How to Succeed during the 2020 Holiday Season with ConnectedContent

Welcome to the 2020 holiday shopping season. Everything has changed for retailers. And yet nothing has changed. On the one hand, shoppers are gearing up for a completely different experience, devoid of happy holiday parties and family gatherings. Instead, shoppers will be living with the uncertainty that the COVID-19 pandemic may trigger another lockdown during what is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. On the other hand, how people shop for the holidays should come as no surprise to any retailer: according to a Google-commissioned Ipsos survey, 74 percent of U.S. shoppers said they plan to do more online shopping than they did before – which simply continues a trend that had been going on for years.

At Investis Digital, we recommend that retailers take a Connected Content approach – creating content that makes a meaningful connection with your customers, sharing that content on secure, smart platforms, and amplifying it with performance marketing.

Create Meaningful Content

At a time when more people are going online to shop, retailers need to be ready for a perpetual Cyber Monday that lasts the entire holiday season. That means getting the basics right. Shoppers want their experience on your website to be simple and seamless. Make sure you are meeting their expectations with product reviews and testimonials, regular and engaging content, and complete and informative product pages. Your website needs to be more than an online brochure. Your content needs to answer questions and solve problems for your potential customers.

At the same time, this year, more than ever, businesses must be mindful of tone (written and visual) to make content meaningful. Consider that shoppers are exploring your site with a completely different mindset and emotional needs that might not have existed during the 2019 holiday season. They’ll be fearful for the safety of their loved ones and themselves. They’ll be living with the uncertainty of another lockdown possibly happening. They’ll be mourning the loss of traditional social get-togethers. How might you adapt your content and messaging to connect with the stressed-out and fearful holiday shopper? What worked for you in 2019 might not be appropriate for 2020.

Be Smart and Secure

Now is also the time to review how durable and functional your website is. Consumers expect your site to render correctly on any device. It should load quickly, and it should integrate with measurement and marketing automation tools. And, how well is your site optimized for mobile traffic? Keep in mind that mobile shopping is expected to hit $314 billion this holiday season, reflecting an inexorable march toward mobile that has been happening for years. True, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of mobile – but COVID-19 did not cause this behavioral change. Now is the time to audit your entire shopping experience and make sure it can stand up to the stress of a surge in mobile commerce.

Unfortunately, an increase in online traffic also means a surge in hackers trying to disrupt your site. As we’ve discussed on our blog, during the pandemic, hackers have been capitalizing on the pandemic to attack websites. Amazon says it recently thwarted the largest Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in history (DDoS attacks) are designed to knock a website offline by flooding it with huge amounts of requests until it crashes). In the blog post “Why Security Is the Bedrock of Connected Content,” our global Chief Digital Officer David Corchado provides some advice on fundamental steps that all businesses should take now to safeguard your digital assets. How are you responding?

Amplify Your Content

A digital-first retail strategy is so common now that you’re going to need to work harder than ever to stand apart from every other retailer online. This is where amplifying your content with paid media comes into play. We suggest that retailers:

• Get your media plan and budgets finalized as soon as possible but remain flexible; plans may be changing weekly this year as inventory, competition and audience engagement fluctuates.
• Take advantage of new audience pools through connected TV platforms—one of the best ways to make up for any 2020 losses is to grow your audience in Q4.
• Develop engaging and interactive creative that will be heard through the noise of election season and win the attention of the very same audience your competition is aiming for.
• Don’t run search campaigns exclusively and expect your revenue to grow YoY in any market where there are competitors—they will be looking to grow their audience higher in the funnel, and you need to be there too.

Finally, be agile. Don’t get locked into a rigid approach. As we have discussed on our website, keyword research is more than a tactic to rank well on Google – keyword research can also help marketers create more agile campaigns, including the holiday season.

Read Our New Guide

To thrive during the 2020 holiday season, read our newly published The New Retail Benchmark: Adapting Your Digital Strategy to Thrive During the 2020 Holiday Season & Beyond. This guide is for companies that need to measure their holiday retail plan against these new expectations and shift their online strategy due to the reality of life in a pandemic. As always, contact Investis Digital to build your brand with Connected Content in a digital-first world.