It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Holiday Marketing

94% of American’s say they celebrate and/or participate in Christmas. For those of you who are wondering, that’s just about 298 million people. And we know that you’ve all seen or heard the numbers of each year’s holiday shopping trends on the news, but just in case you were wondering how last year stacked up, here you go:

• The average consumer spent around $830 during the holiday season outside of their normal spending habits on gifts, food and decorations
• That’s about $626.1 billion spent during the entire holiday season

While those numbers seem like a lot, projections for the 2016 holiday season are even bigger:

• 2016 average spend by Christmas shoppers is expected to jump as high as 12%, up to around $1,175 per shopper

As a brand or company with a product that sells during the holiday season, capitalizing on this holiday spending is key. But a small side note, if you’re brand or product just doesn’t fit in with this time of year, that’s okay. There’s no need to try to squeeze a campaign out of a product that you know won’t do well.

So if you’re looking to employ a holiday marketing campaign for the 2016 season, it’s time to get down to brass tacks, or silver tinsel, and start thinking strategically.

But just how do you get started? Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing a series of posts on holiday marketing tips, tricks, ideas and strategies that can help guide your holiday marketing planning.

A Note On Timing First Though:

Since the holiday season seems to go by so quickly each year, you might feel like you need to get your marketing campaign out as early as possible to beat your competitors and to make sure your message isn’t lost among the clutter of other holiday marketing; even if your branding or campaign isn’t entirely ready. And we get it, it’s tempting – beat the rush and score some customers right away, particularly since more and more consumers have started shopping before Thanksgiving, and even as early as September.

But trust us on this, don’t. Instead, spend the time crafting a highly strategic plan with solid messaging and branding that is executed at just the right time where your customers aren’t annoyed at seeing you in stores too early (I’m looking at you Kohl’s….) but yet you catch them at the beginning of the excitement that comes at the beginning of the season. And actually, a large portion (42%) don’t start their shopping to November, and a large majority of men don’t complete their shopping until late December.

Which is where our philosophy of right time, right place, right message comes into play. Part of determining the strategy of your holiday marketing will be to determine when and where your message is deployed, as well as how it is and what it looks like, and what demographics you’re targeting.

If you’re a brand that wants to capture those early, early shoppers in late September and October, that’s fine; there’s actually a handful of companies that this works for – but for a reason. All of the Christmas items that I’ve seen already in stores (more than the sneaky aisle or two in larger retail stores) are mainly limited to holiday décor items, and are not advertised. A good example; Hobby Lobby. I honestly believe they had a dozen aisles of Christmas items already setup in early September, but unless you physically went in to a store, you would not know this. And this works for them because of their demographic. Regular shoppers of Hobby Lobby are females, who also happen to be the demographic that complete their Christmas shopping early and take holiday decorating and crafts more seriously than the average consumer. Their goal is to plan ahead and prepare so Hobby Lobby and their products win with an early strategy. However, marketing Christmas stockings in September might be a little premature at Target.

So our rule of thumb on holiday marketing timing, wait. If you must release your messaging prior to Thanksgiving, keep it within a few weeks or limit the amount of ads. Another tip, try posting sneak peek or small teasers on social media. Every so often a well-timed reminder that there’s only 85 days until Christmas, or that you’re busy behind the scenes getting your product inventory ready for the holidays is fine and he’s your audience engaged and waiting.

And just for fun, here’s some holiday stats we couldn’t help but share!

• 150 million chocolate Santa’s are made each year
• 3 million real trees and 10 million fake trees were purchased in 2014
• UPS shipped about 630 million packages during the holiday season
• The average person will travel about 275 miles for Christmas
• During the holiday season, nearly 28 sets of LEGO’s are sold every second

Does your product have holiday potential? Not sure how holiday marketing can work for you? Email us at [email protected]