The holidays are highly competitive, but these digital marketing ideas for the holidays can increase your business at this important time of year.

Holiday shopping remains one of the busiest economic periods of the year. Retail sales during the 2021 holiday season reached almost $850 billion dollars in the U.S., according to Statista. With such an increase in spending during the holiday season, marketers have a unique opportunity for an influx of sales.

However, since all companies are competing for the same seasonal customers, this can be a difficult time for marketers to stand out from the crowd. Using these digital marketing ideas for the holidays can help create a successful digital marketing strategy for the upcoming holiday season.

Digital Marketing Ideas for the Holidays That Work

Let’s look at a few digital marketing ideas for the holidays that have been proven winners when it comes to attracting new customers and retaining current ones.

Make the Most of Customer Data

Knowing your customers is the most important part of digital marketing any time of year, especially during the competitive holiday season. To create an impactful holiday marketing strategy, it’s important to know how your customers like to shop, when they do their shopping, and other behavioral patterns.

Use that knowledge to create a strategy that works for your specific customers. If they tend to shop early, you’ll need to create a long-term plan. If they are more likely to make purchases closer to the holidays, you’ll need to make sure that your campaign is visible during that time period.

With the popularity of online shopping, you’ll also need to make sure that you optimize your customers’ shopping experience to match their purchasing preferences. Most online shoppers use mobile devices to make their purchases. If your customers have the same preferences, you’ll need to make sure your marketing efforts are mobile-friendly and your mobile shopping experience is intuitive and easy to use.

Create Memorable Marketing Experiences

When you want to make sure your digital marketing efforts stand out from the crowd, creating memorable marketing experiences can help. There are plenty of tactics you can use to achieve this, depending on what makes the most sense for your business model.

Content marketing can help showcase what makes your products or services so special. If you sell food or drink products, creating holiday recipes using your products can make your products stand out.

Tutorials are just one idea to make an experience memorable. You could also stand out using promotions to attract bargain shoppers. Or include a charitable donation with each purchase if your customer base is altruistic.

Focus on the Right Digital Channels

When creating your holiday marketing plan, you may be tempted to blast your offerings into every possible channel. However, with so many brands competing for customers, you don’t want to waste marketing dollars by spreading yourself too thin in areas your customers might not frequent.

Once you learn where your customers spend their time, it makes sense to focus your efforts there. You can still create a multi-channel strategy, but keep it centered on the channels that are effective for your customers.

For example, TikTok is an extremely popular platform, but it wouldn’t make sense to spend the time and budget to create a TikTok strategy if your customers aren’t TikTok users. Whichever channels you use, make sure that your content is tailored for that specific channel while still fitting in with your overall marketing plan.