The most wonderful time of the year for digital marketing Greenville NC is upon us…

Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, and Christmas is just around the corner. Well, aside from the cold, the holiday season comes with an atmosphere of joy and greetings. It's also a time for businesses to amass huge revenue from the local spending spree.

So, in order to get a slice of this revenue, you need to run an effective holiday digital marketing strategy. This means your marketing needs to position your brand in front of online customers looking for products you offer when they're ready to spend.

In this blog post, we'll explore some ideas for your 2020 holiday digital marketing Greenville NC strategy to help increase your conversions and supercharge your ROI. Let's dive right in!

What To Expect With The 2020 Holiday Season

The holidays in 2020 come with dynamic opportunities for business owners as most people will be doing their shopping online. In fact, DaVinci Payments estimates that 71% of US shoppers will do more than half of their holiday shopping online this year. Crazy statistics.

Of course, this offers a slew of opportunities. But it also paves the way for heavy competition as many businesses will be grappling for a piece of the online pie. If you want your brand to stand out from the lot and appeal to maximum shoppers, you need to leverage creativity and adapt to the situation.

We get it- investing in an effective marketing strategy when the world is in a state of uncertainty can seem a stretch too far. However, we can assure you that the results will be worth it! Local businesses that tweaked their marketing strategies to adapt to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic experienced a 70 percent sales increase. Impressive, right?

Like everything else this year, your digital ad strategy for the 2020 holiday season will require you to be more flexible to your clients' needs and adjust accordingly.

7 Best Digital Marketing Greenville NC Strategies For 2020

Strategy 1: Leverage the Power of Google AdWords

This is the best time of the year to dial up on your marketing efforts. With the increasing traffic and purchasing intent, you can't go wrong by increasing your Google Ads PPC marketing campaigns.

You can:

• Add more Ads with holiday themes.
• Add Call Ads to maximize calls to your business.
• Increase your current Ad budget to incorporate more Ads during the holidays.
• Raise the number of bids on your PPC ads, so the Ads are displayed more competitively and in higher ranks.
• Increase the hours when your Ads run.
• Add more keywords to your PPC campaign to improve targeting.
• Increase the geographic locations where your Ads are shown (if you're in Raleigh, consider adding locations such as Greenville, Wilmington, and so on).
• Add Ad campaigns to target more offerings or holiday specials.
• Add new Ad extensions for holiday sales and promotions.

To reach more local customers and maximize leads, consider using the combined search marketing strategy of PPC and local SEO.

Strategy 2: Go Mobile!

5 out of 10 Americans already use a mobile device for shopping. And with more people staying at home due to social distancing rules, this number is expected to increase over the holiday season.

Mobile applications are outpacing even desktop apps. In order to satisfy this tech wave and reach more clients through your digital marketing Greenville NC, you might want to create a holiday marketing strategy that is a step closer to the innovative minds of your target audience.

• Push notifications. This is an excellent mobile-native way to drive an instant purchase. If nothing else, time-push notifications are an excellent way to drive traffic to your app or website!
• Text messages. Use this to send crucial and timely information. The channel will help you stay in good rapport with your customers. You can even sweeten it with a personalized deal or a coupon code.
• Dump the one-size-fits-all approach. Your customers don't use the same approach with desktops to interact with mobile devices. Be sure to tailor your ads and website for a streamlined experience on mobile. Simplify your navigation, incorporate auto-sizing with auto-play, and optimize videos as well as the checkout process.

Strategy 3: Embrace Email Marketing

Holidays are always hectic, and that means your ideal market is always on the move. Whether they're catching up on their holiday shopping or simply running errands, your target audience doesn't have a lot of time to dedicate to video calls, in-person meetups, or physical mail.

You can be sure, though, that your ideal shopper is frequently checking their emails.

Send out emails that highlight your sales, seasonal product offerings, or special holiday offers. Pay close attention to engage your email subscribers. A simple, well-optimized email can make a world of difference by encouraging and informing shoppers, which helps dial up your holiday sales.

59 percent of customers say emails influence their purchase decisions, so this is an area you definitely should capitalize on!

Strategy 4: Level Up Your Website

During COVID 19, eCommerce has become the heart and soul of retail. By the end of June 2020, eCommerce activity had grown by an astonishing 30 percent, and some experts say the pandemic hastened the shift to eCommerce by an incredible 6 years.

You've probably heard this a thousand times, but we'll say it again: your website is the face of your business. It's where your target audience goes to learn more about you, familiarize themselves with your product offering, and to place their orders.

Marketing campaigns on every other digital channel should direct traffic back to your website, particularly if you run an eCommerce site. Some important considerations:

• Make sure your website loads quickly. Most sites lose 53 percent of their traffic because they take forever to load.
• Post valuable and timely blog posts frequently to drive traffic to your website. This also helps with SEO.
• Track your website performance every other week with Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Consider whether your promotions will be front and center, or they will be tucked away in a different page other than the landing page.
• Ensure your site is optimized for search engines, secure, and mobile-friendly.
• If you're a retailer in North Carolina and you have yet to set up an eCommerce site, it's never too late to get started. Do it right away.
• If you already have an eCommerce site, proceed to set up automatic abandoned-cart reminders. The idea here is to streamline the entire shopping experience for your target audience.
• Update your website ahead of the holidays. Remove any distractions, feature only important products, and include some holiday drip.

Strategy 5: Keep Using Facebook!

Imagine every business owner in North Carolina trying to use Facebook Ads to dial-up their holiday sales…because that's what happens, and you know it.

To get ahead of the competition, get your Ads up quickly. Make sure they are approved right away by being compliant with Facebook ad policies. Images used in your cover photos and ads should not include more than 20% text. Besides, ads and images with fewer texts are far more engaging.

Still, on Facebook, schedule page posts ahead of time. Utilize Page Insights to know when your target shoppers are most likely to be online, so you can get specific about the exact times you'd like your ads and posts to be shown. By doing this, you'll be ready to engage with shoppers looking for discounts and gift ideas.

Finally, consider sharing daily posts or special discounts a few days before the festivities. One way to do this is to offer free shipping.

Strategy 6: Use Programmatic Advertising

Among all the digital marketing Greenville NC strategies on this list, programmatic marketing is perhaps the most targeted. It takes the guesswork out of the way, making it perfectly suited for the holiday season.

This campaign leverages user-specific data- searches they've made, pages they've visited, demographic and geographic signals- and then utilizes this data to show users the most relevant ads possible. For instance, if a customer searched for "winter coats on sale Raleigh" within the past hour, a programmatic campaign can display an ad for your Black Friday offer on winter coats.

Here's the key takeaway: Programmatic advertising can be a big win for your brand this holiday season when advertising on multiple fronts.

Strategy 7: Drill Down On Remarketing Ad Campaigns

Did you know that a whopping 96% of online shoppers will leave a website without completing a purchase? In short, it means only 4 out of every 100 customers visiting your site are likely to buy your product or service. With a remarketing (aka retargeting) ad campaign, however, you can change that.

For example, a remarketing campaign in Google Ads allows you to reconnect with audiences who previously interacted with your site. It does this by strategically positioning your business in front of these customers as they browse Google or its partner websites.

Google requires a set number of users before running a remarketing ad. However, if your site receives enough traffic, retargeting is an excellent way to get clients back to complete a pending purchase.

Wrapping Up: Ready to Grow Your ROI This Holiday Season?

The holiday season is the best time of the year to engage with your target audience. The positive feelings of gratitude, giving, and family are already on top of the mind of your local audience, and your digital marketing Greenville NC strategies can easily capitalize on those emotions. Using the tips outlined above as key pointers, you can strategically position your brand for maximum success during the 2020 holiday season.

We know the holidays might be stressing you out already, which is why we invite you to partner with the digital marketing Greenville NC pros at Red Shark Digital. Our experts are always ready and willing to help you double down on proven digital marketing tactics that can grow your ROI.

Time is running out, and the holiday madness will soon reach its peak, so forge ahead of the competition by reaching out to us. Let's chat. Let us help you create a powerful holiday ad strategy today!