Tag Archive for: Chicago Digital Marketing Agency

Why Digital Marketing is Crucial for Small Businesses

/in /by

Effective Digital Marketing is paramount in helping small businesses learn the online habits of customers – which in turn they can better target their ideal customers. Here, we have listed the benefits of digital marketing strategies for small businesses to help them market their products or services with the right digital media planning. 

When small businesses get started, their main focus is how to attract customers to shop at their store and how to get them to utilize your services. Most small businesses may rely on traditional forms of advertising, such as print ads and mailers. Small business owners have a tendency to believe, if they offer a good product or service, it’s only a matter of time until new customers find their way to them.

While this strategy may bring in some business, there is an easier route to take. Small businesses should consider the marketplace of prospects that are available online. Small businesses, no matter how new to market, should never overlook the opportunity that digital channels can bring. This is a way to generate leads and convert interest into customers. Here’s a look at the benefits of digital marketing and the ways online platforms can be used to help grow your business.

Online Marketing & Its Benefits

With endless opportunities, digital marketing can seem intimidating if you’ve never used it for a business before. There are many different social media platforms and marketing terms that may make it seem like a bigger project than it is. It’s easy for small businesses to believe they don’t have the time or money to compete online. As a result, many take things slowly and stick with one or two forms of traditional advertising, assuming that their business will evolve as time passes.

The marketplace is competitive and while word of mouth and customer recommendations can help drive traffic, customers will struggle to find your business unless you show up in the places they spend time. Delaying building a presence online is not an effective approach. The best way to ensure success is to promote your business is to use target marketing to attract customers that are interested in your specific service and/or product. 

You can find an excess of potential customers online. It’s a larger group than you’ll ever be able to attract only locally. Using digital marketing techniques, you can reach a global audience in a way that’s cost-effective, scalable and measurable. Some of the benefits of using Digital Marketing tactics include:

  • Target the right audience at the right time – personalization is simpler with digital marketing.
  • Get to know your audience and drive engagement to create brand loyalty. Get some inspiration by creating a customer loyalty strategy. 
  • Track and monitor responses to your marketing efforts easily and instantly (i.e.) any social media platform which are typically free of cost. 
  • The ability to reach out to anyone and anywhere as there are no geographical boundaries with digital.

Get to Know Your Target Audience

One of the great things about digital marketing is that it allows you to engage with new customers. You can get to know them and their pain points, and in turn, provide them with a solution. Social media and blog posts are a great way to start a conversation. It’s important to make note of any comments or responses to your posts, it’s another great way to strengthen your strategy. Using digital marketing helps you stop wondering who your customers are so you can personalize communications and refine targeting. 

By doing this, you will build a relationship with your customers. You become more than a business, you become a reliable partner. Remember, people are also more likely to buy from businesses that they have already bought from and had a good experience with. When someone is interested in your business, whether it’s in your niche or they are curious about your brand, the first thing they will do is research online and see what they can find out about you. 

With today’s digital age, customers expect to find a business website or social media page easily. They also might be looking for reviews so they can learn what other people are saying about your company and whether it is a good place to do business. For local businesses, 87% of consumers read online reviews – a growth of 6% from 2019 to 2020.

So if a potential new customer can’t find you online, they may conclude that your business doesn’t appear to be legitimate. There is a very good chance that a lot of these prospects may decide not to take your business seriously and they will quickly take their business elsewhere.

Do More While Spending Less

Small businesses and start-ups are always trying to achieve as much as possible through their marketing on a budget. Advertising online can stretch your budget further and will allow you to refine your target audience. Social media is particularly good for this as it enables you to set a daily budget for a discrete audience that has an interest in your brand or ethos. Most importantly, it allows your business to exclude the people that would never buy from you – saving you time and money!

The key with advertising on social media is to select the platform that will work best for you and your brand. Don’t pick TikTok just because it’s trending or advertise on LinkedIn when you’re not trying to generate B2B interest. Research social channels, see which social media platform matches what you’re looking for and run some simple tests to see what messaging and content works. 

Last Thoughts

Ultimately, you are the one steering your business to success. Where do you want to go and what does success look like for you? Are you looking to develop a website that can generate leads? Or maybe you want to set up a Facebook campaign to see the results. The first step to achieving these goals is to develop an understanding of digital marketing and how it can have a positive impact on your business.

Onimod Global is your Chicago-based, in-house marketing team, your partner experts for specific marketing verticals or some nice balance in between. We excel in customer service and will teach you the most relevant and up-to-date digital marketing skills. From social media to SEO and paid search, you will have the tools to ensure your business succeeds online.  

Have questions about creating your online presence and need help strategizing? Contact us here today.

Google Maps Marketing Strategy 101

/in , /by

Google Maps is one of the first things that people think of when you hear the phrase “local SEO.” When we think of any business that will have what I need, whether it’s furniture or food or office supplies, Google Maps is the go to. I know that the search results have plenty of information to pick the best option with Google reviews, star ratings, photos, and location information.

We’re here to give an overview of Google My Business and how you can move up in Google Maps rankings. These tools will give your Google My Business posts the ability to get additional reach locally. 

 

Google My Business Overview

First thing’s first, you need a Google My Business listing. Here is a simple checklist with everything you’ll need to include: 

  • You’re using your legal business name
  • You’ve chosen the primary category most relevant to your business and have added additional categories (if applicable)
  • Correct address is shown (if you’re not a service area business)
  • Address is hidden if you’re an service area business and service areas have been designated
  • Hours of operation have been added
  • Local phone number is being used
  • Website link is correct 
  • Appointment link has been added (if applicable)
  • Products have been added (if retail)
  • Services have been added (if you offer services)
  • Applicable attributes have been added
  • Business description has been added
  • Opening date has been added

This is going to be the first impression anyone has of your business, so it’s important to have all information accurate and up to date. Mike Blumenthal even coined the phrase “Google My Business is your new homepage” back in 2015.

 

Increasing Google Maps Rankings

Now that the basics are out of the way, you can begin a strategy for increasing your Google Maps rankings. Although marketing on Google Maps is free, you can boost your business’ visibility in search results with local search ads. 

With the use of these ads, you can push your business listing to the top of search queries for keywords relevant to your business. Google Maps ads use location targeting, so the most relevant audience in your near vicinity will show up for location-relevant searches. These ads appear in desktop and mobile searches. We recommend implementing these ads into your Google Ads strategy if you haven’t already done so. 

 

More From Onimod Global

As trusted Google experts, our team is here to help with holistic digital marketing strategies including all Google Ads, because our goal is to make your business more successful. To get in contact with an audit on your digital presence, get in touch with us here. 

Google Now Shares What Factors Impact Specific Rankings

/in , /by

Google now shows why it ranked a specific search result. The new ‘About This Result’ feature shows searchers information about some of these most important factors used by Google Search to connect results to their queries. Read more

Top 5 Must Use Digital Marketing Tools

/in /by

Fortunately in 2021, there are thousands of tools to utilize for your digital marketing efforts. Unfortunately, this oversaturated market has made it overwhelming for many to choose the right platforms for their marketing needs. 

With Americans spending over 11 hours daily on their electronic devices, there’s not much space left for traditional marketing. And while digital marketing tools help you execute a proper marketing strategy, they don’t do the work for you, and some work better than others – depending on your marketing goals.

With such a large selection of digital marketing tool available, it is important to know how each one will benefit you to help drive results. We’ve compiled a list of the all-around best tools that everyone can use and benefit from.

SEMRush 

When it comes to SEO, SEMRush is one of the most effective tools out there. This platform provides:

  • Keyword performance research 
  • Position tracking 
  • Backlink identification 
  • Technical SEO auditing abilities

SEMRush also just rolled out a few new features that include marketing, advertising and social media tools. If you’re looking for a comprehensive, all-in-one tool, this platform is the way to go. There are both free and paid subscriptions offered. But with a free account, your data pulling abilities are limited. You also won’t get access to all the additional tools they offer. 

Google Analytics

If you’re in the digital marketing space, you should be taking advantage of Google Analytics. This tool delivers vast amounts of insight on your campaign performance and how users engage with your website. It’s extremely beneficial when running A/B tests, keyword performance research and more. One of the best parts is Google Analytics is free to use. They also provide great educational tools to help increase your understanding in Google Analytics Academy. 

HubSpot 

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing and sales software that assists you in attracting, engaging and nurturing your customers at every step of the sales journey. This CRM comes with a wide variety of tools that allow you to: 

  • Host web and landing pages 
  • Create blogs and email sequences
  • Track interactions with leads and customers
  • Analyze campaign success and user behavior

Canva

Canva allows users to create graphic designs and content simply and economically. It’s great because it helps you make professional graphics, even if you have no design experience. With the premium version you get access to over 50,000 templates, stock images, video, backgrounds, clip art and more. It’s the perfect solution for someone who doesn’t have the time to use InDesign or Photoshop, but still get high-quality designs to use for your business. 

Sprout Social

While there are endless social media management tools online that all provide similar features, the best overall is Sprout Social. It’s simple to use but also provides many tools to make publishing content and analyzing data easy. They offer dashboards let allow you to manage your pages all in one place, reports to help you manage your user engagement and ROI and scheduling tools. They currently support all platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Sprout has three different tier levels for their plans, but they’re fairly reasonable. 

Final Thoughts

When there’s so many tools out there, it’s important to know how each will benefit you and drive results. If you’re not using them correctly, or missing a few key ones you’re likely wasting time, effort and energy better put into other aspects of perfecting your marketing. That’s why sometimes, your best tool is a marketing partner. Someone who knows which tools are the best for your business, will help improve your marketing and drive success. 

At Onimod Global, we have endless experience and expertise when it comes to digital marketing tools. Meaning it’s simple for use to identify which are right for you. Got questions about marketing tools or want to learn more about us? Contact us here today. 

Why You Should Invest in Video Ad Marketing

/in /by

Investing in video ads can help drive brand awareness, more engagement, foster a greater audience connection and ultimately boost sales. If you’ve yet to commit to a solid video marketing strategy, here are 3 reasons to consider. 

Better Engagement

Movement and sound are two elements of an ad that easily catch user attention. They also help convey efficient, effective messaging, both which lead to higher engagement. This format is additionally effective in delivering your narrative to the target audience with a tailored message that’s easy to consume. Video ads that capture the interest of users and follow through with a CTA are more likely to succeed with keeping audiences interested. 

Additionally, research has found that the average user remembers 95% of a message when watched, compared to 10% when read. Meaning potential customers are more likely to recollect your brand’s message through video content, rather than a static image or text ad. 

More Shareable

Video content is quick, concise and makes it very easy to tell stories that are easy to consume by users. Video ads offer brands the perfect opportunity to express themselves and tell consumers why they can be trusted and why their products or services are worth purchasing. All of these elements also make videos much more sherable. As seen on Twitter, where 700 videos are shared by users every minute. Posting more shareable content helps increase your brand reach, generate more awareness and put yourself in front of more customer prospects. 

Higher Click-Through Rate

Along with being more engaging, videos also get a much higher-click through rate. According to a Smaato study, the average CTR of video ads via mobile is 7.5 times higher than standard display ads. One particular brand even found that video ads generated 47% higher CTR on Facebook than text ads. 

Final Thoughts

Though video ads can be more time consuming and costly to create, their ability to effectively narrate your story allows you to engage more prospects, gain higher reach and generate more ad clicks. 

At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all things digital marketing, including SEO, SEM, social media, web dev, graphic design, branding and more. If you’re looking to get started on building a video marketing strategy, we can help. Contact us today. 

More from Onimod Global

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

The Top 5 Google Ranking Factors – SEO Guide

/in , , /by

With so many different ranking factors for Google, over 200 in total, it’s important to identify which are the most important that are essential to your success. Overall, there are several ranking factors that do little to nothing in terms of SEO, so we’ve created a definitive list of Google ranking factors that can make or break your search optimization strategy.

Mobile Optimization

Google announced that starting from September 2020 all websites without exception will be judged on their mobile version, not the desktop version. So essentially if you want your website to have any chance of ranking, it definitely needs to be optimized for mobile landing pages. It also provides your customer with a better user experience, so it’s a win win for everyone involved.

Structured Data

This is where you implement tags that are crucial to Google understanding everything about the content you are posting. Structured data can be used to tag authors, ratings, product features, locations, and so much more. This is a not-so well known SEO tool that can do wonders for you in terms of ranking — creating links between entities, pin your location, and enhance your search snippets with rich elements.

Google My Business Listing

Creating the listing, optimizing, and then maintaining your Google My Business listing is hands down the most important thing you can do for your local SEO. It helps establish your company as an entity, which in itself is a great asset to your SEO. Even more, it will skyrocket your local search performance. Once you create a listing, it becomes eligible for the local business panel as well as Google maps, opening your business to nearby searchers. For example, if someone is shopping and stopping for a coffee, your Google My Business listing will help show you in the search results of a nearby option.

Backlinks

Google has said that they are planning to move away from backlinks in the future, but for now they still remain the most important ranking factor for your pages. Except now you have to be very straightforward with your SEO strategies — your links have to come from a variety of high authority websites that are similar to yours. Furthermore, there are Google sources who say that freshness and traffic may also be important backlink metrics.

Avoid Content Saturation

In the past, you could overload your content with keyword rich information. Now things have changed, and for the better including everyone involved. Your SEO content has to contain an appropriate amount of relevant keywords, entities, and images for the length of the copy. The content should not be completely filled, like in the beginning days of SEO, it should rather be a natural-sounding copy written in an informative style.

More from Onimod Global

Looking for an agency to help your small business with your search engine optimization? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

Native Ads: Are They Worth The Hype?

/in /by

Advertising in general has become so second nature to anyone browsing the web that they almost block out anything that could be considered an ad. This means that your ad either needs to stand out enough to somehow be memorable or annoyingly shoved in a potential customer’s face. Both options are not ideal, and may potentially irritate your audience more than intrigue them.

Enter Native ads: a fairly simple yet powerful tool, and a true master in the art of camouflage. The whole purpose of native advertising is to blend in with other website content so your audience doesn’t necessarily recognize it as an advertisement.

But of course the main question is: do they work?

Answer: Yes, but it really depends on your goals and your industry.

What does a native ad look like?

Here is an example from Yahoo News of an advertisement for a SmartWatch disguised to blend in as a news article.

native ad example

Native ads can show up in several different places, and can be optimized for desktop or mobile. News sites are the most common as it’s common to blend in with other news articles.

Why are they growing in popularity every year?

Outbrain, one of the most popular native advertisement platforms, has several reasons listed.

Reason #1 is fairly straightforward, the data.

Native advertising works. Consumers look at native ads 53% more than display ads. Native ads create an 18% increase in purchase intent, and the visual engagement with native ads is the same, and even slightly higher, than the original editorial content.

Another reason for booming success is native ads combat ad fatigue. Is the frequency on your ads through the roof and your clickthrough rate shrinking by the minute? Native ads are brand exposure nestled in with editorial content, so they don’t exhaust your audience. As long as the content you provide is relevant and engaging, you will see native advertising engages the audience.

Why should you use them?

If your ads are constantly being blocked by ad blockers, native advertising will be a great place to start. A lot of advertisers are also seeing an increase in brand awareness and engagement as a result of using native ads compared to banner ads.

 

Why shouldn’t you use them?

It depends on the product, service, and industry on occasion, and it may also be the case that you shouldn’t go for native ads. It may be the case that targeting options from native ad platforms are too broad for your industry. It could also be your target audience may engage more with an advertisement truly presented as an ad and not intentionally camouflaged into a news page.

At the end of the day a native ad is a native ad. We sometimes click them if the ad creative and headline is promising enough. But at the end of the day, it’s no secret. We all know it’s an ad and we’re okay with it. We highly recommend running a pilot with a native advertising platform and testing your performance. After all, the data will drive your strategy decisions in the long run!

More from Onimod Global

Looking for an agency to help you with a holistic digital marketing strategy and optimize your native ad performance? Reach out to us here!

Onimod Global releases the latest digital marketing news and essential marketing tips every Tuesday and Thursday! To catch up on the top digital marketing news and trends, click here. To find out more about who we are and what we do, click here.

7 Social Media Graphic Design Tips

/in , /by

No matter what you’re sharing on social media, it always performs best when paired with striking visuals. So here are some social media design tip best practices to help your content stand out amongst the crowd. 

1. Determine Your Goal 

Usually, the main goal when using social media is to grab user’s attention and get them to engage in some way. No piece of content will ever cater to all social media users, so the most important factor is figuring out what works for your audience. Here are some questions to get you started when determining the goal of your social media graphic: 

  • Who is my target audience? 
  • Which platforms are they using the most?
  • Which devices are they on most frequently? 
  • What is the message I want to spread?
  • What emotion am I trying to invoke? 
  • What action do I want my audience to take after seeing this graphic? 

2. Be Consistent 

You want to maintain consistency across all design elements and branded materials so that your target audience can clearly recognize who it’s coming from. Whatever graphics you create and share should essentially be an extension of the same brand they see on your website. Be sure to incorporate your brand’s colors and fonts into your designs and avoid anything content that doesn’t accurately reflect your brand. 

3. Tell Your Message Visually 

Majority of people scroll through social media slightly distracted and only for a few minutes at a time. Try to use visuals with minimal text to capture attention and get your message across as quickly as possible. Statistics have shown that people can recall information about 55% more efficiently when it’s paired with a relevant graphic. That’s why you want to choose visuals that evoke a specific emotion you want your audience to feel. Possibly a visual representation of a pain point you know your target audience is experiencing, or that pain point being solved or relieved. 

4. Avoid Color Discord 

Make sure you’re choosing colors that complement each other, avoiding color discord. Combine contrasting colors to make your graphic a scroll-stopper. The most eye-catching color combinations are those that oppose each other on the color wheel. You also want to avoid using colors that might clash with your own branding, as well as the branding of the social platform you’re using. For example, Facebook’s signature blue. When you’re already competing for attention with the color schemes of other ads, you don’t want to compete with the colors of the site itself. 

5. Establish a Visual Hierarchy 

It’s important to establish some sort of visual hierarchy throughout your design. A visual hierarchy is the use of size and color to emphasize one item over another to draw the viewer’s eye to a certain item above others. Basically, you want to give visual clues to what’s most important in the graphic. Emphasize your message by focusing on the most significant phrases. The title text should have the largest font size, then subtitles, body copy and so on. You should also highlight any sort of CTA that might be included as well. 

6. Be Sure to Use Correct Sizing 

Every social platform requires images with different sizes, specifications and image types. When creating your design you need to identify which platform(s) you’ll be sharing it on. You will most likely have to resize the graphic to fit the specific dimensions of every platform you’re planning on sharing it. This can seem like a tedious task, but this is important for optimization and to ensure important elements of your graphic aren’t cropped or distorted. 

7. Keep it Simple 

Because social gives designers a much smaller canvas to work with, overcrowding can happen fast. You want to avoid overcrowding because it hinders user experience and can make it difficult to get your message across. You can avoid this by: 

  • Using large illustrations 
  • Limiting typeface to 2 fonts 
  • Sticking with 2-3 colors 
  • Utilizing white space to contrast the main bold, colorful element 

More from Onimod Global 

Needing assistance with graphic design, branding or social media? We offer high-end design and branding for your business.

Visual identity and marketing materials are our specialty. Bring an in-house graphic design team to your business with Onimod Global. Learn more about who we are or contact us to bring your digital marketing strategy to the next level today. 

How to Develop a Social Media Content Calendar

/in , , /by

Many marketers swear by the use of monthly content calendars. While there are real benefits of using content calendars, they still have their pitfalls. They require a lot of time and effort, and sometimes those things can’t easily be spared. Not only that, but working strictly off a set calendar isn’t always the solution for everyone. 

Whether or not you need a content calendar depends on a variety of factors, but if you discover a way to develop one that allows for flexibility and creativity, the benefits can be endless. 

The Pros of Using Content Calendars

Consisting Posting 

Planning your posts ahead of time ensures new content gets pushed out regularly. Having your topics picked out ahead of time saves time and allows for more than one person to manage social platforms. Regular content dispersion is important because it means you avoid the typical ups and downs in traffic and audience that come from inconsistent posting. Through a content schedule, you spread out your content throughout the month, setting yourself up as a resource to be trusted.

Diverse Content 

When you come up with content topics everyday, it’s only a matter of time before they get repetitive. You’ll most likely revert to the same topics and posting style when you’re struggling to come up with something. When you lay all content out for a month, you’ll be able to better spread out certain topics, preventing you from becoming predictable and boring. 

Better Teamwork 

If more than one person works on a blog or controls a social media account, having a content schedule is key. Assigning topics will become much easier, and you’ll be able to do it much further in advance. It will also prevent any overlap in content and make sure everyone’s on the same page. 

The Cons of Using Content Calendars

Can Restrict Creativity and Flexibility

While careful planning and deadlines are what makes content calendars work, too many restrictions can stifle creativity and eliminate flexibility. Sometimes planning your blog content ahead of time can turn out to be counterproductive when your company’s goals change, roles shift, or strategies get re-imagined. It can discourage your team to think outside of the box. It may also prevent from responding to timely or relevant topics, which can make your brand seem out-of-the-loop. 

Can Seem Disingenuous 

Along with the inability to respond to relevant topics, scheduled content may also come across as disingenuous. For example, you might have scheduled a tweet about nice weather, just as a natural disaster hits your community. So while automated posts save time, they can come across as stale because they’re written days or weeks before it’s actually published. 

More Demanding 

Content calendars are only successful if the whole marketing team is on board and uses it. All the time you spend carefully planning out when, where and what to post ends up being a waste of time, if no one is actually sticking to the schedule. A way to combat this is by making sure that the calendar is easily accessible to all team members and easy to use. Also make adhering to the calendar a priority for your marketing team and hold people accountable for the content they are responsible for.

As we said before, content calendars are not for everyone. If you have a small team or don’t publish content that often, they may be more work than they’re worth. However, they can be very beneficial to many marketing teams. 

Creating content calendars can seem daunting, but they don’t have to be. If you’ve established that this is something that would be helpful for your business, here is a process that allows you to quickly and effectively produce weekly content, that allows for flexibility and creativity. 

How to Develop a Content Calendar that Allows for Creativity

(via Marketing Land)

Identify Key Audiences 

Think of four different customers that serve as examples of types of customers that serve as examples of the types of customers you’d like to land for your company moving forward. Pinpoint each customer’s unique challenges, emotions and values, as you’ll want the content to speak to those needs.

Identify Solutions

After identifying four key audiences, think of three solutions your business can offer to these four audiences. This could include different services, products, or value propositions. Then match up each of your three solutions with each of your four audiences. 

  • Solution A for Audience 1
  • Solution B for Audience 1
  • Solution C for Audience 1
  • Solution A for Audience 2
  • And so on until you have twelve broad topics to explore

Identify Categories 

The final step is to come up with a list of four content strategies that will allow you to approach each solution/customer pairing from a variety of perspectives. Some examples include:

  • Expert Q&As
  • Step-by-step Guides
  • Industry News
  • Listicles
  • Case Studies

Combine this list of categories with your 12 solutions pairings to generate 48 unique topics for a full year of content. The first example could be: Expert Q&A that addresses Audience 1’s challenges from the perspective of what Solution A offers. Try to address each audience in one post per month. That way, each month, you will address and provide content for all four audiences. 

Marketing Land advises to keep in mind that content isn’t just supposed to be brand promotions. Your content is supposed to provide value to readers. 

Final Thoughts 

Today, almost all businesses release some form of digital content. While calendars may not be worth it for everyone, they can be very beneficial for those that need them. If you think your company could benefit from a content calendar, but don’t know where to start, consider outsourcing a digital marketing company.

At Onimod Global we create monthly content calendars for our clients. As experts in social media marketing we know how to create visibility for companies in places their customers are searching, interacting, and engaging. . Take a look at how we’ve helped others, and learn more about what we can do for you.

Leveraging the Holidays to Market Your Brand

/in /by

Whether liked or not, the entire holiday season remains the most important time of the year for both brands and consumers. Even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the two largest shopping days of the year, the opportunity to generate monumental profits exists long after. During this time many consumers are open and willing to try new brands. Companies with strong brand equity have greater ability to capitalize on this opportunity. Leveraging the holidays to market your brand can set you ahead of the competition now and even after the season is over. 

Optimize Your Site 

Site optimization for the holidays can be done in many ways. The first is by adding holiday-themed graphics to your site. Consider things such as:

  • Updating your logo with festive detail 
  • Use “holiday” or “winter” colors across your site 
  • Creating a banner 
  • Shape special offers as gift boxes

Here are some examples: 

Source: Little Guy Logos 

Next, make sure your payment process is smooth and streamlined. Make your payment process as simple as possible. Consumers don’t appreciate when it’s difficult to add something to their cart or a lengthy checkout process. Make sure your payment system is as polished as possible before it’s too late. There should also be diversity in your payment options. If you already offer a variety of credit card and PayPal payments, consider adding Apple Pay if you haven’t already. Accepting all forms of payment may put you a leg up from your competition. 

Lastly, make sure you’re paying attention to site speed and mobile-friendliness. Page load time is always important, but especially this time of year. Consumers have even less time and patience than usual. They’re not going to stick around for a slow site when they can probably find the same thing elsewhere. This is especially important if you do decide to add holiday decorations and graphics to your site. Make sure you A/B test everything to ensure it’s not slowing your site. Delivering mobile-friendliness is also crucial this time of year. If you haven’t already shifted your focus to responsive design, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pull that off before the end of the holidays. But better late than never, and it’s something to keep in mind for next year. 

Utilize Social Media 

Engagement on social media is at its peak during the holidays. Brands should use that to their advantage by creating shareable content and interacting with other users as much as possible. Here are some ways you can increase engagement during the holidays: 

  • Contests: Create a holiday contest where users provide and share their own content with you for a chance to win products or deals. This is beneficial because you can in turn re-share their content on your own page, instead of always having to create your own.
  • Video Content: Videos have the highest engagement rate out of any type of online content. If you have holiday commercials, that should definitely be shared on all social platforms. Consider creating different promotional videos for the holiday deals you’re offering as well.
  • Tip Sharing: Content that focuses on pain points and solves customers’ problems has the opportunity to gain a lot of visibility because those are the kinds of things they’re directly searching for. Creating and sharing blog posts on those topics across all platforms brings best results.
  • Interactive Campaigns: If your holiday marketing strategy has a particular theme or center subject, encourage followers to share similar content. For example, if your holiday commercial features a puppy, ask users to share with you pictures or videos of their own pets. This can create a cute thread that will attract the attention of those that may have not been aware of your brand.

 

Stay Cohesive and Maximize Reach 

Your holiday strategy should be included in your off-page efforts as well. The main goal should be to maximize reach to potential customers and inform them about your products, services, promotions, etc. This can be done by offering bloggers or influencers your products for them to review on their platform. Work to get some of your content featured in related guides on other sites. Make some type of event for people in your niche. There are endless ways that this can be accomplished. It just takes some work and creativity. It’s also important to remember that not everyone is going to be onboard with your pitch. Don’t get discouraged if someone turns you down. There are a lot of people online. Just move on and keep pitching! 

Final Thoughts

As the space becomes increasingly competitive, these strategies are most effective when started early. We are getting late into the season now, but this is something to keep in mind for next year. You can start building up your marketing strategies throughout the year to maximize reach and hopefully capture more consumers. 

How Onimod Global Can Help

Even the best e-commerce sites can need help with digital marketing, especially around the busy season. At Onimod Global, we’re experts in all areas including SEM, SEO, social, web dev, automation, and analytics. With our expertise and unique cross-channel digital marketing campaign strategies, we can power entire corporate marketing departments, or provide custom solutions for local businesses. We are your 24/7, in-house marketing partner. 

Learn more about what we do, take a look at some of our work, or start your conversation with us today!