Writing content for holiday campaigns that people actually want to read and share is daunting to say the least. Whether you’re a sole proprietor, working for a small start-up company, or working for a big corporation, creating killer content to drive business over the Holiday Season is crucial.

Good news is it doesn’t take a Rocket Scientist to realize the HUGE potential in e-Commerce sales, which rapidly increase every year.

With an estimated $72.41 billion in Holiday sales this season, we don’t blame you for feeling the pressure to create rockin’ (around the Christmas Tree) content! After all, your content elves have been working hard this year, so it’s time to put your Santa hat on and deliver the gift of awesome content.

So if your Holiday campaign is still setting up shop, get your reindeer in a row so you can blitz your way to the top this season! From pen & paper brainstorming to the moment you hit the “Publish” button, here are some great tips we use here at ListPopular, straight from Santa’s sleigh!

Know Your Holiday Shoppers:

Before you put any ideas into motion, first you need to establish your targeted audience for blog posts, surveys, questionnaires, social media posts, infographics, and the list goes on. For example, writing an article about the latest in website coding for a women’s health magazine isn’t valuable to your reader. It’s easy to forget who you’re speaking to when the creative juices are flowing but you can’t lose sight of them! So how do you prevent this? At ListPopular we create a minimum of 3 personas for each new client who jumps on board, and we update the profiles whenever necessary. Each profile should outline their age, gender, and income, as well as keywords they search, social networks they use, and websites they visit. All this information is crucial to know and has to be based on real data produced by the client.

Check out this snapshot of a real persona we use for one of our clients, Great Blue Resorts. Meet Karen Thompson! As a prospective renter, her profile outlines that she is looking for a resort cottage getaway for her family.

Resources & Inspiration:

Once you’ve identified your target audience, start to gather resources and curate content to get the creative juices flowing. An awesome tool to easily find content all in one place is Feedly. In website and app form, Feedly organizes your favorite blogs, magazines, websites, and other areas of interest all in real time! You can also search the most popular RSS feeds available in case you need more content. There are similar platforms to Feedly, but this is a ListPopular favourite!

Write Actionable Content:

Alright, by now you know who you’re writing for, and you should be using Feedly to help you gather great material to reference for future posts. That means it’s time to put your fingers to the keyboard (or pen to paper if you’re old school like that), and start writing! Some people find it easier to start with an outline, or gather information from the curated articles. It really doesn’t matter, just use whatever you’re comfortable with as long as it works!

Now that you’re pumped to SELL SELL SELL this holiday season, you have to make your customers love it too… no pressure! And when all else fails, remember this: Always write Actionable content. Yes, spelling and grammar are important, and images are always fun but your message and the value it holds is paramount.

For example, let’s say you own a gym. You want to get people using your equipment and attending workout classes to Battle Away the Holiday Belly Bulge! Attract new gym rats with colour images and workout plans (aka Actionable Content) to attract, engage, convert, and increase sales. Infographics are an awesome way to present actionable content in a fun way, and Piktochart gives you the tools to make that happen.

Image source.

Social Strategy:

Wow! Look at that… You’ve created a holiday marketing masterpiece. You’re a virtual Picasso of holiday content, and everybody knows it. Woohoo!! Alright, time to get your head out of the clouds: Remember the estimated $72.41 billion in e-Commerce sales this year? If you don’t share any of your amazing pieces with the world, your business won’t see a cent of it – and yes that’s a threat! That means you gotta be socially savvy.

There are numerous tools on the market today to help conserve time while maximizing your social reach to your target audience. At ListPopular, we can’t get enough of Hootsuite and it’s so easy to use. Simply plug in your social media platforms (Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram… you name it) and schedule when to post your content. For optimal results, tweak the message attaching the same content and schedule it several times over the next couple of weeks. Before you know it your Evergreen content will be a star!

Check out our Hootsuite dashboard! Best of all, you can customize the columns to add or hide your Sent Tweets or Direct Messages.

There you have it: Get to know your target audience, get inspired, get creative with actionable content, and get your ass moving to spread the word! You know you have the skills, the talent, and now you have the tools to maximize your valuable time this Holiday season! Happy holiday hunting!

*Cough* 72.4 billion dollars… just sayin’