After the holidays, trends in consumer spending take a dip. Those who received gift cards have to spend them, and others might need to exchange or return gifts. Yet, many consumers are looking for post-holiday sales. Even though consumption is slower in January, your business can still make money during this slow period by taking advantage of advertising opportunities. Below we cover the key reasons you should advertise post-holiday.
You Can Meet Continued Consumer Demand
Consumer demand still exists during the post-holiday period, but many of your competitors do not use this time to advertise their products or services. This might be a conscious choice because employees and businesses need a break after a busy holiday season.
Still, many companies do not realize the opportunities available for sales and growth after the holidays. This is especially true as long as COVID-19 is around and consumers are shopping more online. While your competition stops focusing on increased sales after the holidays, you reap the benefits of meeting customer demand. If competitors are not promoting the products and services consumers want and need, consumers will make purchases from those businesses that meet demand.
Consumption Is Not Always Truly Lower After the Holidays
There is a common assumption that post-Holiday demand is low. This is certainly true sometimes, but not every year. Depending on the year, the demand after the holidays may be equivalent to demand during previous months of the year. The spike in holiday sales makes it seem as though the post-Holiday period is lackluster.
You must compare post-holiday sales to sales in previous months instead of comparing them to sales during the holiday season. Additionally, overall purchasing trends have changed as a result of the global pandemic. Shoppers are purchasing more things online, and the shopping season lasts much longer than in previous years. As stay-at-home recommendations come and go, so will online shopping activity. Those stuck at home during and after the holidays have more time to spend shopping online. Take the time to compare numbers from previous years and months before you assume consumption is low.
Reduced Pricing for Digital Ads
When you engage in online advertising after the holidays, you benefit from less competition in the marketplace. This results in a lower than normal cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM). Each year, businesses spend plenty of their marketing budgets to advertise during the holiday shopping season. In fact, CPM on social media ads, on average, is typically at least 40 percent higher from the week before Black Friday until the end of the year. Daily, CPC is at least 10 percent more during the holidays. Digital ads in the post-holiday period offer a great value that allows you to get a higher ROI on your ad spend than you might realize.
Maintain Brand Awareness
Companies who advertise heavily during the holidays and then drop off the face of the earth leave the minds and hearts of their customers. Post-holiday advertising allows you to maintain your brand's awareness and remain in the minds of consumers. This phenomenon, referred to as unaided awareness, gives you a competitive advantage that increases sales throughout the year. When consumers make purchasing decisions, they typically choose the companies at the top of their minds.
Consumers only have the capacity to remember a limited number of branding messages and brand names, so staying at the top of their minds requires consistency and repetition. Choosing to forgo advertising after the holidays does not only hinder your marketing efforts, but it can undo the brand awareness that the persistence in your marketing created before and during the holidays.
Opportunity for Experimentation
With continued customer demand and less competition to buy digital ads, post-holiday advertising provides an opportunity for your business to experiment with different forms of integrated marketing. Integrated marketing seeks to create a consistent and seamless message over multiple marketing channels, including digital, print, and radio. After the holidays is a great time to test out new digital ad campaigns and see how they perform alongside radio and other marketing channels. For example, you could try a different social media platform for your ad campaign, experiment with different target markets, change up your messaging, or try different types of ad campaigns.
The post-holiday season is ideal for advertising, mainly because the competition does not realize the opportunities available. When you take advantage of reduced pricing on digital ads, experiment with new ad campaigns, and meet customer demand that your competition is ignoring, you can mitigate or eliminate the often dreaded post-holiday slump in sales.
