on specific platforms, and with social media content experience comes years’ worth of data.
Leveraging data from influencers benefits brands, especially when it comes to targeting audiences, and provides proof of what content an influencer has created that has the potential to work best for your brand.
Influencer data is essential for determining what content receives the most engagement and for knowing when and where consumers purchase and what makes them want to buy a product or service.
Giving influencers creative freedom to produce and promote content they create for you establishes an excellent work relationship between your brand and any influencer.
4. Remember to retarget and remarket for joyous EOY goals.
Influencer marketing campaigns are great for boosting audience engagement and driving traffic to your brand’s website, but that doesn’t always correlate to purchase intent—at least not immediately.
According to research, 85% of consumers check a business online before making a purchase. Therefore, marketers need to include retargeting or remarketing strategies to retain those customers and drive them down the sales funnel.
Influencers drive high-quality traffic to the brand’s website they are delivering campaigns for, so marketers must retarget and remarket to consumers. Creating more opportunities to communicate to consumers interested in purchasing from your brand provides higher conversion rates for your brand.
Adding influencer marketing to your holiday campaigns is the perfect way to boost consumer engagement, brand awareness, and trust and increase conversions for joyous EOY goals.
Start your holiday influencer marketing campaign now with Skyline Studio.