Hacking the Holidays: Your Ultimate Guide To Last-Minute Holiday Promotions

The music is playing, the lights are twinkling, and the trees are decorated. That’s right — it’s the most wonderful time of the year! But after another hectic year, this holiday season may have caught many marketers by surprise, leaving them scrambling to make the most of their end-of-year marketing campaigns.
Even with a short timeline, you can create meaningful connections with your audience to increase engagement and drive sales for your business. Here, we’ll review the importance of holiday-specific messaging and some best practices for last-minute campaigns.
The Importance of Holiday-Specific Video Marketing
While it might seem obvious, holiday-specific messaging is critical for your holiday marketing strategy. There’s no formula for creating the perfect holiday message, which means your brand can experiment. Some brands, for example, use a direct approach with several holiday-inspired elements in their video content, on-screen text, and in their voiceovers.
Others take a more subtle approach and only mention the holidays in a voiceover that plays over evergreen video content. No matter which strategy you choose, a holiday-specific message can help you increase conversions and revenue this winter.
Read on: Using Data-Driven Insights To Create Effective Holiday Advertisements
Best Practices for Last-Minute Holiday Video Campaigns
Utilize User-Generated Content
YouTube, TikTok, and other social media video platforms have made UGC (or content that feels like UGC) a powerful tool for businesses in every industry. These user-generated testimonials create instant credibility and trust in your brand by instigating social proof, which occurs when consumers see or hear about someone enjoying a product. This personal endorsement encourages them to want it for themselves.
Many brands are now leading the production of UGC to maintain control of the content while still having the opportunity to connect with customers. So whether you use textbook UGC or produce UGC-like content, you can still convey authority to increase feelings of trust — all while making your videos more affordable than other concepts.
In addition to being budget-conscious, UGC is an effective way to create timely videos. For example, this Native ad uses UGC to showcase the products with a humorous holiday message. By showcasing a real person enjoying the product, potential customers are more inclined to try it. And while it might not be a conventional holiday ad, we won’t forget about the deodorant-decorated tree any time soon!
Make the Most of the Post-Production Process
With so many different platforms to post on, the post-production process is more important than ever. This process can allow you to repurpose content to work in several ways across different platforms, effectively squeezing an entire campaign out of just one or two days of production. With this approach, you can use post-production to get more out of your existing content.
Post-production can involve several components, including:
- Editing
- Audio effects
- Visual effects
- Subtitles
- Color correction
For example, in this Sky Zone video, the video content itself is evergreen, but the voiceover contains a holiday-specific message encouraging people to get a jump on their holiday shopping! By adding a timely voiceover in the post production process, Sky Zone can use this video content for several different initiatives.
Focus on Your Goals
Instead of worrying about the specific video types you want to create, focus on the outcomes you want from them. By starting with a broader concept, you can have more creative freedom when making your video content. This allows you to focus more on meeting your goals rather than trying to create a specific kind of video production.
In this Stance video, the brand focused on the goal of showcasing their holiday products. While this goal could have been achieved in several different ways, this creative idea does it without overly complicating the creation process. Plus, they added additional holiday elements, including stockings and gifts in the background, to solidify the timely element.
Use Video Marketing To Reach Your Audience This Holiday Season
The video creative stakes are higher than ever before — and this pressure only becomes stronger around the holidays. But you don’t have to deal with video marketing challenges alone!
At QuickFrame, we work with your team and connect you with talented video makers and production teams who are ready to deliver quality content. QuickFrame’s end-to-end agile video creation platform helps you generate fast, affordable, and compelling content by optimizing every aspect of video production and creativity. Ready to get started? Contact us today!
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