The holiday season is here once again! While you’re probably already busy making preparations for all the sweet sales to come, there are a few things we think you should add to your holiday marketing recipe. One particular can’t-miss strategy this season is lead generation.
Successful pre-holiday audience building begins with lead generation efforts so your funnel is full of prospective shoppers by the time the holiday sales go live. If you’re in the retail space, especially, you already know how important this time of year can be to your bottom line. As such, you want to grab their attention now, build brand awareness, and help potential customers discover more about who you are and what you can offer them.
Upping your lead gen efforts this holiday season is the secret ingredient to helping your current and future customers embrace the spirit of the holiday season. To help make this year the sweetest one yet, here’s everything you need to know to boost your lead gen efforts.
Let’s Talk About Lead Gen
A lead is someone who has, in some way, shape, or form, expressed an interest in the products or services your business offers. Through targeted lead generation efforts, you can help these potential customers find their way down the path to making a purchase. How? First, by attracting them with unique and valuable offers that encourage them to take action, and then driving them down the buyer funnel with a top-tier marketing strategy.
As a marketer, you need to focus on top-of-funnel efforts to increase brand awareness and bring new users into your audience pool. Of course, you don’t want to wait until the last minute, as there is quite a bit of holiday promotional planning and strategizing involved if you want to truly reap the fruits of this spending season.
Pre-Holiday Lead Gen Prep
To get potential customers from the top of your funnel to the bottom in time for the big buying season, you might need to up the ante as far as your lead gen efforts go. The following are a few ideas you can use to attract new audience members to your brand:
SMS Marketing
SMS marketing allows you to drive traffic to your business by sending text messages for quick and easy communication. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your existing customers and build loyalty by keeping them in the loop with the latest holiday discounts and deals. You can easily personalize SMS messages so customers feel more connected to your brand.
Text message marketing also encourages existing customers to share their thoughts about your company with their family and friends.
Welcome and Exit Intent Pop-Ups
First-time visitors may not be ready to make a purchase when they discover your brand, but if they see something that makes them hungry for more, they’re likely to provide an email address in exchange for an incentive.
Contests and Giveaways
In the spirit of giving, you can attract new leads by offering up a chance to win a free product. This will not only capture user’s attention but also their information.
Contests and giveaways are great ways to maximize your outreach to new audiences and help steer them in the direction of building your contact database so you can further nurture those relationships as the days and weeks go by.
Product Quizzes
This form of interactive content is a unique and effective way to get your message across while providing a personalized recommendation to the user.
Product quizzes are quick to customize and simple to embed on your site or social media. Plus, they’re fun for your audience to fill out. It’s a win-win! The key is to customize your quizzes with images, videos, and colors that speak to your brand so people remember you.
Gated or Locked Content
The pièce de résistance: gated content. Create a can’t-miss blog, eBook, video, or another content piece that contains valuable information and can only be accessed when users provide their contact information.
When you create your gated content, bear in mind that you’ll need to use innovation and creativity to get your audience over the hump of not wanting to provide their contact information. A boring title and conventional stock photo aren’t going to cut it. You want to compel users to learn more by giving them content that’s brimming with industry insights and actionable information.
As you’re creating your content, keep this user question in mind, “What’s in it for me?” If you can answer this, you’ll capture more leads! The key is to build your customers’ appetites and get them hungry for something they just can’t resist.
No One Does Lead Gen like CakeCommerce
The holiday season is the busiest time of year for eCommerce brands. Let CAKE take a little off your plate! To learn more about how our team can help your brand make the most of the holiday season with sweet gated content and top-tier lead gen efforts, contact us.
