5 Ways Brands Can Build Brand Awareness Over the Holidays

The holiday season has finally arrived. Although it may seem early, it’s critical for brands to properly prepare their strategies to build brand awareness over the holidays effectively. Consumers have begun their due diligence to find the perfect gifts, experiences, and ways to connect with their loved ones. The National Retail Federation conducted a study and found that 59% of consumers started their holiday shopping before November, a 10% increase from the last decade. This is the best indication for brands to begin their holiday strategies as early as possible.

Companies have the best opportunity to get ahead of their competitors and increase brand awareness by planning and starting ahead of time. If you are a brand curious about learning why seasonal marketing is essential, read how it can help your business and the best tips on how brands can maximize brand awareness over the holidays. FGPG: Experiential Marketing Agency shares their latest insights on brand engagement and how your brand can command attention to their brands. 

The Importance of Getting Ahead Amid the Holiday Season

Seasonal marketing is a critical time for all brands. In 2021, holiday consumption grew 14.1 percent to a record $886 billion. For modern-day consumers, holiday shopping is a ritualistic environment in modern societies. Therefore, provisioning brands with a valuable opportunity to showcase their creativity to attract attention to their brands. Whether through holiday brand activations, trade shows, popups, or even innovative retail space. Shoppers are more willing to indulge in various marketing efforts that brands incorporate in their strategies as consumers navigate towards finding the perfect gift. 

What in-depth strategies can brands explore to retrieve valuable data for future campaigns? Holiday marketing and brand engagement will also allow businesses to test if their brand can adapt to the competitive market for future growth. In other words, It is a short-term benchmark test to see how flexible your business is and help you adjust and grow.

Why Brands & Marketers Should Begin Brand Awareness Early

Although the holidays present an excellent opportunity for all brands to flourish, it’s vital to note the fierceness of the competition. Working on brand awareness before Black Friday allows brands to collect followers and increase engagement before the competition begins their campaigns. Why is starting early so effective for brands? 

Anticipation is why. Building anticipation is an impactful strategy that brands utilize to impulse their consumers. Consumers become more excited while waiting for a special discount, product, or collection dropping and even sharing exclusive information with others. Generally, brands should build excitement ahead of time and space out their campaigns so their target audience has time to absorb the information. 

5 Ways to Build Brand Awareness Over the Holidays

1. Identify Effective Marketing Channels

Researching your brands, analytics provides vital insights for brands to make effective decisions and track the most effective channels influencing their consumers. There are many channels to choose from when setting up an effective campaign, especially when brands can be creative over the holiday season. We will go over just a handful of the best channels that brands can focus on. 

A very effective channel in your event marketing strategy is to tell people why you’re organizing it. This is your mission statement, vision, and value behind the campaign. Utilizing blog posts to announce this, fuel the rest of your pre-event marketing, and rally people around your idea to convince them of the need for your event, product, or service. Blogs are also less “salesy” than an event landing page, so they are a great way to attract some initial interest early on as the holiday season steadily approaches.

2. Social Media Marketing

Getting on social media early is one of the best event marketing strategies, as it’s key to creating momentum for your event promotion. Social media can help brands to build a community and spread the mission that they’ve shared. 

It’s a good idea to create an event hashtag to help you to engage with your community in the run-up to, during, and after your event. Event branding can also make a memorable impression across social media.

Don’t forget the vast range of social media platforms available to you now. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn will all remain important depending on what kind of event you run but consider Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok, Medium, Reddit, and others. Find out more about how social media can fit into your event promotion timeline.

3. Create A Consistent Brand Story

A disconnected campaign will confuse customers and hurt the performance of the campaign. When creating your campaign for the holiday season, look at your brand’s bigger picture. Identify your brand story and consider how you can express it across all your channels and touchpoints. A single unifying story throughout your campaigns will ensure a consistent brand experience for your target audience.

The biggest brands ensure that their holiday campaigns are always seamlessly consistent between their story, mission, and goals. When these are all aligned, you can expect a story that all your consumers can connect with.

4. Invest In Cause Marketing

Holidays are about connection. Buyers connect with their loved ones and often give back to those in need. Doing the same by adding a good deed element to your marketing is a great way to build a positive connection. It also shares your brand mission with customers, so they feel like they’re a part of something bigger. For example, consider donating 5% of your business sales or profits to a nonprofit or local charity vital to you or your brand. You can also donate items to your local charity.

5. Attract Attention With Captivating Visuals

What are the most effective captivating visuals today? Videos. Videos are one of the most popular forms of content today and are incredibly effective in reaching buyers. It helps brands build awareness and anticipation ahead of the holiday season. Websites that have videos increase conversions by up to 80%. It is especially critical for brand awareness: 94% of marketers in one survey said video helped increase buyer understanding of their product or service. Keep videos short to boost brand awareness and include a call to action. Know who your audience is and target it to meet their needs. Don’t be afraid to showcase your brand’s personality to help build engagement and let new customers get to know you.

Refining your event marketing strategy

If you take the suggestions above as a roadmap to help shape your event marketing strategy, you’ll find yourself in a much stronger position to build momentum. FGPG has experience in curating live, hybrid, and virtual events to help your brand capture the attention your business needs to compete during the holidays. To learn more about us, please visit us here.