Seasonal strategy: setting up your social in time for Christmas
This week, Megan Garmers from The Bridal Masterclass discusses three tips for boosting your seasonal social strategy, and how you can best plan and schedule your Christmas content.
There are usually two kinds of people: those who can’t wait to start decorating for Christmas and the winter holidays and those Scrooges who can’t wait for it all to be over.
No matter which way you fall, you would be remiss to ignore the fantastic marketing opportunities around this season. Because the holidays affect everyone, you can easily put a holiday marketing strategy together in these 3 steps:
1. Identify Your Ideal Clients’ Holiday Psychographic and Behavioural Characteristics
2. Plan Your Social Media Strategy for Pre-/Post- Holiday Dates
3. Schedule Your Content, Engagement Times, and Sales Funnels
Identify Your Ideal Clients’ Holiday Psychographic and Behavioural Characteristics
If you haven’t already identified your ideal client(s), stop right now and do this. If you don’t know how to do this, email me and I’ll send you a free workbook to help you.
This is one of the most important aspects of your business. If you are selling to everyone, you are selling to no one. Your ideal client is not “all brides” or “people getting married” – especially in today’s world of social media.
People want to see and engage with content that resonates with them in particular. You will be excluding yourself from some to make sure you get in front of those who will easily purchase from you and want to tell everyone they know about you.
Once you know who your ideal clients are, you need to determine what their lives look like during the holiday season.
What type of person are they: can’t wait for the Christmas season to start or can’t wait for it to be over?
Do they purchase their gifts all through the year or wait until last minute?
Do they like to dress up and go to holiday parties and gatherings or prefer to stay home snuggled under a blanket?
The answers to questions like these will help you determine what to post, what music to put (or not) in your IG Reels/TikTok videos, and what holiday purchases can be made at your shop.
Maybe they already have their gown but need earrings for a holiday party. Perhaps they need a special occasion dress for a black tie event. Maybe a friend is getting married and they want to get a gift card for them.
Whatever is going on in their lives right now is what you want to feature on your social media. You want to help them know you get them, what they are going through and are willing and able to reduce or eliminate the holiday pain points in their lives.
Plan Your Social Media Strategy for Pre-/Post-Holiday Dates
Now that you have the “what” planned, you need to plan the “when” for your social media.
Take a calendar and mark out the holidays and the dates that go around them. Think about Black Friday (and how it is starting now), Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and lots more.
Now think about how what you want to say and sell fits into the “when” dates you have marked off. Think about what you can have for a post, story, IG Reel/TikTok, or IG Live.
Also don’t forget to plan out how you are communicating your message and content. Are you educating, entertaining, engaging/inspiring, or a combination of these?
Plan this all out through January 1st.
And then if you are ready, think through the rest of 2022 and plan that out as well. This is how you would plan out your content strategies throughout the year, not just Christmas, so you can have consistent messaging and prepare your ideal clients for purchases well in advance.
Schedule Your Content, Engagement Times, and Sales Funnels
After planning your strategy, schedule and think about how these posts will fit into your sales funnels is your “how” to get this all done. Think about what CTAs (calls to action) you want at the end of each post and how that fits (or doesn’t) into the next post or the post prior.
This can either be done with calendar reminders or through a scheduling app. If you are not sure about the different options for scheduling apps, check out my article in the latest issue of Bridal Buyer magazine about the different options and why it can be helpful for you.
Next, think about your engagement times. Everyone is busy, especially now after reopening and weddings are in full swing, so no one has the time to spare going down the rabbit hole of social media.
If you don’t already have someone designated as your social media person, it might be time to think about doing this. It would allow for likes, replies, comments and DMs to be answered in a timely and thoughtful manner instead of forgotten in a sea of notifications.
Regardless, schedule times you will be on social media and what you are going to do on there. Think of which accounts you want to check (because they might not show on your feed) for the industry, your ideal clients, and your geographic location. This allows for the algorithm to reward your time on the app and so will put your content in front of more people.
It also allows for you to get a good sense of what the feeling is in the world of social media. It is a way of reading the virtual room so you don’t post insensitive or tone deaf posts.
A holiday social media strategy may be the last thing on your mind now but before we get too deep into the season, challenge yourself to create your social media posts intentionally as an integral part of your business. Doing so can yield a much bigger end of the year sales total and that could put any Scrooge into the Christmas spirit.
Not sure how to get started?
Feel free to email me for a free ideal client workbook and a 15-minute consult to help you get started on the right path: hello@thebridalmasterclass.com.
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