Everyone’s doing it.Even Taylor Swift, with her catchy bop, “Christmas Tree Song” that’s blaring through countless speakers worldwide. Even as I browsed through random articles and videos, I kept getting suggestions about perfect holiday gifts or getaways- and they were all irresistible. When the holiday spirit is in the air, it’s the time of the year when people channel that holiday cheer into spending more money. According to Investopedia, people in the US are predicted to spend $920 per person on average during this holiday season, and the total holiday spending amounts to over $1 trillion! After an entire year of slogging it out at work or at school, this is the time to brighten up and indulge in some festivities.
There are several ways to take advantage of the end-of-year hike in sales. Here are the most popular ways:
Gift Packages
Your product isn’t a product. It’s a gift. Your deals aren’t called deals any more. They’re holiday deals. We have discussed in our previous articles how video titles should be attention-grabbing, and it has to cater to the problems or needs of your audience. You have it here. Without a doubt, most of your audience has holiday gifts floating around their minds. According to Google Insights, increase of consumer watch time for holiday season content hasn’t doubled or tripled over the past couple of years; it hasn’t even quadrupled either (I don’t even know the next “-uple”). Watch time for holiday video content has increased six times! That’s not even all. More than 90% of people say that they discovered new brands through YouTube, and more than 50% of shoppers claim to have used online video while actually shopping at stores.
“Your video doesn’t have to be about directly boosting sales.”
It doesn’t hurt to start pushing all of your top-selling products, creating your “holiday packages” with those products. Alternatively, you could also blow the dust off those products with sluggish sales and market them to those looking for “unique gifts.”
So, no matter what products you offer, get your ideas flowing and think about how these items could be the perfect holiday gift. Whip out that video, and give the audience what they want!
Is Your Tech Working?
Despite the surge in sales at this time of the year, most people are not flocking to stores. According to CNBC, 53% of holiday shopping is predicted to be done online. After posting an amazing video that attracts a lot of customers (well, that’s a dream come true, anyway), seeing your website crash because of the unexpected traffic is a nightmare! Forget about crashing- if your website takes more than two seconds to load, you’ll lose 14% of your website visitors. With online shopping on the rise, you can’t afford to be left behind.
According to the 2018 Video Marketing Survey by Business to Community, 30% of millennials want shoppable videos. You’ll never be at a loss with one of those, because not only are they in great demand, but clicking on a video and going directly to a product page increases the chance that your product will be purchased.
Lastly, make sure that your website is mobile-optimized. Nearly 35% of total eCommerce sales were derived from mobile phones, according to this report in 2017. These numbers are expected to rise to 54% by 2020. Glitchy mobile sites just means abandoned shopping carts.
Themed Contests
Many successful brands organise themed contests, or ask their followers to send themed videos that are fun and engaging. These videos could be Christmas song contests, funny videos (I particularly remember a startlingly true, yet funny depiction of family holiday gatherings), ways consumers tend to use your product, their personal stories related to your products, or simply heartwarming, original, themed videos that will melt everyone’s hearts. Sharing these videos on social media can go a very long way for creating a long-lasting impact of your brand, and becoming a memorable part of the participants’ lives. You could even award runner-ups with gifts as well. User generated content is one of the most customer-centric initiatives you could take. Virgin Holidays, the UK’s most popular holiday company managed to increase bookings by 260% because they used user-generated content as part of their holiday campaign (#RedIsTheNewBlack).
Holiday Sales
Ignoring the inevitable eye-roll at having mentioned these, Ms. Captain Obvious brings them up because they really work. However, if nobody knows about your awesome holiday sale, no one is going to buy from you. According to the Animoto survey in 2017, marketing videos on Facebook affected purchasing decisions of 64% of buyers. So, getting the word out is important. Targeted ads during this time of the year work like a charm, because your target is either your current customers, or people interested in holiday season shopping. Targeted ads is a tool that’s more efficiently used on Instagram and Facebook. The Tubular Insights Roundup study concludes that compared to text and images, social videos generate 1200% more shares. Time your sales right, time your video postings right, and you’re good to go!
HolidayThemed Social Videos
Your video doesn’t have to be about directly boosting sales. Think of a fun, engaging, unique or inspiring holiday themed video you could make. A “fun facts” video that’s still relevant in your industry could have viewers watching and resharing like nobody’s business. If you’re in the food industry, the perfect video could be a holiday recipe.
“According to Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR Study, 90% of the shoppers in the US switch to a cause branded product, if given a choice of two products of equal qualities.”
Coca-Cola has launched several successful Christmas themed video campaigns, nearly all of them bringing people together because of their favorite drink. To me, Macy’s Santa Girl was one ad that hit home. It’s simply about a girl who wants to have a job when she grows up, so she dresses up as Santa in Macy’s clothing, and gets bullied. That’s something everyone can relate to, and we usually have a fierce tendency to defend victims of bullying. This emotion really makes the ad memorable. The ad ended on a very happy note, with her parents cheering her up and making her little dreams come true.
Show Some Appreciation
Like we just discussed above, videos don’t have to be about buying your product. Try out holiday greeting videos on your existing customers. These can be very minimalistic, using the most nostalgic themes for a background. If you have a considerable number of followers on a social media platform, thank them all for being with you through your journey. You could share your milestones during the year, bringing it all back to “how you couldn’t have done it without them.” At this time when everyone’s thinking of buying, you have a good incentive to make sure your followers remember you.
Cause Marketing
It’s time to get into the holiday spirit of giving! You can get together with a charity organization for mutual and community benefits. To see some altruism in this day and age is a comforting feeling, and people will be more inclined to buy if they know the money is being used for a noble cause. According to Cone Communications/Ebiquity Global CSR Study, 90% of the shoppers in the US switch to a cause-branded product if given a choice of two products of equal value. According to the IEG Sponsorship Report, cause sponsorship is predicted to reach $2.23 billion this year. Let your customers know exactly where a percentage of your funds will be going, and how it will affect the benefactors. Video presentations of how the money they spend will benefit people out there can be extremely powerful. Less and less people are giving charity “real time”, and something close to the experience can make it very impactful for them. Almost two thirds of the youth have a preference for brands that have a social impact according to Kantar’s 2018 :Purpose 2020” report. Moreover, you’ll be temporarily apart of the charity organization’s marketing efforts as well. People who feel like they have contributed to a social cause feel the urge to publicize it on their social media platforms, and what’s better than a video already made for them, just waiting to be shared? A video about the social impact of your cause marketing projects should be on top of your list.
Instagram and Snapchat Stories
Currently, only these two social media platforms are capitalizing on videos through their “stories” feature.
You should keep in mind that the tone of the videos on these platforms is informal, and a way to connect with viewers in an “off-the-record,” casual kind of way. This aspect humanizes your business, whether it’s a “serious” financial firm or a web development outsourcing company with developers quietly working to deliver services to clients. Behind the scenes videos of your work environment could be shared here. This makes you more accessible to them, which in turn, leads to more engagement and more exposure. You could even post someone’s reaction to a giveaway of a high demand item as an Instastory and kill two birds with one shot. What makes stories even better is their “shoppable video” feature, making your product page just a click away. The primary demographic on Instagram is composed of millennials, and what most of them would like to see are shoppable videos. Seems like a pretty great combination.
Plan Well
You don’t have to spend ages to compose a script, make videos and make a lengthy plan to post them. Keep your goals clear and give yourself a deadline. Get your team together for ideas, and get them on board in the entire process.Make sure that your videos have a cheerful tone to them. Set your goals. These are the basics that you could start off with:
- What types of videos will you create?
- How many videos will you make?
- When will the video be ready to roll?
- How many shares are you aiming to get?
- How many people you aim to reach out to?
- What will be the call to action at the end of every video?
- How much you expect the above to boost sales?
- How this will be executed?