3 Reasons You Should Be Kicking off Your Q4 Marketing Plans Now
It’s no secret that the holiday season is the most important shopping season of the year. With so many holidays and so many reasons to give gifts it has become known industry-wide as the season to prepare for when planning retail distribution, inventory and marketing. Many clients report that they earn nearly 60% of their digital revenue in this quarter alone! These last couple years have been an anomaly for a number of reasons, but the trend towards the importance of online shopping has only accelerated.
This week on the blog we’re going to talk about the top 3 reasons why you should start executing your Q4 marketing plans sooner rather than later. You might be surprised at how fast the holidays arrive at your doorstep, let’s make sure you’re prepared to take full advantage of them!
1: Building relationships with consumers takes time
Anyone who runs a brand understands how important it is to build lasting relationships with your customers. They also understand that these relationships take time to build. With rampant scams and fake websites becoming the norm, consumers are often wary of brands they encounter online and gaining their trust can take some time and attention.
This is one main reason you’ll want to start marketing as soon as possible. By starting to build that consumer trust in your brand now you’ll have a solid foundation for hard sell pitches in the holiday season. If you begin the process of introducing yourself and your products now you’ll have plenty of time to push your interested consumers downfunnel where they’ll be ready to convert just as the holiday season starts.
2: Get in ahead of Q4 cost increases
Another major reason to start your Q4 ad buys sooner than later is the decidedly lower cost of marketing in Q3. Sure you can start your campaigns any time, but the closer you get to Christmas, the more expensive your marketing will become.
In a study last year, Adespresso illustrated that Facebook cost-per-click (CPC) ad costs typically rise through the spring, descend in the summer to about 42 cents and then, beginning on the first of October, begins a fast and steep ascent to 52 cents by the end of the year.
If you were advertising in the third quarter, ads would cost you between 42 and 45 cents per click, on average. If you put off advertising until the fourth quarter, you could be averaging between 50 and 53 cents, representing about a 20% increase in your ad spend.
A 20 percent hike is actually quite moderate. In previous years, MarTech Advisor reported a spike of 25% between Black Friday and Christmas for Facebook Ads. And Facebook isn’t alone in this. All digital platforms will have similar trends, just another reason to get started early.
3: Build momentum and optimize
Marketing is a science, but it is also a bit of an art. Many marketers find that they have to go through a couple campaigns before they find their footing and hit one out of the park. This is perfectly normal! You wouldn’t expect to pick up a guitar for the first time and be able to solo like Jimi, so it might not be entirely reasonable to expect to start your first ad campaign ad have it perform like Don Draper. The process of momentum building and campaign optimization is a long one, most major companies will run their ad campaigns year-round so as to not miss a moment of their performance trends.
By starting your campaigns early you’ll be in a position to nip any low performing ads or strategies in the bud and optimize towards what performs best, all while keeping your costs as low as possible. By doing this you’ll find yourself in a much better position to tackle the challenges of Q4, and you won’t break the bank to do it.
Get started today and reap the benefits in Q4!
The holidays are coming, and soon. Now is the time to act to ensure that your brand is in a position to take full advantage of the increased shopping in Q4 and maximize your advertising effectiveness by avoiding costly mistakes. Every dollar spent finishing Q3 strong is 2-3 you will not have to spend for the same inventory in the coming months. Why not end your year strong and start a high-performing digital ad campaign on the FieldTest Platform today?