The holiday season is here, are you ready?  Don’t worry if you’ve been busy working on your biz, I have 5 massive ways to help your visual holiday marketing!  

I love this quote!  

Like a snowflake you are unique and so should your visuals be.  Your visual marketing should reflect your style, your purpose and be in your voice.  Pretend your brand story Mr. Frosty.  You have to add his top hat to make the magic happen. Think of his top hat as your visuals.  Mr. Frosty comes alive when he has his top hat right?  When you create visuals for your brand, it comes alive and if done correctly, can be pretty magical!

[Tweet “We are like a snowflake all different in our own beautiful way.”]

Unless you’ve been hiding under a snow pile, you know the value of creating branded visuals for your biz.

Here are stats to show their power:

• Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets. (Source)
• 70% of marketers plan to increase their use of original visual assets in 2015. (Source)
• The popularity of whitepapers as a B2B content marketing format is actually declining in relation to more interactive, easily digestible formats such as video. (Source)
• According to an MIT Study, the human brain can process and identify images seen for as little as 13 milliseconds.

I believe that says a great deal don’t you think!

5 Massive Ways to Help Your Visual Holiday Marketing!

1. Effective images evoke responses from viewers.

When creating visuals for your holiday marketing efforts (and all your visual marketing in fact), keep these three types of responses in mind.  When creating, that’s the goal of the designer.

         Here are three types of responses:

• Emotional: Images can elicit any of a range of feelings, from awe to amusement to sadness.

• Mental: An image can make its mark by challenging, instructing or informing.  Great image tools for this are infographics.

• Social: People tuned into trends and memes, who have a pop-culture awareness, may respond to images that play on that awareness.

[Tweet “The strongest brands are adapting and creating a clear visual social media strategy. Zack Kitschke”]

Action Steps: 

• Think of what you want your viewer to do. What is your call to action?  Then think of creative holiday images that will set the mood.  Make sure to add the CTA in your image or text, people will typically take action if you ask:)
• Create a useful Inforgraphic with Piktochart.
• Design a a festive and  fun meme or meaningful quote image with Canva, Picmonkey or Relay That.

2. Get Personal, Tell YOUR story with Visuals

You may not think your story is valuable, but it is.  When you share your story, people can relate to you.  The more personal I am, the more people connect to me.  Think of your audience as friends.

Today, most of us have a smartphone.  Using your smartphone is a great way to get creative and share your holiday story both in video and visuals.  Think of ways to connect with your audience on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.  Target has a great Pinterest and Instagram account.  Check out their commercials, too.  Target is ALWAYS on Brand.

Action Steps:

• Using your smartphone to get creative and share your holiday story both in video and visuals.
• Think of ways to connect with your audience on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Still not feeling confident?  You don’t have to share personal images of your family.  Think creatively.  Use some creative cropping.
• Don’t forget to use your photo apps like Over and Wordswag to help you create a brand mood.

3. Create Your Own Homemade Holiday Videos

Videos are a great way to spread some holiday cheer.  With 93% of marketers using videos for online marketing, communications and sales, I suggest you add video to your visual marketing strategy today!

Action Steps:

Share some behind the scenes of decorating your office or retail space for the holidays.

Create a short video when meeting a client, delivering gifts to clients or sharing a holiday memory.  My friend Kellie O’Brien shared this ” Take a video of you talking about three tips clients could follow, mix it up with the tutorial suggestion earlier and show a quick tutorial using your product or simply take the viewer on a tour of your premises.”

Use your phone and create a Periscope video sharing a few industry tips or a how-to video.

Or better yet, create a holiday blab and ask your industry friends to join in like I did!

4. Purposely Giving Back

This is one I LOVE! In fact, I’m working on a few projects for 2016 purposely for giving back.  More and more brands, big and small are finding creative ways to give back.  The holiday season is a great place to start!  Create images that share your charity or personal giving mission.  I get giddy with Purpose-driven brands!  Tom’s Shoes is a perfect example of a Purposeful company.  From the emails they send to their website and gift guide, they share their brand story.

Action Steps:

• How can you give back?  Remember, even if it’s a little bit, everything you give is a GOOD thing.
• Host a holiday donation. I recall hosting food drives at my seasonal events to go to my local food bank.  I’ve also hosted painting parties and donated to charities.
• Think about how you can go the extra mile for someone else.  Someone in need.  Jeremy Cowart started to ask some photographer friends to use their gifts and take photos of those less fortunate.  His generous idea is now a movement called Help-Portrait!
• Make a list of what is meaningful to you?  Charites, Local nonprofits, etc.
• Start there. (take Tom’s lead and remember giving throughout the year is a wonderful thing to do)

5. Become More Confident When Creating Your Visuals

According to Social Media Today, Just 11% of marketers believe they’re leveraging images across their marketing channels “very effectively” while only 7% believe their visual content is successfully supporting their overall marketing goals.  With these scary stats, brands must think further outside the box, be more transparent and remember their purpose and mission

In order to become more confident with creating your visuals, you have to practice.  You have to get outside your comfort zone and share bits about you.  Share your story and what’s important to you and your business.

Irfan Ahmad states 86% of marketers agree that “Type of channel” is important when selecting images to use in different marketing initiatives. That means that 78% of brands are sharing the same images across all their platforms.  I must admit, I’ve been guilty of this too.

Action Steps:

• Block out time to create multiple images for your visual marketing.
• Spend your time creating a themed package of images to use across your platforms.
• Hire a graphic designer to create branded images for you.
• Purchase a DIY Holiday Kit that will save you time and money.
  • To solve these challenges, I designed two collections specifically for the holidays and winter season that can help you become more confident and consistent with your holiday visual marketing!
• Look at your local ads, in your email inbox and on social media for brands that you admire.
  • Be inspired, but don’t copy.
  • Create a Pinterest board for your holiday visual marketing inspirations!

 

Bonus Tip:

Create a Visual Marketing Strategy and a themed holiday series.

Create a series of tips, videos, how to’s and holiday quotes using the same series of branded visuals.  Follow the same color palette.  Use the same font styles.  Remember this is the season of giving, so be a great giver!

[Tweet “Create memorable images to help your audience recall emotions of the holiday season.”]

(That’s an extra bonus tip for you:)

I hope these 5 tips + bonuses help you massively become more confident with creating your holiday visuals!  Do you want MORE visual ideas to inspire your holiday marketing?

Here’s a FREE guide with 20 more ideas and action steps!

 

If you are tired, out of time, not ready to hire a graphic designer, or not sure how to create a themed holiday strategy, I’d suggest you check out the collections.  I use them (yes, in this post too) and so have many other small businesses and entrepreneurs!

Good luck and have fun creating your holiday visual marketing strategy,