The Holiday Season is here and is by far the most crucial time of the year for e-commerce brands. The holiday season is like the Super Bowl for your online store. The biggest challenge that most online shopping brands run into during the holiday season is deciding where to put their marketing budget. Should they be doing SEO? Should they be focusing on high-quality content on social media? Should they be pouring money into paid advertising on social media and Google? These are game-changing decisions that have to be thought through carefully in order to score a touchdown in the holiday season. This is the time of year when top-tier brands separate themselves from the competition if they execute correctly with their marketing efforts.
A Major Factor To Consider
I think we can all agree that the super small, low-budget e-commerce brand that was started by a 16-year-old girl who sells bracelets shouldn’t be worried about doing SEO. Besides the point, props to her! She would probably have the most success focusing on social media and selling to her friends and family in her area. She could take advantage of free marketing channels like TikTok and Reels to get free traffic to her online shop. The point is that the size of your online store and the type of product you sell are big determining factors of what marketing efforts you should focus on.
Disclaimer: if you have a big enough budget, trying most or all marketing channels and seeing which one works best for you is a great strategy. However, there are clearly better options and channels to use most of your budget on rather than on marketing channels that aren’t as effective for the type of product you sell and the competition you have.
The Underrated Tactic for Large Ecom Brands
Every year, SEO falls in the background compared to the flashiness of social media marketing. It is obviously more fun to get your team or marketing staff to collaborate together and use their creative juices to make a fun visual ad for social media that makes the brand look amazing. Furthermore, It is probably safe to say any online shopping brand that does not use social media is more than likely falling below its competition.
However, do not sleep on SEO. Yes, it is not the most fun thing to do marketing-wise for an online shopping brand. You shouldn’t ask yourself what is the most fun thing to do but what is the most effective thing to do marketing-wise for your brand in the 4th quarter especially. For big brands, doing SEO can get you a huge ROI if done correctly.
Imagine having your online store that sells kid’s toys rank #1 on Google during the holiday season. You would get so much organic traffic that you might not even need to invest any more marketing dollars into other channels. It is also wise to focus on SEO because most of your competition is probably pouring advertising dollars into social media marketing. It is best to do SEO year-round if you plan on being in business for many more years. If your website has no organic Google presence, you will have to rely on spending more money in the long run to try to make social media ads work every holiday season. Not to mention, it is not the easiest thing to pull off year after year. Focusing on social media is definitely important, especially in today’s age. But do not forget the power of SEO
The Key To Scaling A Small E-commerce Brand In The Holidays
The biggest opportunity to shine for any small brand is by far during the holiday season. Every year, each small brand is given an opportunity to make their brand explode. Social media should 100% be the focus for smaller ecom brands. If you are on the smaller end and sell a product that is popular that lots of other brands also sell, being able to rank higher doing SEO is a tough task that would be very expensive and probably take years with a low budget.
Having a dialed-in advertising campaign on social media for your product during the holiday season gives you the best shot at launching your brand to another level. You will be competing with other large brands during this time. However, as a small brand that has lots of competition, you are more than likely to get a better ROI on social media marketing than SEO. Utilizing influencer marketing or UGC content on channels like TikTok and Reels can also be a great way to grow the awareness of your brand. If you pull off a great advertising campaign during this time of year, the momentum will start to roll.
The goal would be for you to obtain a good amount of new customers who end up becoming fans of your brand and start recommending your brand to others. View social media as the first level of marketing to master as a small brand until you grow big enough with a bigger budget to where you can compete in the game of SEO with other prominent brands.
When You Should Be Versatile With Your Marketing Budget
If you have a brand that is kind of between being small and large, it can be tough to know what to do with your marketing budget. In this case, you have to be a little more strategic with your marketing budget rather than just clearly focusing on one channel. The simple answer is that you would want to try all marketing channels and see what works best for you. You can also identify that the type of product you sell is also a major factor.
If you sell a product that does not get searched that much on Google, then it is probably best to focus on social media. If you see that your competition doesn’t do much SEO, and your product gets a decent amount of monthly searches on Google and it is a commonly bought item during the holiday season, then focusing on SEO could be a game changer. Utilizing tools like Google keyword planner in a Google ads account is a great way to do market research.
An SEO hack you could utilize is doing SEO to rank for longer tail keywords rather than the smaller popular keywords that people search for. In fact, some big brands that do a ton of SEO sometimes tend to overlook the opportunity to rank for the longer tail keywords. For example, instead of competing with the big brands on the keyword phrase: “gym shorts,” you could try to rank for the keyword phrase “powerlifting blue gym shorts.” That is just an example, you would obviously need to do the research to see what brands are ranking for those keywords and also if those keywords are getting enough search volume.
Utilize Your Skills And Resources
Recognizing your skills and weaknesses in marketing is important for your brand. If you are an absolutely amazing storyteller and good on camera, you can probably dominate your competition on social media. If you are the opposite and have a good budget and are a long-term thinker, SEO can work magic for you. The size of your brand, along with the type of product you sell, are very important factors when determining your marketing game plan.
Utilizing marketing agencies or experts can also be a game-changer, especially during the holiday season. Your competition also circles this time of year as the time to scale. So, it is important to stay ahead of your competition with dialed-in marketing strategies. If you plan on growing your brand and being in business for several years, investing in SEO early can benefit you down the line and decrease the pressure on you to rely on social media ads to work every holiday season against steep competition. If you are still unsure of what marketing strategy to have for your brand during the holiday season, contact a reliable marketing agency like Zellus Marketing to get your brand on track to success.
