How to Get a 20x Return on Your Holiday Marketing Spend

Introducing our new series: how brands can get a 20x return on their holiday marketing spend with a chatbot.

There’s no question the holidays are the apex of the entire consumer retail year, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday at their center. In fact, 30–50% of some industries’ entire annual sales cycles occur in the months leading up to and following Black Friday. Consequently, most brands invest heavily in holiday marketing. Google and Amazon alone spent a collective $70 million in advertising from Thanksgiving to the middle of December. And this investment pays off: according to Kissmetrics, ad impressions typically increase 50% during the holiday season, click-through rates rise 100%, and the average order value grows by 30%.

But advertising during the holidays is expensive: ad prices go up and profit margins go down. Furthermore, brands tend to focus too much on holiday sales at the detriment of long-term sales and loyalty. Seasonal traffic is a short-term play. And brands aren’t even getting the most out of that seasonal traffic, because they’re not building or nurturing a dedicated audience long before the holiday season. They’re starting their holiday marketing campaigns too late, not building sufficient brand awareness, and not gaining enough understanding of who their customers are and what they want. Thus, when it comes time for holiday sales, these brands haven’t built the trust or engagement to stand out.

Furthermore, most brands have spent the past few decades investing the majority of their media spend into cookie-based, third-party data, which is unreliable, and which the brand doesn’t own or control. This data is insufficient and ineffective when it comes to providing the hyper-personalization customers have come to expect from brands online.

As a result, companies are missing a crucial opportunity to get a 20x return on their holiday spend. You read that right: brands can increase the return on money they spend on holiday marketing by 20x. And we’re here to help your brand do just that.

In this series, we will explore how companies can increase sales during the holiday season — not only “The Holidays,” but also Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Back to School, Valentine’s Day, and every other major holiday on the calendar. We’ll provide you with the strategy to build an engaged audience long before the holiday season (hint: it’s never too early to start!), and the steps you can take to boost customer sales and retention today. We’ll discuss why brands need to be engaging people in meaningful interactions throughout the year, and why Chat Marketing is the ultimate way to do so. And we’ll provide you with the steps to build and nurture an effective chatbot that will procure and engage your most dedicated audience yet.

We’ll also explore why brands need to be investing in smart data, first-party data that brands collect and own themselves. Smart data is the key to highly personalized shopping experiences, which enable your brand to stand out in a sea of generic holiday promos. We’ll delve into how you can turn holiday shoppers into loyal customers, and how to increase conversions and long-term value around the holidays.

Check out part 2 of the series: Build Your Audience!

Learn more about how Chat Marketing can help your brand at Chatkit.com.