Holiday marketing during coronavirus: Should I increase my spending?

As Lauren Freedman states, “It’s hard to predict which customer will show up this holiday season. For those that are working and whose families are in a strong financial position, perhaps it will be business as usual. At the same time, I see another type of shopper who tapers off her purchasing to reflect the more sober times.”

Whether shopping decreases or increases this year, it is imperative for companies to continue their products and/ or services to be successful during COVID-19 and the post- COVID-19 pandemic. 

The biggest notion all companies need to understand is to figure out what your consumers are currently searching for and what products or services do they need? An agile company is able to swiftly adapt their marketing campaigns and strategies to understand what their audience is searching for. 

While this holiday season is going to be different from others for a number of reasons that are out of anyone’s control, should a company increase their holiday marketing during COVID spend? 

Well, this all depends on a number of factors that should be considered! 

1. Dive into data first 

For any company curious about upping their holiday spending, make sure pandemic or not, that you always dive into previous campaigns and see the best budget that can be set. 

What does the past data tell you? While this year is very different from last year, that doesn’t mean that past data on marketing campaigns can’t shed light on what consumers want versus what a company thinks they want. There is a reason why certain posts and advertisements work better, because it is what the consumer has been searching for! 

Did you spend X amount of money on a campaign in 2017 only to see it fall short? Did you spend less money in 2018, but hone in on strategies, and find your company yielding better results? 

Did you learn from 2017 and implement that in 2018? Did you try new directions of marketing and find yourself yielding those results! 

The best thing to do right now with holiday marketing during COVID is to review all your campaigns from the last seven months. While they are not holiday specific campaigns, they can provide any company with insight into their COVID-19 marketing strategies. Which campaigns did better? Did you stop spending in X area and find yourself falling a bit short in sales and leads? 

Are their campaigns that blew others out of the water? If so, what would be the cause of that? While there isn’t always a 100 percent answer as to why some campaigns outperform others, it can be clear that those promotions and content is what consumers are looking for right now. 

How can you take those and implement them into holiday marketing?

2. Speak with vendors, partners and fulfillment/ warehouse companies

With a coin shortage, Lysol and Clorox wipe shortage, toilet paper just coming out of a shortage and with selection in grocery stores being a bit smaller than normal, it is important to make sure that your vendors, partners and suppliers are all able to get products without any issues. 

With the supply chain and logistics industry at a bit of a rugged spot, understanding where each of your valued partners, vendors and suppliers are at will help you to understand how much more money on marketing you should spend. 

If they cannot handle over X amount of orders every couple of weeks or once a month, do not oversell and promise consumers products that might not get here before the holiday season. 

With this in mind, make sure to run the marketing campaigns as early as possible to avoid any issues with shipping and fulfillment delays that can happen. 

3. Your storefront can still be critical in this process

Don’t close the doors on the storefront this holiday season! 30 percent of consumers are still planning on utilizing a company’s contactless pick-up options which allows for consumers to continue to purchase your products while following state and city guidelines. 

This also helps consumers who are still hesitant for a number of reasons about physically entering storefronts!  

4. Get your website in order 

Even before COVID-19, consumers were using search engines and social media platforms to perform preliminary research on local and national companies who provide the products and services that they needed. 

Is your company’s website showing up in local search and national search results? 

Any company that is selling products this holiday season has to make sure their website is ready for online shoppers! This is because all holiday marketing during COVID marketing campaigns that are running live this holiday season need to link back to the specific products and promotions. 

Without that, it is impossible to track and measure and at the same time can be confusing to consumers. 

This means spending a bit more money on marketing whether it be outsourcing to a digital agency to handle all your graphics and website maintenance or social media or SEO strategy. 

Should you allocate more money this holiday season to your marketing? Only if it is possible with everything going on! Make sure to have all business aspects into place before deciding to spend more money on marketing your products, only to fall short. 

The thing is, if you do plan on doing this, start your campaign like yesterday!