How To Maximize Your Digital Marketing Budget for the Holiday Season
As we approach the end of the year, you, as an online business owner, are starting to evaluate your business and wonder how to make the most of your remaining digital marketing budget.
Q4 presents unique opportunities for high-impact campaigns, especially with holiday promotions in full swing. The key to maximizing your digital marketing budget for the holiday season is smart budgeting, strategic allocation, and leveraging every marketing dollar to maximize your return on investment (ROI). How? Let’s get into it.
Content Overview:
–Prioritize Your Winning Promotions
–Invest in Retargeting Campaigns
–Use Social Media to Your Advantage
–Leverage Your Email List
–Diversify Your Content Marketing
–Double Down on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
–Utilize a Digital Marketing Expert
Prioritize Your Winning Promotions
Before you spend another dollar out of that digital marketing budget, the first step is to review your promotions and campaigns from this year. Analyze your performance data, and you’ll quickly see which channels, ads, and strategies brought in the most significant results and which didn’t quite hit the mark.
Prioritize the campaigns with the best results for your specific objectives, whether conversions, outreach, or engagement. These high-ROI campaigns are your best bets for getting more bang for your buck at the end of the year because they’re already tried and true.
Invest in Retargeting Campaigns
Retargeting is one of the most effective ways to reach potential customers who have already shown interest in your brand. Since these shoppers are already familiar with your business, retargeting campaigns can deliver high conversion rates with lower costs compared to reaching cold audiences.
Use your high-performing campaigns from earlier in the year and run retargeting campaigns geared for holiday buyers, which can increase your ROI while reducing unnecessary spending. You can add holiday themes and deadlines to create urgency that wasn’t present before.
Generally, we recommend using 10-15% of your remaining digital marketing budget specifically for retargeting campaigns. When executed well, this can be one of the highest-converting strategies because consumer intent to buy is much higher during the holiday season.
An advanced technique to try is a dynamic product ad using META advertising, which automatically features products users have viewed on your website (meaning they’re already interested and more likely to purchase).
Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Social media platforms are powerful, cost-effective tools that allow businesses to reach large audiences with minimal spending. Engaging content, organic reach, and paid ads can complement each other to drive brand awareness and conversions.
Optimize your organic content and ensure these posts are aligned with your paid campaigns. You can run themed posts and holiday giveaways and utilize interactive stories to boost engagement while driving brand awareness (without dipping into your advertising budget).
For your paid content, try using lookalike audiences to reach new users who share characteristics with your best customers. This will increase the likelihood of conversion when reaching a cold audience.
The days leading up to the big sales holidays (like Black Friday) will be inundated with ads… also meaning running campaigns during that time will be more expensive with a potentially smaller return. Because of this, consider running ads on the days leading up to or after if you’re looking to maximize your ad budget. You can look at the insights on social media to see the peak engagement times for your audience, which you can use for your campaigns.
FREE RESOURCE: Making the Most of Social Media
Leverage Your Email List
Email marketing remains one of the most cost-effective digital marketing channels, with an average ROI of $36 for every $1 spent (depending on the industry). You can drive last-minute holiday sales and boost end-of-year revenue by using your remaining digital marketing budget to craft targeted timely emails.
What I love about email marketing is that you can segment your list into categories like new customers, loyal buyers, and recent visitors and tailor your messaging to each group. For example, you could offer loyal customers a “thank you” discount or a holiday deal for first-time buyers.
You can also use your email marketing platform to set up automated sequences, such as cart abandonment, holiday reminders, and special year-end offers. Automation ensures you’re capturing potential buyers without requiring constant manual effort.
A common technique we recommend to clients is investing a small amount of ad spend to grow their email list with holiday-focused opt-ins. This way, these subscribers can be nurtured with emails and special offers, extending the value of their budget.
Diversify Your Content Marketing
Content marketing is a powerful way to build brand awareness and educate your audience, making it ideal for maximizing your budget with a long-term strategy.
One way to do this is to publish blog posts, videos, or guides that address your customers’ interests and concerns during the holidays. For example, create a “Holiday Gift Guide” or “Tips for Getting the Most from Your Purchase” to build awareness of your product or service and how they can serve your customers.
Take advantage of the work you’ve already done by repurposing high-performing content into multiple formats. For instance, a popular blog post can be turned into social media graphics, reels, an email series, or a downloadable guide.
FREE RESOURCE: 3 Month Content Calendar Template
Double Down on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Before increasing your ad spend, focus on enhancing the user experience on your website and funnels to improve your conversion rate. CRO is a smart, budget-conscious approach that can make every dollar you spend driving traffic more effective.
Ensure your mobile-friendly landing pages load quickly and contain clear calls to action (CTAs). You don’t have to overhaul in the busiest part of the year to make a difference. Small tweaks, like adjusting CTA buttons or adding customer testimonials, can significantly improve conversion rates.
You can also increase your CRO by testing headlines, images, and CTAs to identify which variations drive more conversions. Even if you have a limited digital marketing budget remaining, a small investment in CRO can amplify the effectiveness of every other marketing dollar spent, providing an excellent return on investment.
Utilize a Digital Marketing Expert
Every online business owner wants to make more money from the dollars invested in digital marketing. But let’s be honest: you may not have the time or experience to be your business’s digital marketing strategist. So what can you do?
One of the BEST things you can do for your digital marketing budget strategy is to utilize a digital marketing expert to take over the strategizing for you.
Why? So you can focus on actually running and growing your business.
At Jennie Lyon Digital Marketing Services, we provide full-service digital marketing and virtual assistant services to grow your business and save your sanity. I created a free guide on utilizing a digital marketing agency to streamline your business and catalyze your success!
FREE RESOURCE: How to Use Our Digital Marketing Team to Grow Your Business
No matter how you maximize your digital marketing budget for the holiday season, you can end the year on a high note and set the stage for even greater success in the new year. I believe in you!
Links for This Episode:
– Marketing Office Hours
– Discover Your Digital Marketing Success Path
– How to Use Our Digital Marketing Team
– Schedule a free call with Jennie today
Get in touch with Jennie:
-Free Consultation: https://jennielyon.com/chatwithjennie
-Website: jennielyon.com
-Social Media: @jennielyonmarketing
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