Direct channels like email, in-app notifications, and SMS messages will undoubtedly be important elements of any holiday marketing strategy this season. But if you’re only using these communication paths to push out one-size-fits-all sales and generic promotions, you’re failing to tap into direct marketing’s true potential.

Because this year, your holiday retail marketing campaigns should also give you the gift of first-party data feedback you can use to make future initiatives even more jolly and engaging. And the industry’s smartest marketers are preparing a variety of low-effort, high-impact tactics and the lessons learned from an unprecedented holiday season last year to make 2021’s results even better.

Another year, another unprecedented holiday marketing season

Much like last year, there’s no magical 2021 playbook that leads to surefire success.

Between Apple iOS 15 privacy updates, ongoing pandemic safety precautions, and retail’s mass migration to ecommerce and online shopping, you’ll need to be as agile as ever when it comes to planning, implementing, and executing your holiday marketing strategies if you hope to deliver on this year’s customer-centric growth drivers:

  • Speed of the customer – Retail’s most successful brands are moving away from predefined customer journeys to meet shoppers where they are, gain a greater understanding of new behaviors, and identify what individual buyers need at any given moment.
  • X-commerce – The world is becoming increasingly mobile — which is why retail leaders everywhere are putting ‘commerce anywhere’ strategies into play this holiday season. Right message, right channel, and right time every time.
  • Personalization beyond recommendations – Sophisticated holiday retail engagements create satisfied customers for the rest of the year. Today, the industry’s savviest marketers are thinking way outside the box to back every tailor interaction with business intelligence.

If you’re stuck out in the cold trying to plan your next holiday marketing campaign, our brand-new 2021 holiday marketing success guide is designed to help you evolve your tactics, elevate your customer experience, and crush 2020’s results with as little extra work as possible.

holiday marketing

Consider this playbook — and all of the ways to take advantage of Apple’s data privacy changes, five 2021 holiday focus areas, and five digital marketing must-haves included within — our special gift to you. Now, get out there and start spreading the holiday cheer like never before!