Digital Marketing Guide To Easter

Regardless of religious orientation, Easter is one of the most anticipated public holidays on the Australian calendar. Schools and workplaces around the country close their doors for the occasion, giving families a chance to come together, relax and eat a whole lot of chocolate. The time when businesses have a unique opportunity to employ Easter marketing campaigns, connect with potential customers online, capture their imaginations and win them over.

Seasonal holidays are typically a good time for brands to ‘get in the spirit of things’ and engage potential customers. Recent estimates show that social media marketing (34.5 per cent), search engine optimization (24.2 per cent) and email marketing (23.6 per cent) were the three top preferred online marketing strategies among small and medium-sized businesses worldwide for the 2014 fall/winter holiday season. From this finding, we can reasonably conclude that brands are using these three tactics because they deliver the most tangible results during holiday seasons.

Depending on the nature of your brand, you may choose any number of different methods to leverage the surge in online activity that comes along with Easter each year. For now, let’s focus on the above mentioned three Easter promotion ideas to identify reliable ways to generate leads this Easter.

1. Insert Your Brand in the Easter Social Media Conversation

Social media is a great platform for reaching potential customers online during the Easter period. Usual work and study activities grind to a halt so that people can relax and observe the holidays. With the extra time that people have on their hands, we typically see a spike in social media activity over Easter; chocolate rabbit memes and cute bunny videos are perennial favourites.

That said, it’s essential that your brand is active in the social mediasphere and prepared with content, promotions or incentives that have seasonal relevance. Don’t bombard new audiences with obvious advertising. Instead, engage in a subtle, friendly, conversational manner – after all, it is “social” media. Whether you run a branded Easter-themed social media competition or merely develop a content campaign that includes shareable seasonal images and references, the Easter holiday is prime time for engaging new audiences and bringing new faces into your brand’s online community – who knows, with clever content, you could even go viral.

2. Chocolate-coated Easter Search Engine Optimisation

During the Easter period, many families around the country indulge their young ones in Easter egg treasure hunts. But the children aren’t the only ones who do some extra searching over the holidays. Search engines experience a high volume of seasonally specific search queries during this period too.

Optimise the content on your website to ensure that you capture your fair share of the seasonal Internet users who are trolling through search engines trying to find things like Easter getaways, seasonal foods, and relevant religious services. Of course, you should optimise with keywords that are pertinent for your brand, but you can certainly customise your content to incorporate seasonal key words.

3. Email Marketing Strategy for Easter

If you’ve been diligent at collecting customer data in the lead up to Easter, by the time the holiday rolls around, you should have a sizeable community of customers who would love to hear from you with a special Easter wish or promotion. When done well, targeted Easter marketing campaigns through email can be instrumental in turning lukewarm leads into diehard brand fans.

As Easter approaches, develop an email marketing campaign that somehow rewards your community members for being a part of your brand journey. It can simply be a few warm words, or perhaps a special Easter gift (for example, free downloads or discount codes). By connecting with your community during this period, and acknowledging the holiday, you will strengthen ties with your online community.

Naturally, the nature of your business will influence the form and flavour of your Easter marketing campaigns. Does Easter typically add up to more conversions for your brand? Share your preferred Easter marketing tactics in the comments section below.