Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year.  Were you promoting your sales and products to your customers?  If you missed Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday, don’t fret. There’s still a month left before Christmas and a lot of last minute shoppers out there.

Using online marketing can make the difference if having a successful holiday season.  Here are a few tips on how to market online during the holidays:

Create a content calendar with key dates. Increase sales by knowing important shopping holidays, plan out your sale dates, and let your audience know the deadlines to order by to guarantee delivery by Christmas.  Use a Word document or Excel spreadsheet to plan out each month.  With a posting calendar made in advance, you can be the first in your industry to start posting about these important dates.

Update your website.  Your website doesn’t need to be updated as often as your social media, but it does need to be current with the seasons.  List your sale dates on the home page and make it easy for people to find your online store.  Most people are on mobile, so make sure your website and even your social media pictures are mobile friendly. US shoppers made $1.2 billion in purchases with their phones and tablets on Friday, the first time in US retail history that mobile revenue exceeded $1 billion in one day, according to data released Saturday by Adobe.

Utilize Email Marketing –  If you aren’t collecting customer’s emails, you need to start now.  Consumers are looking for good deals in their inbox, especially this time of year.  Sign up for a free trial with online marketing software such as Constant Contact or Mail Chimp.  Remember to send emails your customers want to see, such as coupons, events, and industry news. 

Create Engaging Social Media Posts – How do you get more people to see your social media posts? Get your fans to comment, like, and share your posts.  Rule of thumb when creating a post – Ask yourself if it’s entertaining, educational, or inspirational.  Does it meet the needs of your audience and prevent them from scrolling past your post?  Is the content worthy of boosting it?

• Remember to follow your content posting calendar.
• People love free stuff! Use contests, giveaways, and coupons to increase engagement.
• Use great looking pictures or videos to grab and keep your fans’ attention.  Try doing a Facebook Live video by showing off your products or doing a Q & A with your audience.
• Share your brand’s story by sharing an important milestone or showcase one of your employees.  Your fans want to get to know you and social media is the place to get more personable and interact with your audience. 
• Engage your audience by creating highly relatable, emotional, human-interest content that will tug at people’s heartstrings, draw them in, evoke sentiment, or make them laugh. 
• Use Facebook advertising to get in front of your target market.  Facebook now offers many advertising objectives, such as targeting your website visitors or targeting people within a certain distance of your business. 

Help your fans decide what to buy this year by getting your message in front of them.  Use the holidays as an opportunity to shine a light on your business or nonprofit. This is a time when business owners and nonprofits need to put their best foot forward and use their most effective tactics to reach consumers.  You better believe your competition is, so you better be too.