Millennials and Light TV Viewers according to a CPG Study by Nielsen, for Facebook, have shown a greater preference for online shopping and mobile payments.

 

Here are some ways  you can target Smartphone buyers for this holiday season with a Defined Marketing Approach:

Define Your Marketing Approach

If you are targeting audiences with multiple engagement campaigns, you can segment your audiences corresponding to the month that they are most likely to make purchases for the Holiday Season. Map the customer journey for different segments and arrive at an optimal marketing approach for each segment.

A Brand led marketing approach will be focused on positioning your brand and offers in a unique and different way from that of the competition to be able to demonstrate the benefits that the value driven prime-time shopper is seeking, while evoking an emotional response. A Brand led marketing approach often seeks to create a unique bond with the audience either at an emotional level or a rational level. Unlike a linear TV Viewing experience, Mobile consumers often respond with a digital signal, where the action may not necessarily be a purchase decision. Therefore for Brand Marketers following a brand led marketing approach also means engaging mobile audiences across all networks to remain in the mobile holiday season shopper consideration set. To arrive at your Brand’s proposition; it may be important to gain enough competitive intelligence, to see that your campaign is aligned to the mobile audience’s behavior for discovering products.

A Content led marketing approach works on connecting with your audiences to build awareness, Discovery and generate referrals while engaging the consumer to eventually drive sales and revenue.

At the same time a product led marketing approach will focus on creating awareness about products and features and the deals that are available for the products.

To arrive at the right marketing approach and target the smartphone  audience, it is important to look at the consumer behavior for the audience that is already  shopping for your products using  smartphone devices. After you finalize your approach, you can look at ways to target and engage different segments with the right tactics.

You can create campaign goals for each audience segment and campaign elements that you would like to include for each campaign goal.

Determine the Right Tactic To Target Different Segments With Your Approach

Choosing the right tactic to target different segments requires you to understand the smartphone buyer behavior and cross-device customer journey. Are your smartphone shoppers using browsers to buy or are they focused on in-app purchases. Does their customer journey include visiting social media sites, is their any specific way of checking on the products they are planning to purchase. Do they visit brand sites prior to purchase. Develop a 360 view of Smartphone shoppers for each segment and arrive at the best way to target audiences within each segment.

Gift cards and Gift Guides

Gift cards form a large part of Holiday Shoppers budget and can inspire customers to share personalized messages well in time with their friends and family. Gift Guides are a popular way of creating awareness for your products with a catalog approach that may target audiences based on their interests or budget. Creating content that keeps audiences engaged with your offers, and brand can help you engage the seasonal shopper.

Launch an App Campaign for Early Bird shoppers

With an App campaign, you have the flexibility to target them across devices, you can look at an app campaign across networks with Google’s Universal App campaigns that lets you target across Google sites , Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network (GDN).has a holiday season theme, you can choose to announce the offers and availability of your app for your seasonal shoppers, so that they can buy gifts, decorations and make holiday purchases with their preferred way of shopping. You can also go with Mobile App Install Ads and Engagement Ads from Facebook or Twitter Mobile App Promotion.

With an App Campaign targeted at Early Bird Shoppers, you can capture the intent of shopping early in the Holiday Season, so that they are ready to purchase when the deals are available on prime shopping days. You could also look at creating a Content Marketing Campaign for your app that allows users to engage with your brand well ahead of the prime shopping days so that they can test the unique features of your app. The Home Depot App allows you to see the Decorations by placing gift items or decorations within your home, if your app has a similar feature you can engage users to check the suitability of products prior to purchase, and promote the same with a campaign.

 

 

Launch a Search and Social Media Campaign

Most customers get their information and inspiration about offers across channels, and therefore retailers seeking to give offers prior to the prime-shopping days, should look at sequencing the deals and offers to target the different audience segments. Online search was the most important source of Gift Inspiration for Shoppers in 2014.

Some of the best practices shared by Google for optimizing, Mobile Search ads are:

Start with a Headline that engages the audience. You can customize the headline to your marketing Approach. If you are following a brand led approach you can go with a line that engages audience within your campaign context such as “Flowers Forever”. In case you have a Product led approach for a segment, you may choose to go with a line “Save 20 percent on Flowers”. Google recommends making the headline of Search Ads short to get the idea across.

Sitelinks and App Extensions

Google recommends going with sitelink extensions, location extensions and bidding to maximum value to appear above the results and indicate mobile friendly landing pages to engage the mobile audience with the category they are likely to be shopping or searching for. If you are running  social media campaigns, plan your posts and search campaign with Call extensions to get the best results for prime season shopping days.

 

 

 

 

Launch Sign-up Email Campaign For Offers  For Early Bird Shoppers

Segmenting your shoppers by intent for shoppers who have planned their shopping in advance, requires engaging them through the Holiday season with an effective email marketing campaign. Start with a sign-up for offers email and follow it up with Holiday Seasonal emails, and preparing audiences for any new offers and announcements that maybe coming up closer to the prime shopping days.

Include social sharing buttons for mobile coupons that are available for your mobile shoppers. Engage audiences through the season shopping cycle with new enhancements to your products and features. According to Prosper Insights, nearly 40 percent of consumers plan their shopping prior to November, making it imperative for brands to be there with Holiday Season deals.

Introduce your offers with Social Media Posts

Facebook gives incremental reach for your campaign with the mobile segment. Targeting audiences with a Social Media Campaign for Mobile users can increase the chances of your ad being seen prior to the peak shopping season.

Four Seasons has introduced special offers on a select group of properties to engage audiences that are planning their getaway for the holiday season. Introducing offers that are most likely to engage audiences planning their break during peak season can help the brand create awareness and at the same time increase sign-ups from the early bird shoppers. The users who avail the offer can be used to create Lookalike audiences.