Key Insights for Content Marketing for Holiday 2016

Holiday 2015 brought in a 60 percent growth in traffic and conversion rates. The US retail online sales for Holiday Season 2016 are likely to grow by 13.3 percent according to eMarketer. Nearly 50 percent of shoppers have reported Holiday Shopping begins before Thanksgiving and nearly 25 percent start before Halloween.

Optimizing your campaign for audience segments can get your campaigns and content discovered by the target audience . The content Eco-system for your audience segments varies for different demographic. Smartphones are essential in the content path of Holiday Shopper with 76 percent shoppers conducting a local search and visiting a physical location within 24 hours. Equally important is the growth of Buy Online and Pick Up in store with 32 percent using the option in 2015.

Optimize your campaigns for local search intent. 82 percent of the shoppers refer to Smartphones while shopping prior to visiting a store. The Queries with Local Intent increased by 2X during Holiday season 2015.

Define your audience segments and develop a persona for each audience segment. With profiles for each segment you can find out the purchase behavior for each segment, depending on the time they are likely to start shopping and the content that works for each persona. For instance, targeting teens with a personalization content strategy might work better, whereas for targeting seasoned mature shopper, an opt-in email strategy might bring in best deals on a weekly basis.

Your Content Marketing Strategy centered around your audience ensures sustained interest, throughout the holiday season. Co-promote your offers and campaigns with publisher boosts to ensure sustained interest. This will help your brand with Organic search results. Some of the tactics recommended by SEO experts WPROMOTE are to leave your Branded content on the main site navigation for SERP results. The content pieces that are likely to work for your category depend on what is popular with your target audience. For some categories, Gift Guides work better, while for others an image caption contest may generate increased engagement.

According to WPROMOTE’s “100 Days Of Holiday” Whitepaper, the SEO firm recommends updating your website content and Metadata with Holiday related terms as early as October.

Some of the charts from comScore reveal the weekly ramp up of online holiday retail sales making it important for brands to think their Online holiday retail strategy to be ready with Text Ads and Display Ads, as well as Social media strategy to be ready for online searchers and holiday shoppers.

The Traffic for Mobile and Desktops varies for different weeks. Keep in mind the changes in traffic volume and searches on mobile to optimize your bids accordingly.