Holiday marketing campaigns tend to have a lot of moving parts. Yours may include social media as well as email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) ads, or SMS marketing. Here, we’ll focus solely on planning for paid and organic social media campaigns.
To track social media campaign elements and plan with your team, choose a tool that makes collaboration easy. For example, you can use Airtable to set up custom databases for your campaigns. Then you can track everything from campaign types and platforms to creative assets and promo links to publication dates and approval status.
#1: Social Media Marketing Campaign Objectives
First, clarify your objectives. For most of your holiday marketing campaigns, sales and conversions may be your ultimate targets. Before you can expect to drive sales and conversions, you may need to achieve objectives like increasing awareness of newly launched products or generating qualified leads.
Once you’ve decided on one or more objectives, set goals for each. Use your team’s key performance indicators (KPIs) for click-throughs, leads, conversions, and/or revenue to set realistic social media campaign goals and measurable outcomes.
#2: Social Media Platforms
Next, consider which social media channels to use for your holiday campaign. It may make sense to leverage all of the social platforms where your brand has a presence or to focus on just one or two. To guide your decision, review your goals for the next social media campaign and your results from past holiday marketing efforts.
It’s also helpful to consider the built-in capabilities of each platform. For example, if a landing page is a key part of your campaign, then Instagram may not be a good fit. Likewise, if product tagging is critical to your campaign, then Twitter may not drive the results you need.
For example, the @papersource Instagram post below uses the platform’s built-in shopping tools to drive sales. Customers can tap to browse and buy the company’s Hanukkah décor and gifts.
#3: Social Media Strategy
Next, think about how to use those social media platforms to achieve your goals. Start by creating an offer for your target audience. Here are a few offer types you might consider:
- Provide a seasonal discount or create a promotional code to drive sales.
- Give away a downloadable or viewable lead magnet to generate leads.
- Use a loss leader that provides something for free to incentivize more purchases.
- Create a tripwire to pique people’s interest and get new customers in the door.
For example, the @reeses Instagram post below highlights the brand’s Thanksgiving-themed Reese’s pie. By promoting a limited-quantity item, the brand was able to leverage FOMO (fear of missing out) to drive sales during the Thanksgiving season.
Then develop a plan for promoting your offer on social media. Here are a few holiday marketing strategies to try:
- Partner with influencers so you can reach new target audiences more effectively.
- Collect and share user-generated content to connect with customers.
- Host a contest or giveaway to boost awareness and promote your brand.
- Run social media ads to amplify reach and revenue beyond organic limits.
#4: Creative Assets
After mapping out a social media strategy, start listing the creative assets you’ll need for your campaign. Here are some ideas to fuel your brainstorming session:
- Product photos and videos to showcase your new product line
- Lifestyle photos and videos to add an authentic touch to your content
- Branded graphics that call out your limited-time sales and discounts
- Full-screen, short-form videos you can post to Stories, Reels, TikTok, or YouTube
The number of assets you need depends on how many social media posts you plan to publish. In most cases, plan to publish at least one holiday asset per social media channel per week for the duration of the campaign. (See below for recommended timelines.) Sometimes you may want to post much more frequently—it’s all about balancing holiday marketing with ongoing initiatives.
With a planning tool like Airtable, you can keep a running list tracking creative ideas and who’s responsible for them. You can also assign production and coordination tasks to make the right person accountable. Once you produce each photo, video, or graphic, you can add it to your campaign database so your team can keep track of holiday marketing assets.
#5: Trackable URLs
Whether you’ve built landing pages specifically for holiday marketing campaigns or you plan to drive traffic to product and service pages, trackable URLs are critical. By adding UTM parametersto landing, product, or service page URLs, you can track campaign results more accurately and attribute conversions and revenue correctly.
You can use the Google Analytics Campaign URL Builder to configure parameters for organic content that drive website traffic. Once you generate campaign URLs, add them to your team’s shared database or paste them directly into your social media posts for use on your social channels.
For paid campaigns, you can typically build URL parameters for each ad. For example, Facebook Ads Manager has a URL parameter tool at the ad level.
#6: Organic Social Media Content
Once you have your offers, campaign URLs, and creative assets in place, start drafting organic holiday marketing content. As you write copy, keep the customer journey in mind.
For example, it’s often helpful to tease your offer to improve awareness at the beginning of your holiday campaign. Then you might alternate sales-focused posts with relevant content that solves customers’ holiday-related concerns.
For example, the @Starbucks tweet below features one of the brand’s holiday-themed beverages. This organic post is designed to drive awareness of limited-time offers during the Christmas season.
#7: Paid Social Media Content
When you create paid content, build a funnel that guides your target audience through the customer journey. Use remarketing audiences strategically to take potential customers from engaged prospects to happy holiday shoppers.
For example, you might start with an awareness-focused ad that introduces your target audience to your products or services and prompts engagement. Then you might run a consideration-focused video ad that targets people who engaged with your previous ad.
To drive conversions or catalog sales, you might run an ad that retargets video viewers. Then you might run another remarketing ad set that targets people who browsed items or added products to their shopping carts, prompting them to take advantage of your offer.
98.5 KTIS strives to point people in the Twin Cities to Jesus on the air, online, and on the street. Through remarkable service projects, 98.5 KTIS listeners are the hands and feet of Jesus to multiply the KTIS impact in our community. The first Friday of each month was 98.5 KTIS Drive-thru Difference Day, as listeners shared God’s love by paying for the order of the person behind them in the drive-thru. Moms overcame health, financial, and family difficulties through 98.5 KTIS’ Heart of a Mom initiative; meeting needs for a kitchen update, fulfilling a missed honeymoon with a cruise to Alaska, securing a reliable vehicle, and more. 98.5 KTIS’ Christmas Blessing resulted in remarkable stories of goodwill in the community, meeting needs by blessing people battling cancer, overcoming miscarriage, and recovering from financial devastation. Collecting thousands of Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes filled with toys for kids around the world, the 98.5 KTIS Shoebox Showdown shared the hope of Jesus from the Twin Cities to children around the world. Listeners continued that generosity by working together to collect over 11,000 pencils for boys and girls in the Dominican Republic. 98.5 KTIS listeners ‘Shared the Warmth’ as a local business paid listener heating bills during the cold winter months, and listeners used those funds to bless their favorite Twin Cities nonprofits. 98.5 KTIS’ Ministry of the Month connected listener passions and talents to local ministries, highlighting the good being done in our community by these organizations on-air and online.
Through intentional, community focused service initiatives, Spirit 92.9 partners with listeners and businesses to help make their community better, together. The station’s first “Community Spirit” project in 2022 focused on showing God’s love to children entering foster care in the area after the ministry learned that there were more children than ever before in the system. During a weeklong collection drive, Spirit 92.9 listeners and business partners generously helped provide a new pair of pajamas and a stuffed animal for over 1,100 kids. Hoping to lead by example through serving, the Spirit 92.9 team helped prepare over 800 free meals for individuals and families in need for Easter, prepared and served a meal at the local homeless shelter, and helped clean up trash at an abandoned property near their studios. Hundreds of women in the community were served and uplifted in January at the station’s first Ladies’ Night Out-an opportunity to worship, laugh, receive support and prayer. In the fall, listeners and business partners joined together to help three local organizations provide free homemade, holiday meals to those in need. This ‘More Than A Meal’ on-air and online fundraiser helped feed over 3,000 in Central Minnesota. At the end of the year, Spirit 92.9’s “Share The Joy” promotion offered listeners the opportunity to nominate someone to receive a financial blessing. Single mothers, elderly homeowners, and the family of a father badly injured and hospitalized out of state were among the 12 people granted a $500-$1000 gift.
From entertaining the airwaves on KFRC-FM in San Francisco, to dancing away the late 90s on WKTU-FM in New York City, to encouraging and uplifting Atlanta on WFSH-The Fish every afternoon, Beth Bacall’s three decades on the air have had a lot to say. In 2003, she embraced CMB and the CCM sphere when she started working at Star 99.1 FM in NY/NJ. Since 2005, she has served on the Momentum Leadership Team while also offering mentorship to CMB’s Women in Radio community. Beth is a champion for others, taking a sincere stance of integrity and leading by example with her on air work, community engagement, and show prep. As a top talent coach, she equips multidisciplinary broadcasters and artists to embrace their authentic self, grow awareness, share stories effectively, and create meaningful Christ-centered content with all audiences. Beth specializes in moments that matter and is a driving force behind The Fish Christmas Wish Program and Fish Acts of Love. Working on all aspects of creating promotional, reward-based content, including research and execution, Beth is a dot connector that the Lord uses to bring joy and experiences into the lives of others. Even after these promotional seasons, she’s always looking for the next opportunity to be a blessing.
For over four decades, Rick Dunham has been at the forefront of marketing and fundraising for Christian nonprofits. In 2002, he founded Dunham+Company, which has become a global leader in providing multi-channel strategies across some of the world’s most influential sectors. Through radio and television, local churches and overseas missions, medical relief and philanthropic initiatives, Dunham+Company is multiplying the reach of the Gospel. The company currently serves nearly 100 clients in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand – whose collective effort is reaching nearly every corner of the globe. Rick is the author of Secure: Discovering True Financial Freedom and If God Will Provide, Why Do We Have to Ask for Money? He serves as a member of the board of The Giving Institute and is a former chair of the Giving USA Foundation, which publishes the most widely respected annual report on giving in the U.S. He has been published and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post and more. From devotionals to blogs, webinars to books, Rick’s personal faith in Jesus and his Biblical training are the driving conviction of his communication.
Over the decades, Jacobs Media has become known for advising broadcasters on strategic planning and digital transformation, championing forward thinking of the in-car audio experience, developing its innovative Techsurveys, and driving research initiatives with some of the most influential companies in media. In partnership with Radio Ink, the Jacobs duo created the DASH Conferences in 2013-15, bringing together leadership from both automotive and radio broadcasting industries. Working with CMB, Jacobs Media launched the first of its annual tech surveys for Christian music radio in 2014. Working in collaboration with the NAB’s Connected Car Committee, they developed the original “Best Practices” report in 2017. Fred Jacobs, a 2018 Radio Hall of Fame inductee, is credited with the creation of the Classic Rock radio format in the mid-80’s. Paul Jacobs specializes in revenue generation for Jacobs Media’s clients including heading up jācapps – the industry’s first, and now largest, mobile application development company with more than 1,300 apps worldwide. In 2022, Fred and Paul were recipients of the National Radio Award, the highest honor from the National Association of Broadcasters. They were the first duo to receive the award as well as the first consultants.
Jim Leightenheimer has passionately pursued the mission of teaching, mentoring, and preparing college students to serve Christ in radio since 1982. A 30-year radio veteran, Jim implemented and developed a student radio station that started as an AM carrier current, transitioned to a low power FM, and is currently streaming as Resound Radio. Under his leadership, student radio has served to jump-start the careers of many current leaders in Christian radio stations and networks across the United States. His students, both past and present, credit Jim for being the catalyst in building their love for radio. Throughout his career, Jim has enlisted graduates and other professionals to serve as mentors to his student radio staff. He has introduced scores of students to CMB by bringing them to Momentum and, more recently, CMB University. Jim currently serves on the board of directors at WCVO (104.9 The River) in Columbus and continues to be a resource not only for his current students, but for those who are living out his legacy in radio.
Joe Paulo has served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Hope Media Group since 2018. With an extensive background in media and leadership, he began at KSBJ (now Hope Media Group) as Vice-President of Operations in 2017 after serving at Educational Media Foundation (K-LOVE/Air1) as the Director of Donor Stewardship and Communications. Prior to that, he led a division of Columbia International University as Director of Broadcasting until 2014, overseeing the growth of successful radio stations in Charlotte, NC and Columbia, SC. Joe has also provided volunteer leadership at the board of directors and advisory levels for other nonprofits such as Youth Commission International, CMB, and Crime Stoppers of Houston. In addition to speaking on leadership, fundraising and media, Joe and Kelly, his wife, have spoken at marriage and parenting events to share their passion for marriage, parenting and adoption.