The holiday season is a crucial time for keeping website visitors engaged and interested. During this season with an overabundance of distractions in the form of sales messages, Black Fridays, and coupons, bringing a consistent message to your website visitors is vital. A uniform message can and should be communicated to visitors across all marketing channels: web content, direct mail, social media and e-mail campaigns. Even though marketing messages are on the rise during this time, a consistent theme and tone can ensure that your message stands out.
10 Ways to Keep Website Visitors Engaged with Consistent Messaging:
- Especially with a new website build, engage visitors with questions, surveys and contests that support your message and the theme of the website while familiarizing them with the new features.
- Do not change the tone and focus of year-round marketing efforts just because it’s the holidays. It’s important to convey that the holidays are special without bombarding the reader with an over-the-top sales message that might come off as not being genuine.
- Coordinate all inbound marketing efforts for consistency. Ensure that when visitors arrive on the website, they see the same message that was communicated in email, direct mail campaigns and social media efforts.
- Play to the site’s strengths of previous marketing efforts. Use content, list size and inbound links to help unify messaging for a consistent user experience throughout the site and all marketing channels.
- Ask visitors what they are most interested in with on-site and social media polls.
- Share personal insights with visitors and ask for feedback in kind. Nothing is more powerful than an engaged user who shares personal information about your website or brand.
- Keeping with the idea of the holidays, send direct mail pieces with the impression that it is a gift, or at least a value proposition, not just an advertisement or a coupon.
- A picture is worth a thousand words. Include photos and ask visitors to submit photos. Holding a holiday photo contest can keep users engaged well past the holidays, since the photos are usually taken on the actual holiday and submitted afterwards.
- Give incentives to come back after the holidays with coupons and special offers.
- Plan your holiday campaign well in advance and take note of special calendar dates that might affect your business, such as delivery cut-off times, dates when children are out of school, or any other dates that are specifically relevant to your business. This will help capitalize on the short holiday season.
Direct marketing can be a way to stand out during the holiday sales period while still conveying the website’s overall marketing theme. Use direct mail pieces in a clever way to make the target audience feel special and more inclined to engage with the website, social media channels and other visitors, as well. A combination of direct mail and email campaigns has been shown to increase conversions and engagement. Just be certain that the message is consistent and that the landing page on the website also conveys the same content, theme and tone.
We all know the holidays are a magical time, but it’s often challenging for marketers and website designers to effectively communicate the message through all the noise of holiday sales, glitter and glitz while still seeming genuine and true to the year-round theme and tone. Following these marketing tips will lead the way to success through the holidays and beyond.
