Everyone knows, or expects, that your sales are going to rise during the holiday season. The average online or physical store sees a rise in sales of about 20-40 percent during the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Of course a great deal of that depends on what you sell, but as a rule, regardless of your product, from software to eggnog, your sales should rise. That presupposes that your customers know who you are and what you have to offer. But do they?

What are your online marketing plans for the holidays? Do you have special plans for your website, your marketing and your social media this year? If you’re like most of us, you’re seeking the best way to improve your marketing and that includes your social media during this holiday season.

Whether you’re selling products or services, social media for the holidays is a great way to engage your customers. You can draw in more prospective buyers and generate more sales from holiday shoppers if you have a strong social media strategy and plan carefully what you’re doing with it.

Here are a few ways that you can boost your social media holiday campaigns and marketing to help drive those extra sales and business this holiday season.

You should already know where your customers are hanging out on social media this holiday season. Pinterest is showing them images of things that they are considering for holiday purchases. Facebook is letting them share and like those products. Twitter is helping them to make the decision.

According to all of the online data from a survey taken by Market Live more than half of all customers who are out there shopping this holiday season are going to be or have been influenced by something that they saw or read on social media. We will talk about the influence of customer reviews on products and services in another article.

The average customer looks for ideas, seeks out products, gets references or talks about how a product or service works with someone else on social media. The campaigns that various marketers or retailers send out on social media are seriously influencing customers. Their awareness of the brand is improved and customer sales are increased by properly using social media to promote and engage potential buyer.

What kind of campaigns are working on social media to bring about the improved sales? How can you create your own campaigns to improve brand awareness and increase sales this holiday season?

Planning

The key to creating a social media campaign that works is in careful planning and sometimes in reviewing what your competition is doing. Assess your efforts on social media last year. Ascertain how well they worked and which aspects of the campaign did not work. Determine which social media site worked best for you. Once you’ve determined all of those things you will have a better return on your social media efforts.

Incentives

Tis the season of giving, so giving a little back to your customers is going to net you a big return. You’ll get new customers and new sales by implementing some incentives into your social media holiday campaigns. These work very well on the major social media channels.  Some of the incentives that you may want to consider will include things like loyalty awards, percentage discounts and free shipping. Because so many people today are using social media, landing those incentive programs on social media boosts sales dramatically.

Make Smart Investments

Smart Blogs shared a few things that might be helpful to those who are trying to find the best social media holiday campaigns for the investment of their time and money. The insights that they shared came from OfferPop‘s, the author of the Holiday Social Marketing Trends infographic. Their advice is “Holiday marketing efforts should include an investment in the power of social media to increase commerce and strengthen brand reach.”

Choose the Right Tactics

Once you’ve got all of the information that you need about where your social media has been in the past, how well it functioned, where your competitors are and what’s necessary to improve your sales, you’re ready to create a new social media holiday campaigns that tout your strengths and can help you to build your brand and improve your sales.

Don’t forget to add a dose of holiday welcome and cheer to your social media marketing holiday campaigns and don’t forget to use a little “holiday hurry.” Create a sense of urgency that will play out with increased sales by reminding your customers that once the holidays are gone, so is your offer.

Contact us if you need help creating solid social media strategy or need ideas for great marketing this season. We can help you make create a flurry of new business.