About our guest: Bryan Caplan is all about helping you build a bigger, better business. A national speaker for Grow with Google and Constant Contact, award-winning CEO of Bryan Caplan Marketing and host of the Bigger Better Biz channel on YouTube, Bryan works with entrepreneurs around the world, teaching and coaching on digital marketing topics to help small businesses grow and succeed.
About the session
This webinar, titled "Six Tips for Winning the Holiday Season," provides key insights on how to prepare for the holiday season to capture customer or donor's attention. The session covers a range of topics, including planning holiday marketing, promoting campaigns, using stats to identify leads, and following up with them.
Key speakers
- Stephanie French, Content Manager for Webinars, Constant Contact
- Brian Kaplan, CEO, Brian Kaplan Marketing
Agenda
The webinar agenda includes:
- Discussing six tips for winning the holiday season
- Introducing the speakers
- Discussing key stats related to holiday shopping
- Discussing the importance of planning for the holiday season
- Discussing the importance of setting goals for marketing
- Discussing the importance of defining the audience
- Discussing the importance of telling and sharing the business story
- Discussing the importance of measuring success and following up with leads
Takeaways
Takeaway: Preparation and strategic planning are key to winning the holiday season through effective marketing.
The holiday season accounts for a large portion of sales or donations for many businesses and organizations, hence the need for adequate preparation to capture customers' or donors' attention. "40 percent of consumers will actually begin their holiday shopping this year before Halloween," said the speaker, highlighting the importance of early planning. The speakers also stressed the importance of knowing the important shopping and giving days, setting SMART goals, defining your audience, telling your story, sharing your story, and measuring success.
Creating a marketing plan that leverages important online marketing channels is crucial. "We're going to be providing you with tips and actionable steps to help you to stand out from the crowd. We're going to help you to come up with a marketing plan that leverages important online marketing channels for your business," said the speaker. This involves utilizing platforms like your website, Google My Business, YouTube, email, and social media to share your story and promote your holiday offers.
The importance of measuring success and doing follow-up work with hot leads was also emphasized. "Measure your success. Figure out where your hot leads are coming from, who are people that are really engaged with your brand, follow up with them," the speaker advised. This involves tracking website traffic, new email signups, social media engagement, conversions from email or website, and website bounce rate.
Takeaway: The power of storytelling in marketing can help businesses stand out and connect with their audience.
The speakers emphasized the power of storytelling in holiday marketing. They suggested that businesses should tell their origin stories, giving potential customers an insight into their journey and the reasons behind their existence. "Get a lay of the land, set SMART goals, define your audience, tell your story, share your story, and measure success," one speaker said.
They also highlighted the importance of using the right imagery to tell these stories. "Think about the tip of the iceberg. You might have a customer... and you know just enough... but this is where you start really digging in. So, for instance, Mary 72 years old... enjoys knitting arts and crafts visiting local museums... loves music and rom-coms. How does that help us?" the speaker explained, giving an example of how understanding your customers can help craft stories that resonate with them.
The speakers suggested businesses use social media, emails, and their websites to share these stories. Using a mix of these platforms helps maximize reach and ensures that the story gets to as many people as possible. "Share your story, put it everywhere. Start long-form with a blog post, cut it up so that you can put it into social media posts, tweets, Facebook posts..."
Takeaway: Understanding your audience and tailoring your messaging to them is vital for effective holiday marketing.
Understanding your audience is key to creating messaging that engages them and encourages them to take action. The speakers stressed the importance of defining your audience and creating a buyer persona, which is essentially a profile of your ideal customer. "Create a buyer persona. If you have an image, you can actually see what are people interested in so you can know what to send out in your emails to get more customers in," one speaker suggested.
They also discussed the importance of using different channels to share your story and connect with your audience. These channels include your website, Google My Business, YouTube, email, and social media. The speakers emphasized that these tools should be used together for maximum success. "It's not just a matter of are you making the phone call, can you send an email, can you connect with them on LinkedIn or social media, can you join a group that they're in so we want to see how we can really develop a rapport multiple tax," one speaker said.
Lastly, the speakers highlighted the need to follow up with your hot leads. They suggested segmenting your list and sending out campaigns to different segments to test what works best. They also recommended offering extra value or incentives to those who are highly engaged with your brand. "Follow up with your hot leads. Can you give them something so that they want to do more business with you or refer more business to you?" one speaker asked.
Insights surfaced
- 40% of consumers start their holiday shopping before Halloween.
- 28% of US and UK consumers plan to do more holiday shopping online this year.
- It's important to set specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-sensitive (SMART) goals for marketing.
- Understanding the buyer persona and telling the business story can help engage the audience and encourage them to take action.
- Using various marketing channels such as website, Google My Business, YouTube, email, and social media can help businesses stand out from the crowd.
- Measuring success and following up with leads is crucial for the effectiveness of the marketing campaign.
Key quotes
- "We know that 40 percent of consumers will actually begin their holiday shopping this year before Halloween."
- "28% of US and UK consumers plan to do more holiday shopping online this year."
- "Understanding who your buyer or your potential client is, is going to help you to better appeal to your audience."
- "We want to make sure that you're measuring metrics, you're making sure that you're looking at your website visitors, your email signups."
- "If you're not measuring, you're not marketing."
- "When you have these goals, you can start to track it and then you can start to see how you're doing and you can make these tweaks along the way that help you to make improvements to all of this."
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