Need some quick tips for holiday marketing? These three articles will help you spread some marketing cheer to your customers.

1. Merry Marketing!
Three
Articles to
Inspire
Your
Holiday
Marketing

2. Tis the Season for
Holiday Branding
Bored with the usual
"Seasons Greetings" client
postcard? Use a bit of
holiday spirit to warm up
your social campaigns! Meghan Gargan has made a list of
do's and don'ts for sending social holiday greetings
with panache.
"While you should capture the magic and merriment of this
time of year, brands should also be cautious of not excluding

3. or isolating audiences with ver-the-top holiday themes," she
writes.
Here's a sampling of her holiday advice:
DO refresh your profile imagery on Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and promotional landing pages. You might give
your Facebook photo strip a festive refurbish, or promote a
holly-laced campaign on all platforms.

4. DON'T overdo the red
and green. Use holiday
accents, but also
incorporate other
seasonal colors (like
white, blue, silver, gold).
DO seize the moment to
play with your audience,
using a holiday-themed
game or giveaway that
ties back to your
service. This
lovely Starbucks AR cup app comes to mind. The spirit of

5. giving translates beautifully
into sharing, so make your
work as share-worthy as
possible. If there's a charitable
aspect (such as donations
made easy by mobile phone),
all the better.
DON'T isolate your public by
focusing too much on certain
holidays or
traditions. Highlight general
fun activities like shopping,
eating, family time.

6. DO feel free to theme
your content with
cheerful
celebration. Play off
notions of gift-
giving, partying
and winter activities with
multimedia content, and
customize responses to fans and followers.
DON'T use generic holiday messaging that isn't brand-
relevant. Keep your message consistent with your brand

7. voice for maximum engagement value, and encourage
customers to spread the message in partnership with you.
The Po!nt: Celebrate the joy of it all. The holidays are a
prime opportunity to rally enthusiasm and engage users with
an authentic sense of spirit. Spread cheer in your own unique
way!

8. Make the Most of Holiday Marketing: Five
Things Online Retailers Should Do Now
by Liz Elting
Every year, your
stakes are at their
highest during the
holiday season. This
year, with the US
economy still in
recovery, retailers
got some
encouraging news

9. from Chicago consumer retail research company
ShopperTrak: For the 2012 holiday shopping season, retail
sales are expected to increase 3.3% from last year, and a
good chunk of that increase will come from online retail.
Every retailer wants to maximize the influx of shoppers at
this time of year, and those that sell online have more
opportunities than ever before to convert website visitors
into buyers. Cyber Monday is becoming as much of a
tradition as Black Friday. Holiday deals and discounts, such as
free shipping and special coupons for program members
proved especially attractive to online shoppers last year.

10. But what else can
retailers do to boost
sales online? And
how do retailers
keep these shoppers
coming back when
the holidays are
over?
1. The time to prepare for the holidays is now
Experts agree that if retailers want to be first to capture
shoppers' attention, they need to get ready now. Hanukkah
falls 11 days earlier this year than it did last, so expect an
early start to the season. Also, two extra calendar days fall

11. between Black Friday and Christmas
Eve, so retailers need to prepare
deals and offers accordingly.
Many online retailers have already
put the final touches on their new
website code and are rolling out
holiday-themed landing pages and
deals.
2. Reduce shopper anxiety at every
point in the sales process
Though you may pick and choose

12. products, product families, or services to create the right mix
of offerings for your target market, the one thing you can't
selectively omit is your end-to-end sales cycle support.
According to the National Retail Federation, an estimated
9.9% of all holiday gifts end up being returned or exchanged.
So, shopping cart interfaces, checkout information, terms
and conditions, shipping details, and return policies must
offer online shoppers a seamless experience.
If shoppers have any doubt that they won't get their
purchases in time for holiday gift giving, they're more likely
to move on to the next site.

13. 3. Like Santa, transcend international borders
Some US-based retailers need to be prepared for incoming
site visitors from around the world, especially hotbeds of
growth like Latin America, China, and the Middle East. In
those regions consumer spending is on the rise, and
residents of many countries there both need and expect to
shop in their own languages.
Accommodate global shoppers by translating your website
copy well and providing customer service such as email,
phone support, and chat in various languages.

14. 4. What you don't know can sink you
The holidays have different meanings for consumers from
different cultures and countries. Your website, text, images,
social media presence, mobile sites, apps, and advertising
campaigns should reflect those differences. Know the
markets you are targeting, and understand that a simple
language translation is likely not enough if you don't want to
sound "foreign"—or, worse, negative—to a potential
consumer.
Successful website localization shows that you understand
your consumers' expectations. For example, what may sound
"braggy" to people from one culture can be the perfect pitch
for another.

15. 5. Design all of your
holiday promotions
to be consistent
A holiday retail
website doesn't
operate in a vacuum.
Big-name
department stores
engage consumers
online with the goal
of luring them to brick-and-mortar locations. (That's because
70% of shoppers still favor the security and convenience of
ordering items online and then picking them up in a physical
location.)

16. Emails, mobile apps, online offers, and social media are all
great mechanisms for increasing sales online and in stores.
For such a multipronged strategy to succeed, retailers need
to deliver consistent messages via each method—and to do
so in other languages as well.
***
Retailers depend on the last two months of the year for up
to 40% of their annual sales. It makes sense to prepare your
company's most valuable asset—your online interface—
early. It's also smart to open up your site to as many visitors
worldwide as possible. Planning ahead with successfully
translated and localized site content, from the landing page

17. to the shopping cart, will make this holiday season
considerably more merry and bright.

18. Three Strategies for
Inspired Holiday Email
in Tough Times
by Karen Talavera
It's holiday marketing time.
Yet, in recessionary periods,
what is normally a festive
season is not all sweetness
and light—for consumers or
retailers. Still, that doesn't
mean advertisers can't find

19. ways to add some luster to their email-marketing programs
this season.
Especially during down times, here are three ways to make
your holiday email shine.
1. Put an extra treat in their stockings this year
Most holiday email is focused on e-commerce, but it doesn't
have to be all about simply driving sales. If you're still selling
by way of promotion rather than service, you're missing an
important opportunity to build brand equity and long-term
relationships.

20. In the spirit of the holiday season, focus your email on both
giving and receiving. What immediate non-purchase-related
value can you
offer for free?
How about
some cheer, as
OfficeMax has
done for
several years
running with
its Elf
Yourself program? Or, better yet, feature additional,
seasonally relevant and helpful content such as recipes,

21. shopping tips, or
ideas for a new
holiday tradition. Or
launch a holiday-
themed
sweepstakes or
contest. There's no
time like gift-giving
season to award
those big prizes.
2. Holiday time is story time
The holiday season is the perfect period for a limited-time
email series.

22. Think of a series as a way to tell a story. Just as good fiction
follows an arc, so can your holiday email series. Plus, we love
to hear our favorite holiday stories year after year, so craft
your email program to tell a new one about your company or
products.
Easier to launch than an ongoing continuity program such as
a newsletter, the limited-time series is palatable both to
marketers and to subscribers.
Provided you don't go overboard with frequency, subscribers
love a limited-time email series because it clarifies and
manages their expectations from the start and promises not

23. to go on indefinitely. It's also an extended opportunity to
build a solid foundation with the many new subscribers or
first-time customers you're sure to attract this time of year.
You can go with the tried-and-true holiday season
"countdown" approach, but what about something more
unique? Ask subscribers for feedback and then vary the
content within a series to suit their needs.
Maybe you launch a weekly gift-suggestion campaign that
highlights gift ideas for the people most people are buying
for—parents one week, siblings another, the boss the next.

24. Be sure to set clear expectations about what subscribers will
be getting, when they'll get it, and for how long. And, of
course, give your list members a chance to change their
minds or stop the flow of email mid-stream if that's what
they want.
3. Come Dancer, come Prancer: Expect more online
shoppers and reward channel loyalty
Even during last year's recession, online sales on December
1, 2008 (known as "cyber-Monday"—the Monday after
Thanksgiving), jumped 15% over 2007 levels, to $846 million,
making it the second heaviest online-spending day on
record, according to comScore.

25. More people are shopping online than ever before, and we
can expect the trend to continue this year, for three reasons:
1. It's more cost-effective to comparison-shop on the
Internet than to spend gas money driving from place to
place.
2. Consumers are looking for the very best deals and believe
they are usually found online.
3. Ordering online for delivery saves time and money, and is
less of a hassle than in-store shopping and shipping.
Reward your site visitors and email loyalists with channel-
exclusive offers and inventory they can't get anywhere else.
Use the unlimited real estate of your website to promote

26. "Internet exclusives" that aren't available in-store or via
catalog.
And for the love of e-
commerce, if your company
isn't using abandoned-
shopping-cart-triggered
emails yet, start a program
with a holiday-purchase
discount tied to it.

27. Last but not least, remember that you can issue post-holiday
rewards for holiday-period purchases. Numerous retailers
routinely do so at intervals throughout the year.
That strategy prevents erosion of holiday-sales margins while
igniting post-holiday sales during typically slow periods.
Brookstone did it last year; think also of Gymboree's
Gymbucks program, and PacSun's Repeat Rewards, which
kick in around back-to-school time.
***
Seasons change, but we must remember the basics survive.
Sure, it's email and it's holiday time, but it's still marketing.

28. Be in it for the long haul. Build on the new relationships
you've forged rather than never calling again. January 2 isn't
time to breathe a sigh of relief, cease and desist, and return
to your off-season status quo.
Instead, think about how to ease off from, yet continue,
holiday momentum through gift-card redemption offers,
upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and post-holiday sales.
You'll also want to debrief in January and take a look back at
how your holiday email performed to develop a benchmark
for next year.