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The Advantages of Experiential Campaigns During the Holidays

holiday-experiential-campaigns

Holiday seasons create opportunities for businesses and are a terrific way to make you stand out. Not only does it help increase ROI, but it can also build a strong relationship between your business and your customers.

Christmas, New Year, & Easter are just a few examples of holiday seasons that you can take advantage of to create a bond and establish loyalty among your customers. Offering special discounts, running a clearance sale, or a competition with prizes to be won are great ideas to draw their attention.

It is also important to note, that customers also go through phases where they are more likely to spend more money and certain times when they won’t. During the holidays, especially at Christmas, people tend to spend more. It is said that this holiday season, Australians are expected to spend $23.9 billion on everything from toys to pina Coladas. This represents a 38% increase over the predicted $17.3 billion spent last year.

This Christmas, the average Australian is predicted to spend $1,232 on gifts, food, booze, dining out, and travel. Victorians are expected to spend the most ($1,373), followed by New South Wales residents ($1,361). [1]

This is the reason why businesses take advantage of an opportunity whenever it presents itself and offers customers a wide range of products and a tailored marketing campaign that will benefit every element of their business.

 

How do you use seasonal marketing?

To use seasonal marketing, some things need to be done for it to be considered successful:

  • begin planning your holiday season marketing approach
  • make use of data to aid in the planning of your holiday season marketing
  • make your campaigns unique
  • look into what your competitors are doing to prepare for the busy season
  • plan your holiday season marketing approach even in the off-season

 

Experiential marketing is another marketing strategy that can be included in your seasonal marketing campaign. It is a terrific way to stand out.

Here are some advantages of what experiential marketing can do for your business when executed with careful planning:

1. Create a sense of urgency

Are you familiar with the reactance theory? According to social psychologist Jack Brehm, people don’t want to miss out on a threatened opportunity and to avoid losing it they will take immediate action. The idea is that because seasonal promotion always has an expiration date, it encourages the person to move quickly for him not miss out on opportunities such as a great deal on products before the seasonal promotion is over. [2]

Make sure to be imaginative and create campaigns that touch people’s sense of urgency.

2. Catches people’s attention

With so many businesses in the same niche as yours, people may walk past without even a glance. When doing an experiential campaign during the holidays, everything you do must appeal to your customers. Just think about all the positive things associated with the occasion like the sounds, smell, sights, and tastes and incorporate them into your campaign. If the campaign experience is original and uses seasonal promotions that fit the customer’s purchasing habits, the campaign will surely be a big hit.

3. Builds an association with consumers

According to Twitter Marketing, Relationship marketing is everything you do to build strong and lasting relationships with your customers. Holiday periods such as Christmas are the best time to create such. Running a holiday-themed competition to thank your customers, special offers or discounts are just some examples of what you can do to build a connection and loyalty with them. What more if this is done face-to-face, right?

(Read more: How Face to Face Interaction Affects Consumer Behaviour)

4. Cost-effective

The good thing about a seasonal campaign is that you can reuse your materials year after year. According to Small Business Trends [an example of cost-effective marketing], use some basic texts such as “Christmas deals in-store,” which can be used year after year but also fits whatever special advertising demands you have for that year.

5. Give consumers an experience worth their time

Everyone is busy around the holidays. At any other time of year, you might want to create an experiential marketing campaign that includes long experiences or a more thorough one, but do not forget that this should be more focused. Provide a simple, streamlined experience that not only gets your brand’s name out there but also doesn’t take too much time to complete and most of all, is worthy of their time.

Purposely, campaigns that are directed to families and to provide them with a once-in-a-lifetime experience are an exception. During the holidays, families are more focused on doing activities together than amassing more items they don’t need. If you can tap into that drive by providing customers with an experience worth making time for, your campaign will be guaranteed success.

Not only that, make your experiential marketing campaign for customers a breather. Spa treatments or other soothing activities are a great way to pamper them. Make it possible for them to have a faster and more pleasant shopping experience (for example, by providing shuttle service from stores to people’s cars). Provide holiday cookies or other baked goods to spare them a trip to the grocery store or bakery and encourage them to use the time they’ve saved to do other fun and exciting things you have prepared for them.

 

Ready for your next activation? Call us on (02) 8319 5544 or send us a message.

Related Blogs: Is Experiential Marketing Dead?

 

References:

[1] https://www.finder.com.au/australias-christmas-spending-statistics

[2] http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/social-influence/reactance/

[3] https://business.twitter.com/en/blog/what-is-relationship-marketing.html

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