As we prepare for the holidays with our families and friends, let’s take a moment (during the busiest time of the year) and reflect on how today’s world requires us to always be ‘on.’ Even as we’re spreading holiday cheer with friends and family. These holiday helper allow you to handle everything you need on-the-go without letting marketing’s busiest time of the year wreck the happiest season of all.
With Thanksgiving behind us, Americans are putting their focus into Christmas and Hanukkah, and us marketers? We’re gearing up to put our strategies into motion. Strategies that were planned well before the first day of cold weather. These marketing plans are carefully calculated to increase the chances of the perfect outcome, runtime and more. But there’s always a catch. We’re talking about human nature, after all. You can’t plan for user error or computer error. You can prepare for the inevitable need to switch things up and that’s what this post is all about.
Your social media and email marketing plans for the holidays are going to be a big piece of your year-end success. No matter how big the brand is, this is a great time to get some quick sales wins before the end of the year.
That often means that someone, a human, must be available for whatever customer service issues may arise. These tools allow the entire team to be engaged for the best response possible. Additionally, it’s a great way to create a shift-based management system because these platforms keep a record of everything and allow you to quickly check in while you were engaged in other activities.
Staying present and connected at every stage of the game — whether you work at an agency, in-house, as an entrepreneur or small business — is key to coming back to work in January ready to hit the ground running. As much as we marketers take the consumer’s’ mindset into account, we often forget about our own.
These apps can’t completely automate the game, but they can allow you to decide when and how you engage during the festivities.
Sprout Social
As I shared in an earlier post, Sprout Social is the absolute best automation tool for brands of all shapes and sizes. What makes this a great holiday helper is that all of the functionality is available in their app — listening, reposting, commenting and moderating. The best part? You can log into multiple accounts at once and reduce the fear of posting from the wrong account at the wrong time.
Basecamp
A productivity and team management tool, Basecamp is a great way to stay connected to a distributed team. This tool is great for managing content as well. Why? Because you can upload files and change documents right IN Basecamp and keep a calendar of due dates clear and visible for everyone. You can even let your clients in on the action with a dedicated section just for them.
Schedugr.am
The hardest piece for small businesses to plan for is Instagram. Twitter has Tweetdeck and Facebook allows for native scheduling (or you can use a 3rd-party tool both of these), but Instagram doesn’t have a scheduling system that actually posts FOR you. Curalate is an amazing tool if you’ve got the budget, but if not? This Australian start-up is your holiday helper of the century. It not only allows you to tag other brands, post comments and captions, it also actually posts for you. No more push-notification reminders while you’re out spending time with family or getting through your holiday shopping list. This one handles it all with a dedicated device for your posts — and the hundreds of others going out with their service on a daily basis. Check out Schedugr.am and see if it’s right for you.
A Quality CRM System
I find that Client Relationship Management systems are also a quick way to help small business owners understand the need for a robust email solution. You see, Mailchimp is fine, but if you’re trying to do heavy-lifting with your email list, you need a true solution. My favorite option for businesses of all sizes and at all stages is Ontraport. It has great tagging, allows you to schedule content and test in advance and the landing page features are really robust for the offering. Best of all? If you’re just starting out, it’s only $79 a month for a list under 1,000 subscribers.
Voxer
This tool is really great for live event management, BUT you can also use it for communicating with distributed teams during the holidays. Instead of calling someone and potentially interrupting their hard-earned time off, Voxer allows you to record a voice memo, send video, text and gifs in real time and then allows the other person to respond in real time or at their leisure. At the moment, it’s one of my favorite tools for team and client management.
Google Drive
Sharing images and files can get complicated — Google drive not only allows you to keep things organized, it also allows you to communicate in the files in real-time AND assign tasks to team members. Google Drive also enables you to upload photos and videos from events, store openings and more, making it an ideal tool for collaboration on-the-go.
Slack
Slack is another great project management tool and would be used in place of Basecamp — it’s great for quick communication that is kept out of your personal texting feed, which is also essential for maximizing your down-time this holiday season. Google Drive connects to Slack for ease of approvals and comment review in one place.
The Ultimate Holiday Managers
The most important thing to remember about these holiday helpers is that they are still only there as a support system — taking time off is something customers, clients and consumers understand. As long as you are upfront about response and delivery times, the holidays will be smooth sailing!