Creating Branded Content, that is most likely to resonate with your audience and increase  site traffic, requires planning the content experience for your target audience. Your holiday season content  seeking to educate, inspire, and convert your audience with a seasonal context, requires a plan. According to Think With Google, shoppers are increasingly searching for products and Gift Guides on YouTube.  Most of the time 70 percent, these videos are watched on mobile.

With the number of options available,  the search volume for products on Mobile with “Best” products has grown by 50 percent. As high as 43 percent shoppers for Consumer Electronics purchase products on Mobile, while looking at the products in-store. Nearly 70 percent of customers want multiple ways to buy products such as Buy Online and Pick Up in store.

Here are Content Marketing examples for targeting the Holiday shopper, that can create  an experience for your brand.

Gifting

Gift Guide and  Gift Cards as seen in Whole Foods example where the landing page for Holidays section, “Holiday Headquarters” features a Holiday Gift Guide “30 Days of Gifts”, Recipes and DIY ideas. The landing page shares select  recipes for entertaining and the site gives details on Holiday Gift Cards, Creating a Content experience that is targeted at engaging shoppers with gift ideas and  recipes for occasions.

 

 

Holiday Gift Guides

Holiday Gift Guides create awareness about brand’s offers while helping audiences discover gifts and products. Brands that want to maximize impact from Content Marketing and create a rewarding Shopper experience can focus on linking product pages with gift guides that are customized for a certain segment. Featuring Gifts that are best suited for a segment can be made available for a price range and occasions. Publish a YouTube gift guide  to engage the mobile shopper.

Walmart’s Holiday Gift guide is promoted on the Gift Registry page with other options that feature Gift cards and Gift baskets. The page design is adaptive allowing shoppers to choose from different price ranges and occasion. The Gift Guides can also be viewed from Tips and Ideas page from the brand’s site. In case you don’t have Gift Registry section feature the Gift guide on your Top selling merchandise page.

 

Targeted Offers

Walmart’s Gift Guide targets Twelve different segments including Preschoolers and DIYers. For ease of navigation, the gift guide can be refined for Price, brands and Store Availability. The products featured with a descriptor gives the unique story about why the product works for the segment. Content Marketing Ideas for different segments could center around the value proposition for each segment with content that they are most likely to engage with.

 

Link Shoppable Product Feed with Gift Guide landing page

Walmart’s  Shoppable product feed linked to Gift Guide also highlights if the product is tagged with another category such as “Only at Walmart”, “Best sellers” or “Rollback” and shows related searches for each category to help shoppers with gift buying ideas.

 

 

Walmart has created Gift Baskets to suit the customer’s choice of products and price range that works for them.

 

Omnichannel

For Omnichannel customers, Walmart has added an easy to use “Free in-store Pick up” with “Pick-it-up Today” that can be used to purchase online and free pick up in stores based on your store locations.

 

Holiday Tips

Offer customers advice to plan the Holiday meals better with baking tips and recipes. This is shared in a user-friendly format where audiences can gather information on the go.

 

Holiday Gift Cards

Get the news about your Gift cards out early, with options to customize offers and Gift cards for ease of use. If you are planning on offers for Gift cards, encourage audiences to sign up for special offers with the flexibility of adding offers to Wishlist.

 

 

Key Takeaways

Focus on the role that your brand plays in your customer’s life in the context of Holiday shopping.  By defining the content value proposition, content marketers can arrive at the value that audiences are seeking from branded content.

Understand how the content that you are publishing, will be discovered by the audience, design the content experience to make  buyer journey stress free.

Publish content on the network of choice that makes the audience  return to your sites to find out more.

Encourage audiences to  sign up for your brand’s offers with a sign-up for offer link on all Gift related Content.

Create a Content Marketing plan for the holiday season to engage audiences with your content.

Amplify your content with Influencer and publisher posts.