Easter Marketing: How to Maximize Your Holiday Campaign Results

The annual marketing calendar is full of opportunities for marketers to tap into the festive consumer mood. Valentine’s Day, Halloween, the Super Bowl, St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Easter – all are special dates that bring a little something to look forward to, be it delicious foods, gifts, a vacation, or leisure. And for brands and businesses, that means more potential sales. With Easter right around the corner, here are some helpful tips for marketers launching seasonal campaigns.

Why seasonal marketing campaigns are so successful 

What is the hidden advantage of seasonal marketing? It is much easier to understand your audience’s interests. For example, at Christmas, people will be looking for gifts for loved ones and buying celebratory foods. At Easter, people will be looking for gifts like chocolate and flowers as well as travel as the spring weather begins to warm up. According to consumer forecasts, the top categories for Easter shopping in the US will be candy, gifts, and food. Other popular categories are clothing, flowers, decorations, and greeting cards. Marketers can leverage this knowledge to focus their efforts on this seasonal opportunity if it fits their vertical and/or product.

💡 Pro tip: Set yourself apart by getting to know consumers’ interests and values, and address them in your campaigns. For instance, in the UK, 57% of consumers say they are will to pay more for environmentally friendly products. A smart way to engage the audience and differentiate your brand is by highlighting issues such as sustainability or recycling. If you are a consumer goods or e-commerce brand in the UK, for example, you can point out the use of eco-friendly materials. For travel companies, it could be offering sustainable vacation packages that support responsible tourism.

Audiences tend to have several interests, often outside of your specific industry. For instance, some people interested in health & fitness are also interested in automotive content. Take a look at BrainPower data, an Outbrain tool that helps marketers find out the current digital trends worldwide, and you can see which verticals and categories interest your audience. 

Capture your target audience’s attention with dynamic and interactive ads

When a consumer is browsing with the intention of purchasing, as they may do in the leadup to a holiday, they are very open to discovering new brands and products. Therefore, you should focus on being creative to stand out in a very saturated market. 

Creativity is not just about ad design, but also the channels your ads appear on. And remember, traditional sales and promotions are no longer enough to draw the audience’s attention. Now, you must find new and engaging ways to actively capture attention, instead of just waiting for people to approach your brand.

💡 Pro tip: Native Advertising on the open web can be an excellent channel to capture the attention of your audience. Native ads fit in with the look and feel of the web page where they appear so they won’t disrupt the user experience. Plus, there is a wide range of native ad formats to help you meet your goals, be it generating leads or building audience awareness. 

For example, Outbrain’s Carousel format enables you to tell a rich and interactive story that develops across each carousel card. You can add up to 10 images to showcase your products and relevant CTA buttons like “Shop Now”. In the days leading up to Easter, try to create a sense of urgency by promoting special and limited-time offers, emphasizing “While supplies last!”. This helps to inspire consumers to action.

Create ads with headlines that work non-stop

As marketers, the struggle for attention is real. This is only accentuated in the approach to a holiday season when traffic pressure adds up. If you know which keywords have high conversion potential, you give yourself a great advantage by including them in the headlines of your campaigns. 

💡 Pro tip: Use your headline to give audiences a sneak peek of what your Easter campaign has to offer. Adding small text elements like Calls-to-Action or buttons in different colors can drive better engagement metrics. 

Also, adapting the length of your headlines by vertical tends to bring the best results. For example, according to Outbrain data, if you are a CPG brand in the US, your ideal headline length is just 20-40 characters. You can find helpful tips like this for all regions and verticals at the BrainPower Vertical Insights hub.  

Finally, consider A/B testing by running multiple ads and headlines at the same time to see which ones get the most clicks. Then, you can use that data to optimize future campaigns and drive even higher click rates.

Generate user engagement 

Try to involve users so they feel part of your campaign and leverage their interest in your product to engage them further. One tactic that gets the best results is interactive content, such as games, competitions, and user-generated content. Gamification aims to make the consumer’s journey fun, exciting, and engaging, capturing the attention of potential customers and building loyalty along the way. So, consider getting interactive and playful when creating your Easter or other seasonal campaigns. 

💡 Pro tip: Find ways to get the audience involved! For example, if you are a kitchenware or appliance retailer, you could share popular Easter recipes in an interactive catalog or landing page where users can vote for their favorite one. 

When you encourage users to participate actively in original and creative ways, you increase interactions with your campaign and boost awareness and engagement about your brand.

Be on time! 

One of the common mistakes marketers make is leaving digital campaigns to the last minute. Aside from adding stress, running campaigns too close to the holiday date means you can miss out on a lot of traffic from consumers who are preparing early for the holidays.

Why wait? Since you have all the global events on your calendar, plan accordingly and in advance for the best results. 

💡 Pro tip: Although most consumers don’t start planning their purchases until two weeks in advance of the holidays, they are increasingly browsing for products and deals even before. Therefore, it pays to analyze the pre-holiday behavior of your audience and work consistently on your brand awareness tactics in the weeks before.

Take advantage of the audience’s purchase intent to increase holiday sales before it’s too late. This way, you’ll hopefully boost your revenue and get the most from your campaign spend.

Late to the game already? Don’t worry, it’s still worthwhile launching a last-minute campaign for all the Easter shopping procrastinators out there! 

Enhance Your Easter Holiday Sales

There are many ways to increase your sales and maximize your results during seasonal holidays like Easter. Try to plan your campaigns and promotions well in advance. If you take into account what your objectives are and carefully apply each of the recommendations above, you will attract a more qualified audience with a greater propensity to buy, and at the same time, boost your brand image in the minds of those who matter most – your potential customers.