With winter coming to an end and Easter in sight, you should be ready for some Easter money. Think it’s too early? Smart brands like Mondelēz International and Nestlé Confectionery already unveiled new Easter products for 2018 late last year, and if past Easter spending surveys are any indication, a lot of money will be flying around this Easter.
(Source)
In 2016, the National Retail Federation Easter reported Easter spending hit $17.3 billion, while the 2017 Easter spending was projected to reach $18.4 billion. Although statistics for this year’s Easter spending aren’t out yet, one thing is certain, consumers will be shopping during the four-day long holiday. That’s why we’ve put together a list of marketing tips to help you make some money this Easter. Let’s get to it:
Go Omnichannel, Not Multichannel
A multi channel campaign during Easter isn’t your best bet. It leads to colliding objectives and your individual channels will compete with each other. Instead, create a a strategic, coordinated, and customer‑driven Omnichannel campaign.
Aspect software reported that businesses that adopt omni-channel strategies achieve 91% greater year-over-year customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t. UK retailer ASDA used an Omnichannel strategy to promote its Easter products in over 300 stores and online. The strategy comprised of location-based marketing, a giant chocolate hen and a hashtag. Here’s how it worked:
ASDA centered Easter promotions around its giant chocolate hen TV ad, where the chicken climbs on top of an ASDA store and lays a giant chocolate egg. Using real-time personalization, Asda delivered millions of tailored location-based messages to its customers informing them of when the giant hen would come to their local store with chocolate Easter eggs. To drive engagement, each store offered Easter-themed props to customers so they could bring their children and take selfies with the #GiantHen and post them on social media with the hashtag #GiantHen.
The results?
- 6 million customers reached
- 2 million online campaign views
- 40% campaign views came from previously disengaged customers
Gamify Your Egg Hunts
Gamification is not just fun and games (sorry bout that). Brands that successfully engage customers through gamification see 63% lower customer attrition and 55% higher share of wallet. If you’re considering gamification this Easter, check out how these major brands have gamified Easter. To boost Easter sales this year, Cadbury hid up to 400 white chocolate Crème Eggs (resembling real white eggs with yellow yokes) among normal milk chocolate ones. Consumers who find and unwrap the white eggs will receive cash prizes ranging from £100 to £2000. And Cadbury has already seen an increase in sales.
Similarly, to drive search visibility and cement the brand’s synonymy with Easter, British chocolate brand, Thorntons launched an interactive chocolate factory that gave consumers a glimpse into the company’s egg production process. To make things fun, Thorntons introduced a layer of gamification, by hiding wrapped Easter eggs around the factory, encouraging shoppers to redeem them for entry into a drawing for a tour of the real Thorntons factory and a year’s supply of chocolate. Altogether, 15,000 users interacted with the content nearly 30,000 times. 80% of these users hadn’t previously interacted with Thorntons’ content. Search visibility for both branded and non-branded terms increased by 2% and Thorntons held the #1 search position for ‘Easter eggs’ in 2016 (vs #4 in 2015).
To find out more about using gamification in your marketing strategy, check out our in-depth article on gamification here.
Partner With A Brand
Your company doesn’t need to celebrate Easter alone. You can partner with one or more brands to get a share of this year’s Easter earnings. Take a page from Hershey’s partnership with Dollar General. Hershey’s virtual Easter basket-builder allowed Dollar General shoppers to mix and match Hershey products with DG merchandise until they found the right mix for their budget. Due to the partnership, Hershey saw a 25% increase in sales and a 4% increase in seasonal share, and shoppers spent on average six minutes engaging with the brand online.
Likewise, For a few years now, Nestlé has collaborated with UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s on its Easter egg campaigns. The two companies share promotional information on an extranet, and within hours of Sainsbury’s stocking its shelves with a certain Easter egg, the companies have access to early sales data to see if the product is likely to sell. That information is fed into the extranet, allowing Nestlé to react swiftly. The partnership has helped Nestlé reduce cost and increase efficiency. When done effectively, co-branding can help you extend your reach, double your marketing budget and ultimately boost sales. For a partnership to work, however, it has to be a win-win for you and your partners.
Keep Your Brand Top Of Mind With Experiential Marketing
Who says you need to sell chocolate to increase your ROI during the Easter season? Aside from providing brands with an opportunity to create memorable interactions with consumers, experiential marketing has the potential to help boost sales. 65% of brands that use experiential campaigns say that it positively correlates with sales. Keeping the benefits of experiential marketing in mind, Danish brewer Carlsberg launched an edible giant chocolate bar—that would give Willy Wonka a run for his money—as part of its “If Carlsberg Did Chocolate Bars” Easter campaign.
(Source)
In the spirit of sharing, members of the public were invited to help themselves to a complimentary half-pint of ice-cold Carlsberg, served in a bespoke Carlsberg-engraved milk chocolate glass.
The idea of their campaign was to make people think not only of chocolate during Easter, but also about Carlsberg beer.
To nail experiential marketing, here a few things to keep in mind:
- Know your audience: To reach young consumers, Cadbury used Snapchat’s sponsored lens technology to promote its Creme Eggs candy during Easter
- Have a strong brand message: Your message should be memorable, engaging, and fit well with your branding. Take a cue from Carlsberg on this one.
- Give consumers a virtual reality check: For Christmas, Coca-Cola created a virtual reality sleigh ride. Using an Oculus Rift, consumers became Santa Claus for a day, spreading infinite amounts of Christmas cheer.
Ads are out, experiences are in.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket
You don’t have to sell chocolate bunnies to cash in on Easter. What you need, however, is an Easter marketing strategy that helps you get noticed and motivates customers to take the next step in the purchasing process. Just “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Embrace multiple channels in order to see the biggest benefit and maximise your ROI. Happy Easter, marketers!