Cracking the Code: Mastering Holiday Product Gifting and Content Planning

Timing is Everything

You might think it's too early to start planning for the holidays, but your audience disagrees. Many shoppers begin their holiday preparations well before the season kicks into high gear. The time to plan is now!

Where Are They Looking?

Most shoppers actively search for holiday gifts, often seeking specific products or particular brands and retailers. Increasingly, these searches are happening on social media platforms. 

Younger generations, especially Gen Z and Millennials, are most likely to shop via social media, with platforms like TikTok becoming go-to sources for product and gift ideas. While this trend tapers off for Gen X and Boomers, your social media strategy should cater to younger generations while still accommodating spontaneous shopping from older crowds.

Activating the Entire Funnel for the Holidays

Your sales funnel needs to be in top shape for the holiday season, and incorporating creators and content (both UGC and social content) at every stage is crucial.

Awareness

Your goal here is to boost and maintain awareness of your products while driving brand equity. Social media is perfect for product discovery, with almost the bulk of shoppers favouring it over other awareness-driving platforms during the holidays.

Recommendations:

• Don't rely solely on branded and paid media content. Enhance your reach with creator content.
• Generate bursts of content and seed reviews by activating influencers and everyday shoppers through product sampling or social challenges.
• Ensure you have the right content mix. Video is one of the most effective content formats to capture attention.

Consideration

During the holiday rush, purchasing decisions can be spontaneous, so it's crucial to quickly build buyers’ confidence. Creators play a vital role here, offering built-in audiences and trust. In fact, a lot of Gen Z shoppers seek out creator content on social media during the holidays.

Recommendations:

• Drive consideration through themed content around holiday moments, celebrations, and seasonality. 
• Connect your brand with key consumer needs. Think about all the various meanings of the holidays and deliver content that fits.
• Repurpose visual assets but refine the messaging for specific audiences.

Conversion

The final step is turning interested shoppers into buyers. Two essential elements are social proof and purchase incentives. Deals are particularly attractive, with the majority of Gen Z shoppers more likely to buy when offered a discount code.

Recommendations:

• Use content to reach consumers at key decision points to drive purchases. Reviews and product images are key.
• Optimise your digital shelf to maintain conversion throughout the holiday season.
• When thinking about content mix, focus on authenticity. A mix of negative and positive reviews is proven to drive conversion more than all positive (which seems suspicious). 

Bonus tip: The best way to build up your reviews is through product sampling. Let shoppers get a taste of what your brand does best and encourage them to leave a review.

A Sample Timeline for Holiday Success

As mentioned earlier, the time to start planning your holiday content strategy is now. Here’s a timeline to help you get started:

July: Outline your UGC strategy and set clear objectives and metrics. Gather your list of creators and tools.

August: Allocate your budget and start building relationships with creators.

September: Finalise campaign details, brief creators, and establish processes for check-ins and reviews.

October: Launch early tactics and content, monitor performance, and engage with customers to create UGC.

November: Feed social content to other channels to drive conversion, leveraging key shopping moments like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

December: Ensure continuous content flow to capture last-minute shoppers.

By following these tips and leveraging the power of influencer marketing, you can navigate the holiday frenzy and ensure your brand stands out. At RISER, we make it easy to sample hundreds of products to micro-influencers, helping you create authentic, engaging content that resonates with your audience. Ready to make your brand shine this holiday season? Let’s get started!