Musician’s 2019 Holiday Content Marketing Guide

Musician’s 2019 Holiday Marketing & Content Guide

It’s the most wonderful, stressful, profitable time of the yeaaar….

Regardless of the true meaning of the holidays, one thing is universal. People will flock to the stores, click on shiny objects, and buy. the. stuff.

Whether or not you have “stuff” to sell already, here are a few marketing, content, and planning ideas to help prepare you for the season.

LET’S TALK CONTENT

Yes, you could slap a Santa hat on some of your old pics. You could use a red & green filter on your videos to make them festive. But in addition to visually being in the holiday spirit, what other content ideas could you plan for?

Try these on for size...

Holiday Stories

What fun stories could you share related to the holidays or have a seasonal twist? Or are there inspiring things you’ve witnesses that would be a good post?

Holiday Series?

Do you have a few related ideas that might make a good seasonal series? If it’s too late to record and release holiday music, what about livestream (or recorded) covers every week? 

• Holiday Tunesday // holiday songs each Tuesday
• Country Christmas Covers // a twist on holiday songs specific to your genre
• Unboxing an interesting gift leading up to a holiday show

Holiday Shows or Themed Parties
What gigs do you already have on the books? Are any of them themed? Would a theme help get people out?

Some common themes you'll probably see...

• Naughty or Nice Show
• Night Before Thanksgiving Party
• Ugly Christmas Sweater Contest

POPULAR SHOPPING DAYS TO CONSIDER

Ok the gist of this list isn't necessarily to plan something for ALL of these days. It's to target the ones that make the most sense for you and be aware of what your audience may already be searching for.

Black Friday (Day After Thanksgiving)
This is usually the official start of the holiday shopping season, but don't be afraid to get a head start. People's attention will be pulled in MANY different ways on Black Friday.

Small Business Saturday (Saturday After Thanksgiving)
Small Business Saturday is a shopping holiday that encourages buying gifts from smaller businesses versus larger chain stores. But don't just take it for granted they'll buy something JUST BECAUSE you're a small business. Still make a great offer on something they'd like.

Cyber Monday (Monday After Thanksgiving)
Cyber Monday -- which is basically Black Friday in your PJs --  is one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. What about hosting a livestream holiday concert that day?

Giving Tuesday (Day After Cyber Monday)
This isn’t necessarily a huge shopping day per se, but depending on your brand, could be a more suitable fit for a sale or event.

Green Monday (Second Monday of December)
Green Monday (named by eBay in 2007), is the third-largest online shopping day of the year, behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Free Shipping Day (Third Monday of December)
This is a universally recognized day where businesses offer free shipping in hopes you'll bite the bullet and grab those last-minute Christmas gifts. But what about putting a unique spin on it and offering "free shipping" on some of your digital downloads. #Brilliant

Super Saturday (Saturday Before Christmas)
Since Super Saturday is the last Saturday before Christmas and marks the end of the holiday shopping season. It's not nearly as popular, but could still be an opportunity for you to share your music with your fans.

WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO SELL?

Here are a couple of quick options of things you have up and running today.

Sign Up as an Amazon Associate
It's easy and free to join the Amazon Association program. It’s basically becoming an affiliate for Amazon where you can help your audience purchase things they may find helpful and earn commission in the process. You’ll be able to choose from over a million products to advertise to your customers.

I wrote a blog article a couple of years ago using this exact process, plus some other affiliate offers. >>  ++ 9 Amazing Gift Ideas to Motivate Musicians - All Under $60

Create Branded Merch with CafePress (or join as an affiliate)
It’s an easy drag and drop site that allows you to upload your designs to their apparel. There are tons of sites that do this “dropshipping.” Find one that works best for you!

Cafepress also has an affiliate program if you don’t want to — or don’t have time — to create your own designs!

Resist The Temptation

As much as traffic is going to increase during the holidays, resist the urge to jump in and start running ads or boosting posts. I know it’s tempting when you look at the amount of money being spent during this time.

Internet Retailer also estimates that total retail holiday sales increased 5.6% year over year and reached $719.77 billion for the 2018 holiday season, up from $681.61 billion last year. 

On the flip side though? That also means more competition for the same audience.

Facebook ad costs typically rise about 10-15% from Black Friday through December 7th and 30-40% from December 8th to December 25th. 

During the holidays, your best (or most cost-effective strategy) may be to focus on the warm audience you’ve already created.

++ 3 Audience Temperatures: Why To Strike When the Fans Are Hot

WHERE TO SHARE YOUR OFFERS?

In Their Inbox

Hopefully you already have an email list, right? If you don’t the best two times to start one are yesterday and right now.

If someone has given you their email, they’re already a “warm” audience. Meaning, you don’t have to introduce yourself. You can use your list to let them know about your holiday plans, events, and offers in a one-on-one connection.

• Quick Tip: Don’t just plan on ONE email.

Take some time to write out (at least) 3 emails you can send, maybe even more. Don’t be afraid to share some of the stories we mentioned at the top of this article as CONTENT for your emails with your offers included.

Also schedule a separate Happy Holiday email for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day that don’t have any sales copy or calls to action. People can appreciate a non-pitch email and the holidays are the perfect time to do so.

Your Website or Blog
This is a great place to change the visuals and put your music and merchandise upfront. Create a temporary page that says “Holiday Sale” or “Holiday Music” so when people visit the site, it’s 100% obvious what they’ll find on that page.

Plus, if you’re able to get decent traffic to that page, it’ll set you up for being able to run retargeting ads after the holidays when the ad cost is lower.

Livestream
Video is literally the most consumed form of media on the web. Use this as a chance to get creative and share your personality online. You can use a platform like restream.io to actually broadcast to multiple social media sites, Facebook groups, and other platforms simultaneously.

On Social
Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., let your followers know about your holiday offer, your music, your merch. And as we mentioned, instead of repeating the same post over and over again (or worse only posting it once), take some time to come up with 5-6 engaging messages that you can share online as well as email.

SET GOALS AND TRACK

Before embarking on your holiday plans, be sure to take some time to set your goals and expectations. A good, focused goal will help you maximize your time and budget while promoting your offers.

Once the holidays are over, take some time to look back at your analytics and see what worked. What types of posts and content did your audience respond to? 

Depending on your findings you can also repurpose the content and campaigns for holidays throughout the year — Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, and more. You get the idea.

Just like chestnuts roasting on that open fire, my goal isn't to provide you answers, but to spark ideas that you can make your own.

Ok, that's your queue. Go make the stuff.