Holiday Shopping Began Much Earlier This Year

Every year, shoppers start grabbing stuff a little earlier. But this year, Black Friday sales OFFICIALLY kicked off November 1st. This came after a Mega Sale period that extended beyond the normal two-day Prime sales. Instead, It began with Target’s Circle Week, which ran from October 1st – 7th,. It then went through Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days from October 10th – 11th. And it ended with Walmart’s Holiday Kickoff Sale from October 9th – 12th.

Many of us are finally settling in a bit after the economic shifts brought on by the pandemic. And we’re still grappling with inflation. In fact, Moody Analytics’ Chief Economist Mark Zandi says that inflation is costing consumers $709 a month more this year than two years ago. Yikes!

This year, 41 percent of holiday shoppers planned to start their shopping by October or earlier. And they’re mostly doing it to spread out their holiday budget.

Cool Takeaways from This Year’s Holiday Strategy

Nearly half of Gen Zers plan to use social media to shop this year.

For years, Facebook has been the leader in social commerce, and a favorite platform for marketing (and holiday marketing!) and paid advertising. But as the buying power of the world’s young adults increases, marketers would be well-advised to keep their eye on them. This year, 48 percent of Gen Zers say they’re planning to do a little social shopping via TikTok and Instagram.

Those are two HUGE platforms shoppers use to find ideas. Thirty-seven percent of shoppers defer to social media before making a purchase. And 85 percent of Gen Zers say social media influences their purchase, at least to some degree.

Online retailers with physical stores can woo customers with convenience and speed.

Believe it or not, younger consumers shop in-store as much as they shop online. And while older consumers are shopping online more, they are suckers for a great in-store experience. (With some friendly and knowledgeable help on standby in case they’re needed.) Add to that the impact social media can have on fueling sales and the word is your brand needs to have multiple touchpoints. In marketing lingo from the brand perspective, or in the minds of consumers, you need multiple destinations.

Social ads are a welcome interruption for shoppers, especially for holiday marketing.

Forty-two percent of Millennials and 50 percent of Gen Zers say social media is THE MOST RELEVANT channel for ads. Millennial women surveyed by Bustle say they expect to see brands represented on social media. Gen Zers say sponsored content resulting from partnerships between brands and their favorite influencers Is an acceptable way for brands to approach them.

Eighteen percent of holiday shoppers get their gift ideas from social media ads. And seven percent say influencer recommendations are a source of gift ideas this time of year. They make room for the unintrusive way in which social media ads and sponsored content show up on social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest because users visit those platforms to source ideas. Interestingly, on Pinterest, eight in ten users ARRIVE on the platform with purchase intent. But only three percent of searches are branded.

That means…. shoppers are looking for products, not necessarily specific brands.

Influencer marketing is a go-to strategy for getting holiday sales.

Most marketers identify the primary BENEFIT of social media marketing on platforms like Instagram and TikTok as increased exposure. But both are also highly shoppable. Instagram is the preferred platform for product discovery, whereas Pinterest is the platform pinners use to plan purchases.

Eight in ten marketers say influencer marketing is an effective strategy. In just the last five years, influencer marketing has gone from being a $500 million industry to being a $21B industry.

No kidding.

So, if you’re still grappling with whether or not you should incorporate social media marketing into this last-minute holiday push, the answer is absolutely.

Without further ado, here is the step-by-step guide to holiday social media marketing.

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The post INFOGRAPHIC: 2023 Holiday Spending and Trends + Marketing Ideas and Tips appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

The spooky season is upon us. And that means you’re ready for all the 2023 Halloween spending, trends, insights, and strategies. We love our Halloween statistics.

Before you dig into this massive infographic, I think it’s only right for me to highlight some of the more interesting (read, valuable) Halloween stats contained herein.

Halloween Spending, Sales, and Stats

When autumn finally rolled around in 2020, less than half of us were interested in celebrating Halloween in the traditional sense. (It may have had something to do with the fact that every single day of 2020 seemed a little like Halloween…) For most of us, that resistance was tied directly to still being hesitant to gather in crowds, go door-to-door, or (heaven forbid) take anything out of anyone else’s hands.

We’ve come a long way since those dark days. In fact, this year will see the highest percentage of people celebrating Halloween in nearly 20 years, according to the National Retail Federation.

This year, trick-or-treating is back on the agenda, and candy is still the most popular thing to buy for Halloween. You won’t be surprised that 95 percent of celebrants pick some up for the big day. More than two-thirds of celebrants (68 percent) have plans to hand out candy this Halloween.

Per-Person Halloween Spending tops $108 This Year

2021 was historic for Halloween spending because it was the first year per-person spending pushed past the $100 mark. This year, celebrants are set to spend an average of $108.24 on Halloween festivities, totaling approximately $12.2 billion in sales — the highest in recorded history. 

Candy’s Popular, But the Biggest Investment Still Goes to Costumes

This year, in 2023, each of the top Halloween spending categories — candy, decorations, costumes, and greeting cards — will see significant increases. That’s not just over last year’s numbers but also over 2019 pre-pandemic spending numbers. 

In fact, with the exception of greeting cards, the most popular spending categories for happy Halloweeners have each seen significant growth in sales since 2019. 

• Candy sales are up 39 percent, from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $3.6 billion this year
• Sales of Halloween decorations are up 50 percent, from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $3.9 billion this year 
• Costume sales are up 34 percent, from $3.2 billion in 2019 to $4.1 billion this year

Check Out Our Halloween Infographic

For more info on how you can use influencer marketing in your digital strategies this season, check out our Halloween trends post. And check out this EPIC infographic for more ideas. Bonus: there are campaign strategies, tricks, and treats at the bottom of this sucker!

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About This Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will build your brand and get your audience to do a thing.

The post [Infographic] 2023 Halloween Spending, Sales, Stats, and Trends appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

That means people are looking for ideas for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays during the same period of time. So, let’s talk about some of this year’s Halloween trends and how you can get in on those trends to drum up last-minute Halloween sales, AND stay top-of-mind for the year-end holiday push.

Halloween Has Officially Made a Comeback and Is More Popular Than It Was Pre-Pandemic

Question it if you want, but people LOVE Halloween. The U.S. is one of only three countries where Halloween festivities are a big deal. The other two are Canada and Ireland. And there’s a whole lotta Halloween fun brewing in the Middle East and North Africa, as well.

Halloween is celebrated in countries around the world… but it’s a bona fide retail event in the US… which is why we tend to focus our Halloween marketing content on American buyers. In the US 73 percent of adults are planning to celebrate Halloween.

So, you can rest assured, this is not the Sweetest Day of the world, where your neighbor has never heard of it because he only moved here from Tennessee a few months ago. Halloween is different from place to place, but it’s still Halloween. And whether festive and cartoonish or dark and menacing, people all over the world take part in their annual Halloween celebrations.

PEOPLE START THEIR HALLOWEEN PLANNING REALLY EARLY!

The yearly uptick in Halloween-themed content usually hits Pinterest starting in June. Yes, June. That’s when people really start planning for Halloween (and Thanksgiving and Christmas).

You may have noticed that right around Independence Day, the Halloween-themed stores started showing up. Not long after, pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns start lining store shelves and the sidewalks in front of stores. That’s because 45 percent of those celebrating the holiday plan to start shopping before October. And for at least half of consumers between the ages of 25 – 44, both the planning and shopping happen in the days and weeks leading up to October 1st.

HALLOWEEN SPENDING PICKS UP IN SEPTEMBER

Actual Halloween spending really starts to pick up in September (or even a little earlier). The average American celebrant plan to spend $108 and some change on Halloween stuff this year. Not bad.

To put this in perspective, the average family spends $5 per person celebrating Thanksgiving Day and about $75 per household to celebrate the Fourth of July. As far as spending goes, Halloween is a mid-tier retail holiday.

By the time September 1st rolls around every year, shoppers have already spent about $500M on Halloween-related purchases. That means, Back-to-School, Labor Day, Halloween spending, and holiday shopping now officially overlap every year. But most Halloween spending (55 percent of it) happens in October.

WHICH MEANS…

Right now, they’re planning, Pinning, bookmarking, saving, Liking, Following, “tutorialing” and budgeting. So, it’s the perfect time to roll out your Halloween marketing campaign on social media to help you sell a lot now and sell even more over the next few months

Halloween Trends for 2023 

The world’s spookiest retail event is growing, but it’s also evolving in some really important ways. We’ve put together a list of the things we see in the data that are shifting in this space. Plus, tips on how you can leverage this info to help you better target your Halloween marketing campaigns. And of course, each one of these ideas provides a seamless opportunity for you to incorporate influencer marketing, even if you’re not necessarily working with Halloween influencers.

Halloween Trend #1: TikTok and Instagram are the top social platforms for Halloween inspo.

According to Statista, Instagram and TikTok top the list of social media platforms consumers rely on for ideas, with 32 percent of those surveyed saying they used those platforms to get inspired.  

Other popular platforms including YouTube and Pinterest are named among the top sources of Halloween inspiration for both decorations and costume ideas.

According to the Statista: 

• 30 percent of Gen Zers and 26 percent of all adults turn to YouTube – FYI, men are more likely than women to default to YouTube
• 29 percent of Gen Zers and 21 percent of adults turn to Pinterest for ideas and shopping, and women are more than twice as likely to go to Pinterest than men
• 17 of Gen Zers and 29 percent of all adults turn to Facebook

It’s interesting to note that in 2021, Facebook reigned supreme as the top social channel for inspo, but as Gen Z ages up, visual platforms become the most important channels for brands trying to reach Gen Zers, after search and in-store displays.

According to everyone’s favorite idea engine (Pinterest), consumers start their Halloween-related searches as early as May. From May to October, Halloween-related search volume on the platform consistently increases month over month. 

How to Use This In Your Marketing Strategy

It’s always a good bet to know where your audience is spending time online. We know that younger consumers a skewing toward platforms that display content based on interest not relationship, namely TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. These could be pretty keen signals that this group searches for Halloween-related content topically (i.e. “Stranger Things costume ideas” or “funny Halloween costumes for couples”). That means you need to lean into creating content that focuses on a single topic and that the content is optimized for that topic. By that, we mean optimize posts with hashtags and the words you use in your caption, and optimize your rich media so it’s searchable online.

Halloween Trend #2: Pop Culture Is In, Cultural Appropriation Is Out

Now, if you recall, in 2020, Pinterest was the go-to spot for politically correct Halloween ideas. The platform actually launched the Cultures Aren’t Costumes campaign to provide cultural context for costume ideas to minimize the likelihood that searchers would choose costumes that could offend. Good Housekeeping published a really great article on cultural appropriation and Halloween just last week.

What Is Cultural Appropriation?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, cultural appropriation is the “unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.”

To keep it simple: we don’t poke fun at groups of people, conditions, cultures, lifestyles, ideologies, or circumstances.

Cultural Appropriation is a sticky topic right now because many of us are unlearning colloquialisms, behaviors, and practices that we didn’t even realize were harmful.

Case in point: we recently published a statement on why we were moving away from the terms “whitelisting” and “blacklisting” and instead using “allow listing” and “deny listing.” Truth is, you can’t really do better until you know better. And it’s the responsibility of every individual to be ever on the search to know more and to know better.

Pop Culture Is a Yes

I have two words for you: Wednesday Addams.

Over the weekend, we shared a bit of family fun at Six Flags Over Georgia, trying our darnedest to get out of the park by 6pm so my little kids wouldn’t have to face the park’s hired ghouls. We failed. Kids got scared. Tears were shed. But let me tell you – we saw our fair share of elementary school-aged girls decked out in Wednesday Addams costumes. (I honestly didn’t even realize that show was for kids. So, my kids aren’t oblivious, but they have very little first-hand experience with any of the Addams Family titles.)

While the most popular costumes still include the typical stuff – superheroes, princesses, and witches – Wednesday Addams made its debut at #10 on the list of the top children’s while Barbiecore landed a bit higher debuting in the top 3 Halloween costumes for adults, and #7 for kids.

How to Use This In Your Marketing Strategy

Tap into what’s hot culturally, whether that’s Wednesday Addams or the Kelce x Swift combo. You can hop on Google Trends and Pinterest to see what’s hot.

What about a costume tool? Google FrightGeist is an interactive tool that can show what’s trending in different parts of the country. Plus, it has a Costume Wizard, which is a recommender tool that allows users to input a few parameters and then recommends a costume based on the user inputs.

It’s fun, actually – told me Pikachu would be the best costume for me.

Halloween Trend #3: Halloween Experiences

Experiences are a BIG part of Halloween celebrations. This year, nearly 1 in 3 Halloween celebrants are heading to a party or an event.

Among Halloween celebrants, 68 percent plan to hand out candy, 50 percent will decorate their home or yard, 50 percent will wear costumes, 46 percent will carve a pumpkin, 32 percent will throw or attend a party.

Haunted Attractions

Hey. remember when haunted houses were literally a 4-person cart zigzagging on a rickety track through the detached container of an 18-wheeler? I do.

Today, the haunted house industry is… well, an industry. I want to tread lightly here, as the haunted attraction industry is still formalizing despite its explosive growth, and it’s not easy to find up-to-date stats.

Back in 2013, NBC News reported Americans spent around $7 billion celebrating Halloween. At that time, there were 2,500 haunted attractions around the world, most of which were in the United States. The haunted house industry was generating $300 million a year in revenue then.

Since then, overall Halloween sales have grown by 30 percent, and Halloween participation is up 11 percent. It makes sense to assume the haunted attraction market has experienced growth as well. What used to be a six-week season leading up to Halloween extends through the year as Spring Screams events during spring break, and escape rooms housed in malls (we have an escape room in the small town in which I live as well as the local mall, Sugarloaf Mills, which is packed with all kinds of attractions, a handful of whom are designed to at least creep you out, even if you won’t admit to being scared.

The Detroit Free Press recently reported the arrival of Nightmare on Bagley, a pop-up horror restaurant that’s slated to serve customers from 5pm to 11pm through November 5th.

@detroitdar

On Bagley has officially opened up there halloween themed bar ! Its Wed-Sunday 5-Midnight ! Yall check them out before it ends

♬ original sound – DetroitDar

There are now 4000 haunted attractions in the U.S, not including the haunts you can check out in the local amusement park. In the U.S., about 20 percent of the 240 million+ people planning to celebrate Halloween are also planning to visit a haunted attraction. That’s 48 million people. The average haunted attraction costs between $15 and $20 per person, with theme parks charging as much as $100 per person. I would estimate today, the haunted industry rakes in close to $1 billion a year, which HauntWorld.com backs up. Here’s a great quote I grabbed from Listverse: There are more haunted houses in the United States than Targets.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

Experiences are the bee’s knees, man. And the popularity of attractions is proof-positive that adults – not kids – are the target audience this Halloween. Haunted attractions have been labeled a 100 percent American export. The fastest-growing market for haunted attractions outside the U.S is the Asian market.

As well, the rise of computer-generated graphics in Hollywood movies has created an opportunity for makeup artists who specialize in film makeup and horror makeup to offer their services – at least on a part-time basis – to haunted attractions to help create different looks.

Lastly, the emergence of year-round extreme haunts and offshoots of haunted attractions like haunted hayrides, zombie paintball, escape rooms, and virtual haunted houses are on the rise, and making their post-pandemic comeback.

The science behind haunted attractions is that they provide a way for people to be downright terrified and to legitimately feel threatened but have an “out” so to speak. Haunted attractions are a great way to be afraid and in a safe place at the same time.

Corporate backing and sponsorships of haunted attractions are on the rise. Melissa Cardone’s Ten Thirty-One Productions creates spooky hayrides and other haunted events in both Los Angeles and New York. Cardone got a $2 million investment (for a 20 percent stake in her company) from Mark Cuban during her “Shark Tank” pitch in 2013.

Consolidation among producers of larger haunted attractions is becoming the norm in the haunt industry, due in part to the fact that this generation simply doesn’t scare as easily. And it’s getting more and more expensive for smaller attractions to acquire the type of equipment needed to compete with the larger haunts.

I get it – you may not be ready to drop two rocks on a haunted attraction like Mark Cuban can, but partnerships may make sense for you business. For instance, drink startups may consider striking a deal with haunt production companies to provide energy drinks, soda, water, or novelty foods. Smaller brands could target local haunts to provide novelty items, screen-printed apparel, or partner programs that provide discounts for haunted house patrons who visit their establishment within the same day.

Halloween Trend #4: Candy Sales Are Up; Trick-or-treating is Making a Comeback.

As you would probably expect, two of the most popular categories for Halloween spending are candy and costumes, both of which are fueled, in large part by trick-or-treaters. When Taboola analyzed searches around the term “candy bar” in the fall of 2021, it reported searches were 2495 percent higher in the 90 days leading up to October than they were for all of 2021.

According to the National Retail Federation, in 2023, 96 percent of Halloween celebrants are planning to buy candy to celebrate, while 77 percent plan to spend money on decorations. Sixty-nine percent are planning to buy costumes (for themselves, their kids, and/or their pets), and 39 percent of Halloweeners plan to pick out Halloween cards.

While candy is definitely the most popular item people will buy for Halloween, it doesn’t account for most of the Halloween spending. The 96 percent of people who will buy candy will spend about $3.6 billion, while the 69 percent of people planning to buy Halloween costumes will be responsible for $4.1 billion in Halloween spending.

First, fewer families are venturing out for trick-or-treating than they have historically. In 2016, fewer than 1 in 3 Halloweeners planned to go trick-or-treating, which, until then, was the lowest participation rate in recent history. Throw in a global pandemic and the number of people who planned to take their kids out to hunt for candy by 2021 was fewer than 1 in 4, but that numbers inching up as we get back to pre-pandemic Halloween activities.

Another key contributing factor may be something we talked about in our back-to-school post and that’s that there are fewer school-aged kids in the neighborhoods these days. America’s aging up.

Family-friendly alternatives to trick-or-treating are cropping up all over the place. More community-focused Halloween activities are on the rise. So, while going door-to-door to get candy doesn’t seem to be as popular anymore, attending fall or Halloween events sponsored by local businesses or community organizations is gaining traction.

Older Halloweeners are further solidifying the “experiences” trend for Halloween by throwing costume parties and participating in fashion shows to display their costumes. More people are planning to throw or attend a Halloween party this year than go trick or treating – 25 percent compared to 24 percent. For young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 years old, 43 percent of them have set their sights on a Halloween party.

And let’s face it – experiences like fashion shows and parties make for more engaging social media posts than trick-or-treating. These are also events that would work well as part of an event-based influencer marketing strategy.

Here’s a Halloween marketing idea for ya: Host a community event (online or offline)

In our post on Halloween marketing ideas for local small businesses, one of the ways we recommended brands boost their visibility and stay top-of-mind as we roll into the winter holiday season is to get involved in local Halloween festivities by sponsoring or hosting events like trunk-or-treat, drive-thru trick-or-treating for families, and even sponsoring costume contests.

This tactic employs Robert Cialdini’s rule of reciprocity, encouraging people (in this instance, it would probably be parents of the trick-or-treaters) to remember and patronize businesses that have offered something of value to their kids. Your good will won’t be lost on your customers.

Here are some ways this can shake out in an influencer marketing campaign…

Makeup brands can work with Halloween influencers or MUAs who specialize in horror and special effects makeup looks to teach parents and teens how to add gore or whimsy to the costumes of older kids using regular drugstore makeup. In high school, I went trick-or-treating as 1982 Carrie (the way she looked after that kiss from The Greatest American Hero made John Travolta and the blond dump pig blood all over her). We could never nail any makeup looks, so we had to go for themes.

L’Oreal has a specific Halloween Makeup Looks board on Pinterest where you can grab ideas and purchase products to create the different looks. Once you’ve chosen one, you can click on the pins to get the full tutorial and information on the products used.

Side note: The board repopulates its results when you sign in based on your previous searches around skin tone, hair texture, other content you’ve engaged with in the past.

Skincare brands can distribute samples of wipes and cleansing scrubs at costume parties, fashion shows, and dance clubs where local radio stations may be having costume contests on or before the big day. Costume makeup is no joke to get off.

If you’re interested in getting to kids and parents, publicize the event on social media by partnering with local influencers on Facebook and TikTok. You can supply local stores with branded, reusable canvas bags strong enough to hold treats on the big night then be reused after Halloween can get your name in front of parents. The goal is to go where the party is and find creative ways to get your products in front of partygoers.

Halloween Trend #5: Large Outdoor Decorations – We’re Doing It Big!!

Both the Halloween and Christmas seasons saw jumps in decoration sales as people sought safe ways to drum up holiday spirit while maintaining social distance. So, if you’re wondering if you’ve just been ignoring all the giant scarecrows and metal pumpkin yard stakes all these years, you haven’t. Super-sizing our fall decor is just one of the ways we’re trying to keep the melancholy away and solidify our new normal.

And these high-tech Halloween decorations present great photo opps for passersby.

Per-household spending on Halloween decorations is up more than 50 percent over the last ten years from $20.99 per household to $34.76 per household this year. Not a bunch, right? Doesn’t seem like a huge shift in Halloween spending. But we’re talking a jump from $2.4 billion spent on decorations in 2016 and $2.6 billion spent in 2019 and 2020 to $3.9 billion in 2023. And it’s worth noting that 32 percent of Halloweeners are planning to reuse at least some of their decorations.

In 2017, decorations tied with candy for second place in the top four Halloween spending categories. By 2018, people were spending more on their streamers, ghoulish cardboard cutouts, plastic cauldrons, dangling skeletons, perpetually hissing black cats and other creepily creative Halloween home decor than they were on candy. In 2023, 77 percent of Halloweeners are planning to buy decorations, totaling $3.9 billion.

How to use this info in your marketing strategy

Halloween decorators aren’t limited to the stuff you find in the discount stores. And people aren’t always so thrilled to throw purple and orange into their home decor. Both good news because it provides brands with an opportunity to help Halloween shoppers dream up Halloween decorating ideas that won’t ruin their decor.

Share Halloween Accent Ideas

For companies that sell home goods, crafts, used items, furniture, or interior design services the goal should be generating and sharing ideas that include your products. Think about coming up with ideas that will allow customers to transition their interior design from Halloween to Thanksgiving without completing revamping their home.

In the post below, I spy with my little eye… a chic white ottoman, what looks like a vintage clock – similar to something you’d grab from a resale shop and paint black, bats made from construction paper (hello, crafting with the kids!), an oversized mug I can make myself or pick up from my local discount store, a comfy-looking couch, decorative pillows that can be store-bought or made with a little bit of fabric.

Bonus: When it’s time for Thanksgiving, one would only have to swap out the pillows and the blanket, remove or replace the bats, and add warmer colors to the existing collection of knickknacks to make the Halloween-to-Harvest transition simple.

Know what would be cool? A post that shows how a shopper can double-down on seasonal decor by telling them how to use $57 to decorate for both Halloween and Thanksgiving. Something like…

• Spend up to $7 at your favorite Goodwill or local resale shop on an accent piece (clock, oversized plate, creepy painting (resale shops are BRIMMING with horrible, homemade artwork that can easily be rebranded as kitschy.
• Buy 3 yards of the z-pattern fabric from Joann Fabric (on clearance this week for $3.97/yd)
• Buy 5 yards of orange fabric from Walmart (regular price $1.99/yd)
• Buy 3-piece floating shelves from Walmart $10.99

And so on and so on…

Craft-related brands already know how to make the most of this holiday. To go a step further, think about decorations that can easily transition to Thanksgiving. You can find a lot of ideas on lifestyle blogs, like this one.

This is a cute idea for DIY ghost candles from @kailochic that I just saw in my IG feed. Inspo is everywhere.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kara Whitten (@kailochic)

Create Transformation Videos

Another smart idea for creating Halloween marketing campaigns or themed content is to show and not just tell. This strategy translates really well on social media.

Take this example from Lowe’s Home Improvement. They created a campaign where they showed, through Instagram stories, how to transform a vertical space from drag to fab.

Another Halloween marketing idea: Mis En Scene the HECK out of your office or store

So, this Halloween is going to have a lot to do with setting the mood, and getting people in the holiday spirit without necessarily having to get them into the store to do it. People are shopping earlier. Even as we write this article, we’re only a few days out from the second Prime Day of the year. And this is the perfect time to focus on boosting your visibility with some fun decorating ideas.

• Update your window displays, storefront or facade with over-the-top holiday-inspired decorations.
• Add offbeat Halloween elements to offices, conference rooms, and break rooms in parts of your office or building that are okay to post on social.
• Sponsor a local haunt or a crawl of the 10 best Halloween decorations (with the owners’ permission and some fanfare, of course)

This may seem like a small thing, but it isn’t. You want your audience to like, trust, and support you. And that starts by being a brand that is actively engaged in your community – whether online or offline.

Consumers are looking to spend money with companies whose culture and values they can support. According to The 2020 Zeno Strength of Purpose research, when it comes to patronizing purposeful brands, consumers are:

• 4 times more likely to purchase from the company   
• 6 times more likely to protect the company in the event of a misstep or public criticism   
• 4.5 times more likely to champion the company and recommend it to friends and family   
• 4.1 times more likely to trust the company  

Halloween Trend #6: DIY Halloween Costumes Are Inflation-Proof

Interestingly enough, even though more people are planning to spend money on decorations than on costumes, Halloween costume expenditures make up the largest share of Halloween spending.

Come on… don’t you remember how excited you were to dress up in your not-so-ridiculous pumpkin suit, Ghostbusters outfit or a witch with the most awesome pointy hat and magical wand?

Of all the moms and dads who get dragged out on Halloween to beg strangers for sweets, Millennials are one group of adults who may be doing it willingly… without the kids.

How to use this info in your Halloween marketing strategy

A great Halloween costume is worth its weight in Likes, shares, and retweets. But for Millennials and Gen Z partiers, there’s likely to be a little innovation as well. That usually means planning well in advance and sourcing ideas on social media instead of store racks.

More than 30 percent of Halloween shoppers will source inspiration from online searches, compared to the 26 percent that will go in-store to find ideas. That means your content strategy has to get you found in searches for popular search terms like…

• Halloween costume ideas (enormous number of monthly searches for this one with very little competition, comparatively)
• Halloween costume ideas for couples (another big one)
• DIY Halloween costume ideas
• Creative Halloween costume ideas
• Halloween costume ideas for groups (another surprisingly big one)

That said, creating visual content that ties your brand into Halloween-related themes is key. Pinterest is an invaluable tool for sourcing inspiration for looks of all kinds. Even if your team does most of its targeting on Facebook and Instagram, it will only help you to partner with influencers who can help you repurpose your content for Pinterest, YouTube, and IGTV.

But you’re certainly not limited to just costumes and Halloween looks.

LUSH COSMETICS HALLOWEEN SKINCARE

We’re pretty fond of Lush Cosmetics. Lush has run some pretty eye-catching social campaigns (there was even one where everybody was naked!), and this one is actually pretty cool because it’s a branded Halloween post (#LushHalloween) that isn’t the typical Halloween promo post.

The post is promoting a detoxifying green tea face mask. But there’s no CTA. No coupon code. No talk about the mask being great for Halloween or for restoring skin after piling on horror makeup. And that’s part of what makes it effective as a Halloween marketing post.

Halloween Trend #7: Millennials Are Aging Up, But Refusing to Age Out of Halloween

That’s it. That’s the whole trend. Halloween is more popular than it’s ever been, and the most active cohort is those ages 25 to 44 years old. The oldest millennials are 43 years old this year, and the youngest are around 27 years old, and they’ve gone from trick-or-treating to haunted attractions and spooky bar crawls.

Much of this continued ctivity can probably be attributed to parenthood – taking their kids out for Halloween – and homeownership – really going big on the decorations.

Halloween Trend#8: Halloween At Work

A significant part of our most recent post on Halloween marketing had to do with the concept of bringing Halloween to life at work by doing things like creating Halloween pop-ups that were gram-worthy, holding costume contests for employees, sponsoring a Halloween event for the local kids, and a few other really cool ideas that work for brands whether or not they sell Halloween-related products.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

Fun fact: 1 in every 10 Halloween searches on Pinterest is related to office decor. So, the opportunity is there for you to suggest cool items for people to use to add a splash of Halloween spirit to their workspaces or even to transform entire office into haunted rooms.

Halloween Trend #9: Pet Costumes

Pet costumes account for 10 percent of total spending on Halloween costumes. In 2016, owners spent $420 million on Halloween costumes for their pets. A year later, that number was $440 million. That’s because 1 in 5 Halloween celebrants plan to dress up their pets for Halloween. This year, $700 million is being spent on Halloween costumes for pets.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

The pet industry is notoriously bulletproof. In 2020, 70 percent of U.S. households had pets. Heck, we’ve had a pig, hamster, three dogs, and for a short while, an orphaned squirrel just in the last two years. #lifeinthecountry

There is an opportunity here for marketers to zero in the focus for this Halloween on the furry friends who are considered members of every 7 in 10 households in America.

Marketers can do that by sponsoring live or virtual pet costume contests or fashion shows, or pet-person costume contests, and do it by creating a branded hashtag or using an existing one like #doghalloween (103,351 posts currently) or #doghalloweencostume (111,728 posts currently).

An easy voting system would be having users comment or double-tap. The comments and double taps will help you to boost engagement and provide one metric for determining the success of your campaign.

Halloween Trend #10: Pop Culture Costumes

Coincident with Millennials taking ownership of Halloween is a trend toward sourcing costume inspiration from pop culture. TV character costumes, Halloween meme costumes, and celebrity costumes are on the rise. Overall, 11 percent of those polled said pop culture would inspire their costumes. For older Gen Zers and younger Millennials who fall in the age range of 18 – 24, that number was 34 percent – one in three.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

The first tip is to stay relevant by keeping up on trends. And a simple way to do this is with Twitter and Instagram. A 10-minute cursory view of both platforms once a day will do wonders for you marketing strategies. If your team is able to push out content in hours instead of days, you can capitalize on trends in real time.

The next tip is to help people use what they may already have in their house. The Internet went sorta nuts a couple years ago when a 2016 lecture at Getty Museum entitled Designing the Middle Ages: The Costumes of Game of Thrones was mentioned in an article on Apartment Therapy that revealed Ikea rugs are used as capes on the popular HBO show Game of Thrones. The news increased online searches of Ikea’s SKOLD rug by 775 percent. Of course, Ikea released its own official instructions for recreating the GoT look with a pretty funny sketch.

Halloween Trend #11: Grocery Stores are the New Front Porch

So, did anyone else have to take their candy to the police station to be scanned by the officers growing up, or was it just me? I remember the fun I had as a kid dressing up and trick-or-treating. I also remember CAREFULLY EATING candies that cleared the scan (not all did) hoping Daddy and his cop buddies got all the bad ones out.

Local businesses and community organizations have been taking an active role in reimagining Halloween without all the risks I had to take as a child. As a parent, this is one of my favorite Halloween trends. The idea of handing my little girls a piece of “some guy’s candy” is… umm… not really optimal.

Two years ago, I was in no hurry to get home and spend all evening denying the neighborhood kids treats, so my kids and I stopped off for a few groceries before heading home. I was surprised to discover Halloween had been moved inside the grocery store – in the produce section.

So, in addition to picking up groceries, we spent more than two hours at my local Kroger playing in a bouncy house, decorating cookies, collecting treats, and playing games. My older daughter hung out with friends from school who were working as ghosts and operating games. My toddlers – though not in costumes like the other kids – got to “go fish” in the produce section… unfortunately, they traded the fruit they fished out for candy.

Weird choice, Kroger. Then again… probably much cheaper choice.

The point is my desire to avoid Halloween unwittingly put me smack dab in the middle of a community Halloween party.

And it’s not just my neighborhood. More and more, retailers are becoming the community Halloween hubs because yeah… COVID.

Plus, it’s hard to uphold the “stranger danger” message when Halloween is so awesome for kids.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

Create family-friendly experiences that parents (like me) can use to distract their kids from the fact that their friends are trick-or-treating. Usually, it’s not that kids want so badly to go; it’s more FOMO – they don’t want to miss out on all the fun their friends are having.

Your Halloween festivities can be the fun thing they look forward to this year. Marketers can use this time to not only build goodwill in their communities, but to introduce parents to new products like gummy vitamins (please, please, please somebody make more nutritious gummies for kids!), sauces, salad mixes, hand wipes, and snack ideas. Let them test the products for free at your event and you will get parents who are happy to add your product to their weekly or monthly shopping lists.

About half the things on my shopping list landed there because I got to try it for free first. Speaking of…

The fine folks at La Colombe can thank Ibotta for the thousands I’ll likely spend on draft lattes (genius idea). I literally have to go out of my way to get them, but… I get ‘em.

Halloween Trend #12: Gender Neutral Costumes

Of the $3.2 billion spent on Halloween costumes last year, $1.17 billion of that was specifically for children’s costumes. But for the past few years, the focus for both boys and girls has been on superhero costumes, relegating the former top costume choice of a princess to second place on the list of kids’ costumes.

The trend toward gender-neutral costumes pushes against the idea of traditional girl or boy costumes. And it’s not really about girls wearing costumes intended for boys. It’s more about there being more female heroes from which to choose.

Were I to venture a best guess at the costume my preschooler would pick in a perfect world, I would say Colonel Nick Fury (not sure why she likes him so much), Megamind (again, what?), Thanos (she sees his point), Hawekeye (full disclosure: her older sister teaches archery), and Captain America’s shield.

Yeah. Just the shield. So…

She’s no unicorn. For the past few years, it’s been superhero costumes that have been the top sellers for kids regardless of age or gender.

How to Use This Info in Your Marketing Strategy

You can win loyal fans and generate content that gets shared with parents who support gender neutral costumes (and who often can’t find what they’re looking for) by helping parents source the right suppliers (which you can do by repinning Pinterest pins) or by creating content that gives parents simple DIY instructions for customizing their outfits for the best fit, look, and experience for the kids.

Halloween Trend #13: Halloween Has Officially Become a Thing in Some MENA Countries

Time to expand your ad targeting. Think With Google reports a 26 percent increase in Halloween-related searches in MENA countries this year after the holiday made its debut in in Saudi Arabia last year.

Much like what’s happening here, many of the costume-related searches are being fueled by the content people are watching on Netflix and other streaming services. For instance, Google reports that “search interest for ‘Squid Game costume‘ and ‘Cruella costume‘ crept up 900% and 215% respectively year-on-year.”

Candy searches are also up in the region with searches for “candy corn” being up 150 percent and searches for Halloween candy up 165 percent year-over-year.

This Year’s Big Wrap-Up Isn’t Really That Scary

The big takeaway here is that people are loosening their hold on candy and trick-or-treating as the be all end all of Halloween. This current evolution of Halloween trends means there’s room for brands to dream up family friend experiences… or horrifying ones. Depends on your brand and your demographic.

Is anyone else thinking this is an amazing eyeshadow color? Source: Instagram @worldofsfx

But the one thing that is consistent throughout all eight of the trends we talked about here is that the experience you create has to be grand enough, interesting enough, and unique enough to make it into your customer’s Instagram feed. That’s the ultimate goal.

About This Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will build your brand and get your audience to do a thing.

The post 13 Halloween Trends That Can Help Marketers Fuel Their Winter Holiday Campaigns appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Historically, consumers have rolled right from back-to-school spending into Halloween and winter shopping. See… look at this Pinterest interest calendar.

This year, with inflation bumming everybody out holiday shopping will likely start even earlier this year than it did last year (which was October-ish). 

The trends shaping consumer behavior are changing. As brands and marketers gear up for a competitive season, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to the evolving landscape. 

We can read the tea leaves, so to speak, to get a good idea of how the back-to-school trends we’ve seen this year will inform holiday spending AND your holiday marketing. 

So, let’s dive in and unpack the nitty-gritty consumer trends that’ll help you rock your year-end influencer marketing game like never before.

1. Inflation Woes: The Great Spending Divide

Okay, folks, here’s the deal. Inflation is playing its part in creating a divided shopping scene. People with deeper pockets are spending more cash to offset those pesky higher prices. On the flip side, those with tighter budgets are cutting back… because of higher prices. 

This means shoppers are starting their gift hunts earlier in the season and stretching them over a longer period, flipping Black Friday into more of a mega deal day than the ultimate shopping kick-off. 

Oh, we can’t overlook the “R” word? Yep, there’s a chance a recession might join the holiday party this year – the recession is an on-again, off-again narrative at this point. Even still, folks are on the hunt for bargains, even willing to switch up their loyalty for a killer deal.

Action Plan: Offer Smart Deals and Value-Packed Bundles

• Collaborate with influencers to promote your big sales, irresistible deals, and exclusive bundles that provide genuine value to budget-conscious shoppers.
• Roll out a mix of promotions that start long before and last way beyond Black Friday, capturing the extended shopping window. Make sure to communicate these extended offers through influencer partnerships and brand ambassadorships.
• Leverage influencers to emphasize the value and savings that customers will enjoy, helping to offset the impact of rising prices.

2. Fatigue: Let’s Talk Exhaustion

Crisis fatigue. Financial fatigue. Fatigue fatigue. Raise your hand if you’re tired. Like, really… friggin’ tired.

The “everything everywhere all at once” vibe? Over it. Weariness has left consumers feeling exhausted and disengaged.

While fatigue certainly sucks as a holiday trend, it’s likely one that will impact the way you market and get your message out this year. Why? Because this fatigue is contributing to a decline in the appetite for old-school sponsored posts. So, if your higher-ups are still demanding creators with heavily curated feeds and color aesthetics…

(Sigh) Nudge them into 2023.

As consumers seek authentic and meaningful interactions with content creators, community leaders, and brands they’re rolling their eyes at the one-off sales pitches masked as lifestyle posts from social media creators. 

Is influencer marketing dead then? I promise you, people have been asking that question for years, and the answer is always “No, the industry is maturing and growing.”

But to counteract message fatigue, brands, and marketers have to revamp how they see influencer activations and shift their focus from peddling their wares to building out interconnected marketing campaigns across different channels that can cut through the noise to offer genuine value and relatability.

In other words, you need your content to resonate and connect with your audience. And influencers are experts at knowing how to connect with their audience.

Action Plan: Create Authentic and Uplifting Content

• Craft influencer campaigns that focus on positivity, self-care, and mental well-being; prioritize pushing content that will resonate with weary consumers.
• Encourage influencers to share personal stories and experiences that inspire and uplift, establishing a genuine emotional connection.
• Team up with content creators who can authentically connect with their audiences and provide a refreshing break from the chaos. One of our all-time favorite creators is Trey Kennedy – someone who is a MASTER at short skits. Check out the content he created for [yellow tail’s] Fresh Twist campaign (that was us, btw) – it’s hilarious, feel-good content.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Trey Kennedy (@treynkennedy)

3. Phygital Experiences: Where Online Meets Offline

Hold on to your hats – the age of “phygital” is upon us. I actually quite like that word, though each time I say it, I cringe just a little. But… yeah, phygital – the blurring of the line between physical and digital experiences. 

Apps are the magic glue weaving together online and offline shopping adventures. People aren’t just browsing online; they’re using their online experiences to fuel their in-store shenanigans. This is true across generations, and surprisingly, it’s also true of younger generations as well, even those who are most likely to shop online.  

According to GWI, 52 percent of US Gen Z consumers prefer to shop online, while 48 percent prefer to shop in-store. They’re basically heading into the store to check out goodies they spotted on their social feeds.

Action Plan: Merge Digital and In-Store Experiences

• Partner with influencers to create content that bridges the gap between online discovery and in-store exploration, encouraging shoppers to experience products firsthand.
• Highlight products in influencer content that are available both online and in physical stores, showcasing the convenience of cross-channel shopping.
• Collaborate with influencers to promote in-store events, pop-up shops, or exclusive offers, driving traffic to brick-and-mortar locations.

4. Social Media Ads: Your Holiday Inspiration Hub

Psst! Social media ads are where it’s at. About half of shoppers are more likely to hit up a brand’s website after seeing a social media ad. That’s way more than those who visit a brand’s website after receiving an email. So, team up with influencers and get your holiday inspo out there at the perfect moment.

Action Plan: Make Your Social Media Campaigns Irresistible

• Repurpose the coolest influencer content (assuming you have the content rights, of course) as social media ads that feature products and promotions that resonate with their followers.
• Leverage influencer stories, reels, and posts to showcase the value, benefits, and must-have nature of your holiday offerings.
• Utilize influencers’ storytelling abilities to create narratives that inspire action and evoke emotion, prompting viewers to visit your website or store.

5. Surges in Resale Shopping: Sustainability Rocks

While 1 in 5 back-to-school shoppers are making do with last year’s stuff, resale shopping is expected to have its time in the spotlight this holiday season. More than 1 in 6 holiday gifts (around 17 percent) will be second-hand goodies. Bonus: That’s 32 billion pounds of landfill waste avoided by some clever thrifters! Yep, folks are all about snagging pre-loved treasures and saying no to waste. 

Action Plan: Champion Sustainability and Second-Hand Finds

• Collaborate with influencers who align with eco-friendly values and promote the concept of gifting and receiving pre-loved items.
• Showcase the quality and uniqueness of resale products through influencer-generated content, highlighting the sustainability angle.
• Create influencer campaigns that celebrate the circular economy and position your brand as a champion of conscious consumption.

6. Deal-Seeking Behavior: The Price Tag Priority

According to Inc., 60 percent of Gen-Zers say that they can (and will) replicate any fashion trend cheaply. Show us the way, oh sensei. Perhaps the most definitive of the holiday trends this year is this one: bargain hunting is the new black.

Last year, better pricing was the top reason consumers switched brands, as economic conditions prompted a shift away from YOLOing and towards more price-sensitive shopping. Consumers are picking brands based on deals and promotions rather than leaning harder into brand loyalty. Brace yourselves for a deal-driven season, and make sure your influencer content sings the value song loud and clear.

Action Plan: Highlight Deals and Exclusive Offers

• Develop influencer content that focuses on the cost-saving aspects of your products, emphasizing the value and benefits of purchasing.
• And speaking of value, play it up. This could be in the form of getting discounts on subsequent products, a rewards program that provides freebies, the swiss-army-knife-type utility of your product, or any number of bonuses that will help you convey the benefits and value of your products.
• Collaborate with influencers to create comparison content that demonstrates the savings customers can enjoy by choosing your brand over competitors. Just don’t mention your competitors.

7. Buy Now Pay Later vs Credit Cards: The Payment Tango

There’s also a bit of a payment revolution happening. Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) is making waves as consumers try to minimize making purchases with high-interest credit cards. 

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. BNPL defaults are up among the younger crowd, and companies are nudging the rising costs of funding purchases onto consumers. Add to that that with defaults being more likely as people try to manage the cost-of-living crisis, it’s harder for consumers to get approved for BNPL purchases now than it was a year ago.

Action Plan: Provide Flexible Payment Options

• Incorporate Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) messaging in influencer campaigns, highlighting the convenience and flexibility of this payment method.
• Work with influencers to educate consumers about the benefits of BNPL and address common concerns or misconceptions.
• Promote in-store payment alternatives through influencer content, showcasing how shoppers can seamlessly make purchases on their terms.

8. Inspire, Engage, and Personalize: The VIP Treatment

Another big one holiday trend this year? Personalization.

Personalization is the name of the game. People want to feel seen, heard, and understood. Brands, this is where you shine. Use that customer data to craft tailored experiences that make your shoppers feel like the ultimate VIPs. And guess what? Influencers can totally help you nail this game.

Action Plan: Tailor Experiences and Connect on a Personal Level

• Collaborate with influencers who can authentically represent your brand and engage with their audience in a personalized manner.
• Leverage influencer insights to craft tailored influencer marketing campaigns that cater to specific customer preferences and needs.
• Encourage influencers to share personal testimonials and experiences with your products, establishing a relatable and authentic connection.

9. The Focus on Ease: Smooth Sailing Shopping

Okay, let’s chat about returns. They’re like the unsung heroes of the shopping universe. A hassle-free return process, crystal-clear policies, and top-notch customer support are golden tickets to customer satisfaction. Heads-up, though: 93 percent of shoppers check the return policy before buying, and 81 percent have ghosted a brand after a bad return experience.

Action Plan: Streamline Return Policies and Customer Support

• Partner with influencers to create content that educates shoppers about your hassle-free return process, emphasizing clarity and ease.
• Highlight customer success stories and positive return experiences through influencer testimonials, showcasing your commitment to customer satisfaction.
• Collaborate with influencers to provide step-by-step guides on how to initiate returns and utilize customer support, ensuring a seamless and stress-free experience.

10. Unified Shopping Experiences: Get Omni-Savvy

Drumroll, please – it’s time for the omnichannel extravaganza! Social media’s role is growing like wildfire. And get this: social media traffic referrals shot up 27 percent in the first quarter of 2023. The key? Influential content creators who understand the digital-physical blend and can guide shoppers through a seamless buying journey.

Action Plan: Create Cohesive Omnichannel Journeys

• Develop influencer campaigns that seamlessly guide shoppers through the entire buying journey, from initial discovery on social media to in-store or online checkout.
• Encourage influencers to showcase products both online and in physical stores, leveraging their influence to drive traffic to various touchpoints.
• Collaborate with influencers to promote omnichannel experiences, such as exclusive online offers redeemable in-store or vice versa, encouraging a holistic shopping approach.

Final Thought on This Year’s Holiday Trends

So, there you have it, the lowdown on the holiday trends shaking up the 2023 holiday shopping season and a handy little playbook of actionable strategies. Buckle up, get creative, and let’s make this holiday season a shopping extravaganza to remember!

About the Author

Sorilbran Stone | Content Strategist

I serve as the resident content strategist and the official Head of Content Marketing at The Shelf. Marketing is my happy place. I’m as happy looking at analytics as I am actually creating a thing. I focus a lot on dreaming up and implementing the best ways to create, publish, and distribute content that will builds our brand and gets our readers to do a thing

The post 10 Holiday Trends to Power Your Fall Marketing Strategy appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Behold! The beauty of Konstantin’s design brilliance!! You’re such a friggin’ rock star, Konstantin.

COPY and PASTE THIS CODE to EMBED THIS GRAPHIC.

Now, let’s dig into the data.

How Much Back-to-School Shoppers Are Spending in 2023

The 2023 back-to-school spending season is expected to be the biggest one yet with consumers planning to spend a total of $135 billion in back-to-school and back-to-college spending.

Despite inflation shrinking the amount of bang shoppers can get for their B2S buck, K12 back-to-school shoppers will spend an average of $890 per household on school-related items, according to the National Retail Federation. With a few adjustments:

• B2S shoppers are hitting the stores earlier this year and spending most of their budget by the end of July (upwards of 59 percent of it, according to Deloitte.
• Shopping sustainably isn’t as much a priority this year as it was last year as deals and discounts take center stage.
• While the Dalios and Kyosakis of the world insist cash is trash, 77 percent of B2S shoppers are shopping with it, in lieu of charging purchases to their credit cards.

When it comes to back-to-college shopping, households are expecting to spend right around $1,370 this year. And this includes degree-earning moms and dads. To give you a little context, when we published the 2019 back-to-school post, spending on back-to-college supplies averaged about $977 per household. So, in the last four years, back-to-college spending has jumped 40 percent over where it was before the pandemic hit. And of course, that number doesn’t include tuition or housing expenses.

Deals Take Center Stage This Back-to-School Shopping Season

Okay, we are knee-deep in an economy that is in a fist-to-fist battle with inflation. In the current environment, the majority of back-to-school purchases will be influenced by deals and promotions this year.

The official start of the back-to-school spending season kicked off with a record-breaking Prime Day event that delivered $12.7 billion in sales for Amazon and its merchants. This year, nearly 7 in 10 back-to-school shoppers were planning to take advantage of Prime Day deals exclusively. Nearly 1 in 3 planned to shop other online deals during Prime Day, and 1 in 5 planned to shop in-store deals at other retailers during the Prime Day event.

Shoppers have already seen price increases on staples like apparel and paper. And this year, the idea of deals, discounts and value include conveniences such as easy returns, free returns (no restocking fees), and free shipping with order minimums of $30 or so.

But be warned: shoppers are fully prepared to switch brands if their preferred brand is out of stock or if the price of their preferred brand jumps significantly.

And there are differences in the importance discounts play for K12 back-to-school shopping vs back-to-college shopping. For instance, 45 percent of K12 shoppers will be shopping more sales and doing price comparisons online versus 37 percent of back-to-college shoppers who are zeroed in on finding deals.

Spending Categories: Back-to-School Shoppers Prioritize Necessities

School supplies and clothing remain the top spending categories. With inflation still kinda bossing everybody around, shoppers are compensating for the price increases by boosting their spending on school supplies by 20 percent while decreasing their spending on clothing/accessories and electronics by 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively according to Deloitte.

Across the board, parents, students, and back-to-school shoppers have seen an increase in prices:

• 77 percent of B2S shoppers report higher clothing prices
• 67 percent report higher prices on school supplies
• 59 percent report higher prices for shoes
• 58 percent report higher prices on electronics
• 23 percent say they’re paying more for furniture

Spending More vs Spending Less

Regardless of whether shoppers say they’re spending more or less on back-to-class shopping this year, pretty much all of them are pointing to inflation as the cause.

For shoppers who plan to spend less this year, 51 percent of them say it’s because they have less disposable income. Of those who plan to spend more this year, 75 percent of them say it’s because prices are higher this year. The sweet spot for retailers is to understand that price is of the utmost importance, but discounts, deals, and quality (value for your money) are the big influencers this year.

In-Store vs Online Shopping

We did a little digging in our article on back-to-school trends into the opportunity that exists for brands that are putting down roots in virtual environments. In previous years, we’ve only really looked at the YoY changes in the percentage of people who are shopping online versus those who are shopping in-store.

On the heels of a global pandemic, online schools, and the rise of advanced e-commerce capabilities, four in 10 back-to-school shoppers have been taking advantage of emerging technologies to make shopping safe and convenient. We’re talking shoppable social posts, sure. But also digital wallets, interactive video, and virtual reality. Keep that in mind as you’re structuring your influencer marketing strategies.

When we first rolled out our Back-to-School post back in 2016, e-commerce accounted for just 7.9 percent of back-to-school spending (based on 2015 b2s stats). In 2018, 23 percent of back-to-school spending happened online. This year, with stores open and school in session, 55 percent of back-to-school shoppers will be making some of their purchases online.

Back to School 2023 Is Here

The bright spot for kids is that going back to school often comes with a healthy shopping allowance. The bright spot for marketers is that school shopping often starts early, climaxes with AMAZING sales in mid-July, and glides right into the holiday shopping season.

And parents, well, they (and their wallets) get sort of jammed in between kids and brands, working out the logistics of it all. Use the back-to-school statistics, trends, and strategies to kickstart your winter influencer campaigns.

The post 2023 Back-to-School Spending Infographic + Tips to Rock Your Campaign appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

We’ve been mulling over reports and looking at social media to identify some of the new needs shoppers have that marketers can craft campaigns around. Take a look at our top five picks for back-to-class trends brands and marketers can use to reach shoppers in the days and weeks leading up to (and into) the 2023-2024 school year.

Trend #1: Gen Z relies on social media to push them into stores.

Generation Z makes up the majority of the beneficiaries of K12 and back-to-college spending, and they both heavily influence how money is spent and do much of their own shopping.

For Gen Zers, digital content is the bridge to physical, in-store experiences. While Generation Z is the most likely group to make purchases online (one-third of them make at least one online purchase per week) and the most likely to engage in social commerce, many of them are simply using social media to fuel their in-store experiences.

We’re all doing more online shopping. And the percentage of Gen Zers who are shopping online is trending up as well. But when it comes to deciding whether they prefer digital shopping experiences or physical shopping experiences, it’s largely a toss-up. GWI reports that 52 percent of Gen Z in the US prefer to shop online, while 48 percent prefer to shop in-store.

But here’s the thing: Gen Z consumers rely on their social media feeds for product discovery, and to find new brands they plan to shop. How do they do that? By engaging with brands directly on the socials and through recommendations from their communities and the creators they follow.

When polled, 69 percent of Gen Zers say they’ve purchased a product after seeing it on social media within the last month. And 61 percent say they have purchased a product directly through a social media platform.

Opportunity for marketers: Lean into phygital experiences

The ability to bridge the gap between a shopper’s digital experience with you and their in-store experience is growing in importance. But how do you do it? Well, the answer lies in how Gen Z sees digital interactions.

Half of Gen Zers and Millennials consider online experiences are meaningful replacements ( important) for in-person interactions. And 48 percent of them say they spend more time interacting with people in digital spaces than they do interacting with people in the physical world. Not the language there – not the real world, but the physical world.

For younger consumers, a brand’s digital presence is as important as its physical presence. So, your brand’s ability to make finding, understanding, and shopping your store online a great experience is equally as important as making your customers’ in-store experience a pleasant one.

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Trend #2: Twice as many parents are homeschooling their kids now compared to pre-pandemic

In 2020, the kids came home to school as a way to keep them safe and combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus. As school re-opened in 2021, four percent of all K12 kids remained home for their schooling.

To provide a little context, in 2019, the US Census Bureau reported that three percent of US-based K12 students were being homeschooled. So, the homeschool crowd gained one percentage point from 2019 to 2021.

However…

Rolling into the 2023-2024 schoolyear, that percentage has doubled to six percent of all US school-age kids will be homeschooled this year.

Interestingly enough…

A Fortune.com article reported that something like 1 in 6 Black students (about 16%) will be homeschooled this year. You may have noticed that much of the chatter surrounding the well-publicized learning loss kids have experienced seems to position it as a permanent state that could result in $128 billion a year in lost wages for the K12 students who will be entering the workforce over the next 10 to 20 years.

Not insignificant.

Add to that the teacher shortages, the disappearance of additional help for kids who need more support, as well as for advanced kids who could benefit from more advanced instruction. In many school districts, there aren’t any solutions being implemented to minimize the impact of these challenges. So, millions more parents have chosen to homeschool their kids.

We actually created an encyclopedia on this stuff…

The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing

Opportunity for Marketers: Homeschooling families rely on social media

Depending on the state in which a family resides, laws governing how home study programs are to be run can be quite detailed OR virtually nonexistent. For instance, in my home state of Georgia, homeschool laws are very flexible. The state website for homeschooling K12 kids offers a bunch of ideas on what you could do as a parent and how things could work in a homeschool environment.

But no structure. NO framework. No real direction.

For a more detailed picture of how to effectively homeschool K12 kids, I, and many other parents rely on people we know (in my case, my sister) and homeschool influencers.

For something like this, even if you find a bunch of helpful resources online, you’re going to spend weeks doing the reading and trying different things, not really knowing if they’ll work. It’s faster and more efficient for us to rely on online communities and creators who homeschool their own kids, preferably one in your state.

Homeschooling families like mine rely on their online communities to learn the ropes, share resources, get tips that won’t ruin their kids, and find out how to get better and better at homeschooling their kids.

For brands, partnering with influential, knowledgeable teachers and homeschooling parents and guardians can be a really effective method for getting your brand in front of this audience.

Just to give you a starting point, I use YouTube for basic information, hacks, and best practices for my state.

Pinterest is the resources hub.

Facebook is the community hub with tons of groups for homeschooling families to connect with other homeschooling families for resources, information, and even in-person activities.

Instagram serves double-duty as both a resource hub and a community for homeschooling famlies

Homeschool families spend as much as other K12 families – just on different things

Another part of this particular back-to-school trend is spending. If you’re under the misconception that homeschool famlies don’t spend as much, you may or may not be right.

Homeschoolers will account for about 4 million students this year. And while those households are expected to spend, on average, 15 percent less than households that have kids heading back into school buildings, Time4Learning.com estimates the average homeschooling household could very well spend between $700 and $1,400 per school year on materials (supplies, textbooks, subscriptions/online resources, devices), field trips, curriculum, and extracurricular activities.

Makes sense, right?

Remember in 2020 when the kids came home, per-household spending on back-to-school items increased by more than 20% on average. During that year of online learning, parents of K12 students decreased their on apparel and gear but increased their spending on technology, workbooks, and furniture – these are the same categories homeschooling parents will be investing their money into.

Trend #3: Parents are prioritizing their kids’ mental health

For many families, the days of online-only schooling are over. But the lingering impact of that experience – the uncertainty, the drastic changes to how kids had to do school, missing their friends as we tried to social distance – all of it has contributed to concerns over the mental health of children.

Add to that the prevalence of smartphones in the hands of children of all ages.

In a forum hosted by the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Tasmin Ford, Ph.D. presented findings that pointed to ways in which the pandemic-related lockdowns exacerbated issues from hyperactivity to depression in K12 children. More parents are finding ways to help their kids through emotionally tough times.

According to Deloitte, 50 percent of the parents surveyed said they are concerned about their child’s mental health – this stat was present in both the 2022 and the 2023 back-to-school surveys. Many are prioritizing mental wellness and a third of them (36 percent) have already purchased products or services to address mental health issues.

Opportunity for Marketers: Parents are looking for non-medical options and solutions, too

As parents attempt to help their kids navigate a world that’s constantly in a state of flux, it can be tough to know what the next right thing to do actually is. In that way, it’s important for parents to be armed with a catalog of ideas and tons of great resources.

Dr. Janna Williams-Pitts is a psychologist with Wellstar Health System. In a recent article, Dr. Williams-Pitts identified behaviors parents can look for in their kids which may indicate their child is suffering from anxiety. These include things like kids not spending as much time doing the activities they once liked doing, or spending more time alone. Dr. Williams-Pitts also offered ways parents can help their kids better cope with some of the historic events unfolding before us.

Supporting a child’s mental well-being can take many different forms, such as mean bringing in a family therapist to guide the household through difficult processes. But it can also mean setting up household routines such as a regular wind-down time that precedes a set bedtime every night. Or it could come in the form of making sure kids are getting plenty of physical activity – doing things they like as well as trying new things.

As a mom of two young kids, I can remember being intentional about making sure my kids had things to do. I bought scooters, rollerskates, jump ropes, skateboards, sidewalk chalk, strawberry seeds – any fun outdoor activity I saw that would require a little effort to learn and master. I wanted them to have a variety of different activities they could do together or alone that would keep them from being bored while social distancing. I heard about fidget toys from a friend so we had a box of them delivered – whatever help we could get keeping hands and minds occupied

Parents who prioritize mental wellness for their kids are spending, on average, 8 percent more this back-to-school shopping season.

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Trend #4 Parents still care about shopping for sustainably-sourced products

Last year, half of parents planned to shop sustainably-sourced back-to-school items when available. While discounts and deals are driving most buying decisions, 35 percent still plan to shop sustainably-sourced products this year, according to Deloitte. No easy feat, as circular and sustainable manufacturing aren’t yet the norm among retailers of back-to-school goods.

But we’re not just talking about recycled filler paper and backpacks made from other backpacks. This could actually be as simple as buying used or upcycled products over buying new. About a quarter of back-to-school shoppers (29 percent) plan to buy some used items for back-to-school.

Opportunity for Marketers: Educating parents and guiding them to the right brands

For many parents, the challenge they have with shopping for sustainable back-to-school products is a branding issue. They’re not sure which brands are actually legit. In fact, 1 in 5 shoppers surveyed said they do not shop for sustainable products because they cannot tell which companies sell genuine sustainably-sourced products. But transparency and education are issues that can be solved with content.

For parents who do check out sustainable products, 50 percent of them say the products are expensive. Brands and marketers have a chance to meet these customers right where they are to educate them, engage them, and help them understand the who and the why behind shopping sustainably.

Consumers who are in the market for sustainable back-to-school products are willing to spend 22 percent more to buy from retailers who sell sustainable products.

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Trend #5: Most back-to-school shoppers are shopping on their phones

Two in three back-to-school shoppers (65 percent) are using their smartphones to complete their back-to-school shopping. (Right? Because why head into stores until you’ve checked your phone to see what’s on sale and which stores have the items in stock?)

This year, smartphones trump personal computers when it comes to back-to-class shopping with 65 percent of shoppers planning to use their smartphones to assist in shopping and 58 percent planning to use their computers to help them.

Opportunity for marketers: SMS and location targeting

Ever see Minority Report? I will forever have the image of John Anderton (played by Tom Cruise) walking through either a mall or a train station of a random city in the year 2054, being bombarded with hologram ads triggered by retinal scans. Remember that?

Back then, the whole concept seemed so dystopian and far-fetched. Today, not so much. As a marketer, that kind of laser-focused targeting is what leads to conversions. As a consumer, I LOVE when marketing messages help me save money on stuff I’m already shopping for.

SMS texts and ads triggered by my location or an event hits me right where I am, at the time I’m planning to buy, or in the process of shopping.

I pulled a few interesting stats from Increasily and MarketerHire:

• The average CTR of SMS text messages is 80 percent
• Mobile ads with geofencing have double the click-through rate.
• Geofencing is compatible with 92% of smartphones
• 53% of shoppers visited a retailer after receiving a location-based message
• 90% of opened SMS texts are read within 3 minutes

With two-thirds of back-to-school shoppers relying on their phones to help them make buying decisions, brands have an opportunity to increase the number of touchpoints they have with shoppers. More, by combining location marketing with SMS, they have the chance to reach shoppers who are within close proximity of your store.

Trend #6: People are shopping by way of emergent technology

One of the key differences in back-to-school trends this year is the level of interest in using emerging digital technology to access things in the physical world.

Over the last two years, we have gotten pretty comfortable with the idea of doing high-value things in virtual spaces. Kids went to school online for an entire year. College students attended classes online. We’ve seen online graduations and weddings. Coldplay in concert in a world whose name I forget? Done. I even live-streamed a funeral at the height of the pandemic.

The point is, we’ve learned first-hand about how technology can support learning, give us access, ensure we have supplies, and enable us to experience events we otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend. And we’re more than willing to make the investment into making sure we have access to technology that enables us to augment even the mundane tasks.

So, I have a few more tech-related back-to-school stats for you:

• 59 percent of back-to-school shoppers are using emerging tech to shop this year.
• 50 percent of millennials are interested in having the metaverse implemented in schools.
• 59 percent of millennials say schools should provide students with the technology to access the metaverse for education
• 62 percent of parents plan to invest in online learning resources this school year

Opportunity for Marketers: Increasing touchpoints

I’m not an athletic shoe type of gal. I’m more your Madden Girl/Birkenstocks comfortable, ugly sandal buyer. I have NO idea what’s happening in the world of sneaker releases. But the other day, I was brimming with ideas for shoe drops. I marveled at how clearly I could see the stitching on a green pair of Adidas Yeezy shoes that were suspended and spinning in mid-air inside a virtual world where members of The Shelf team were holding a meeting. And I finally “got it.”

Emergent technology and virtual spaces create innumerable touchpoints for brands to connect with consumers. We love to share a gif our illustrator created of the path to purchase. Well, as fancy as this gif is…

… we could add a second floor to this graphic now to represent immersive experiences in virtual spaces.

For the third year in a row, people are shopping online for back-to-class items as much as (or more than) they are shopping in-store. When I started shopping back-to-school sales this year (Julyish), the deals were only online – sales hadn’t even hit the stores yet.

This year, since we’ve been knee-deep in the metaverse conversations all year long and watching the crypto market get weird, many of us have developed some level of comfort with all sorts of emergent technology: digital wallets, shoppable content, AR, VR, interactive video streaming… all of these channels represent additional avenues for brands to connect with shoppers in a variety of different ways.

Final Words on Some Really Cool Back-to-School Trends

This year’s back-to-school trends are unlike any we’ve seen in years. We’re usually talking about trends such as moms shopping for organizers at the same time they’re shopping for crayons. And dads are outspending moms on poly folders.

But dude, this year, we’re talking about an exponential growth in how families are leveraging emergent technology to get necessities. Haven’t we been waiting on this forever? The mission for us as marketers is to understand how people are using this technology (sort of like how people use Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Insta different for homeschooling, right?) and find creative ways to deliver value to customers in the form of education, transparency, entertainment, convenience, etc.

What an exciting time!

The post 6 Back-to-School Trends That’ll Trickle Into Your Q4 Marketing Campaigns appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Your Guide to the Business of Mother’s Day

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Moms are getting more and more monetary love each year.

There are 2 billion-ish mothers around the world, and more than 80 million in the U.S. alone.

Mother’s Day makes its rounds in more than 50 countries around the world, and this year, 84 percent of Americans are planning to celebrate. Spending on Mom will reach $35.7 billion in the U.S. this year, making Mother’s Day the second most celebrated holiday after the winter holidays, and the fourth biggest spending holiday, after the Back-to-College, Back-to-School, and winter holiday shopping seasons. 

Shoppers are buying gifts for more than just their own moms.

If there’s such a thing as the Mother’s Day spirit, shoppers certainly have it because they don’t limit their gift-giving to their own moms. 57% of Mother’s Day shoppers will, in fact, be hunting down unique gifts for their mothers and stepmothers. But…

23% of celebrants are shopping for their wives

12% are shopping for daughters

8% shop for other relatives

9% will hit the stores searching for something for their sister

8% will get a gift for Grandma

8% will get something for a friend, and

2% will gift something to a godmother

We’re spending a liiiiiiittle less on dads though.

And you know how we said $35.7 billion would be spent on Mother’s Day this year? Well, that’s more than $245 per celebrant while Father’s Day spending will average about $70 to $80 less per person.

A few of the more interesting shopping trends…

Since last year, 35% of Mother’s Day shoppers were planning to gift their moms subscription boxes. This year, personal services are all the rage, with 34% planning to give Mom the gift of self-care. Another popular category right now is special outings, with 6 in 10 shoppers planning to take Mom out for the day.

Half of people are shopping in-store, too. Capitalize on the procrastinators!

In the last few days before Mother’s Day, in-store shoppers will be heading out to buy gifts. Don’t miss an opportunity to market to them. They may be buying gifts in stores, but they’re doing a bunch of research online, too. So don’t forget to target shoppers with paid ads, Reels, Pinterest, and other platforms where consumers love to find cool ideas for Mom.

Here’s how to grab the attention of those last-minute shoppers…

PPC Campaigns: Mother’s Day clicks don’t start rolling in until the last week, so reserve enough budget for that last big push. Include keywords to target stepmoms, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, wives, friends, and daughters. — Search Engine Journal

Ads: The highest conversions are in clothing and accessories. Ensure you’re reaching the right audience in your vertical by including Mother’s Day-specific CTA’s.

User-Generated Content: Feature UGC of influencers (or consumers) directly on your site and social media. UGC is highly effective in driving conversions and is a great way to showcase new styles and products.

Pinterest: Pinterest is the top-ranking social network for Mother’s Day searches. Out of 65% of the 275 keywords, Pinterest ranks in positions 1-5 on search engines. Enlist influential mommy bloggers to curate gift guides with their favorite gift items from your brand. — Your Digital Retail

Instagram Takeover: Run an Instagram takeover with an influential mommy blogger leading up to or during Mother’s Day. Allow her to curate her favorite mommy gift items from your brand and run a giveaway at the end to get engagement flowing on your account.

The post [INFOGRAPHIC] The 2023 Guide to the Business of Mother’s Day Spending and Trends appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

Holidays are great marketing opportunities waiting to happen, and Father’s Day is no exception. You’ll see a wide range of campaigns across social media, many of them featuring famous, celebrity dads. But, if your budget won’t quite stretch to include a cameo by famous dads like Kevin Hart or Chris Pratt, you can always harness the power of the growing army of dad influencers.

There may be more options available to you than you first thought when it comes to running a super-successful Father’s Day influencer marketing campaign.

Recognize That Fatherhood Is Changing

We mentioned it in our article on Millennial Parents – fatherhood has changed. With the average age of a new dad in America sitting at around 30 years old, Millenial Men are dad to most of the Gen Alpha babies now being born. And Millennial families are, by and large, two-income families. That means there’s a distinct shift in household chores.

Men are home more in general though. Today’s fathers are more likely than previous generations to divvy up housework and spend their free time with their kids.

And in the past 20 years, we’ve experienced a consistent rise in the number of stay-at-home dads. Earlier today, I watched a CBS report on the 7 million or so men of prime working age who are missing from the U.S. labor force. And I would bet dollars to donuts that many of the fathers who fall into this category aren’t just out there chilling and gaming as the report said. Many of them are home with their kids.

There’s an older stat from Pew Research that I came across time and again while researching this article: it is estimated that in 2012, about 2 million of America’s dads were stay-at-home dads. That number’s probably gone up.

Last year, one of the more noteworthy back-to-school trends I saw while researching another article (I like data ) was that the percentage of school-age kids whose parents had decided to homeschool them on the heels of the pandemic has doubled. So, there’s a good chance more dads are also home to care for kids who aren’t venturing into school buildings anymore.

Father’s Day marketing to and for Grandpa will be distinctly different from marketing to adult grandson.

Identify the Right Audience for Your Father’s Day Marketing

Who are you targeting with your campaign? That’s probably the first step here. It’s okay to target different audiences with your marketing efforts, as long as your messaging lines up with what each of those audiences wants to see and hear. Father’s Day is one of the more popular holidays as far as participation goes. Last year:

• 84% of 18 to 24-year-olds planned to celebrate and spent an average of $213.24 per person
• 88% of 25 to 34-YO planned to celebrate and spent an average of $248.98 per person
• 89% of 35 to 44-YO planned to celebrate and spent an average of $245.16 per person
• 78% of 45 to 54-YO planned to celebrate and spent an average of $142.89 per person
• 66% of 55 to 64-YO planned to celebrate and spent an average of $118.17 per person
• 56% of those 65+ planned to celebrate and spent an average of $91.80 per person

So, if you’re targeting people who are shopping for their fathers vs those who are shopping for their husbands, it’s also important to know which age group they fall into, how much they intend to spend per person, and where they hang out online.

And then there’s knowing what they’re most likely to want to give as a gift. For instance, according to 2022 survey data from the National Retail Federation, younger shoppers between the ages of 18 and 34 were the age group most likely to be interested in gifting Dad experiences. But when it comes to a longer-term commitment such as a subscription box, shoppers between the ages of 25 and 44 were more likely than younger shoppers to be interested in gifting Dad a subscription.

Get Creative with Your Influencer Selection

Like any holiday, Father’s Day has a few products we typically associate with the holiday. Brands that happen to sell ties, golf clubs, and gift cards for Lowe’s and The Home Depot will probably find it easier to market their wares during this time of year.

But, you don’t have to be a father-focused brand to see the benefit of a Father’s Day campaign. Nah. A Father’s Day influencer marketing campaign can take a variety of different shapes – the gold is in the storytelling. That is, being able to personalize your messages so they align with the desires of your audience.

With any influencer marketing campaign – whether it’s your first influencer campaign or your 100th – choosing the right influencers is going to play a huge role in the success of your campaign.

More than follower count, metrics like engagement rates, legitimacy of their followers, post quality, partnership history, products mentioned, product prices, and audience all impact campaign success. Some more than others, but all pretty important.

We published a piece on what to look for in both micro and macro-influencers. But there are all sorts of niches of influencers you can leverage to reach your audience right where they are. There are military influencers, doctors, DIYers, comedians. And these are less of a gimmick and more about being able to reach potential buyers wherever they may be.

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Working with Daddy Bloggers

Historically, the parenting blog world has been largely made up of women, with an astounding 97 percent of bloggers in this niche being binge-worthy mommy bloggers as well as your not-so-typical mommy bloggers. But, daddy bloggers are out there, and they’re growing in influence.

The daddy equivalent of sites mommy blogger like Mumsnet (a popular UK-based parenting website) and Parents.com have been popping up all over the web as a way for dads to give and take advice from one another, and break the traditional mold of the stoic, workaholic dad.

Without getting too deep into the sociological side of things (that’s not why we’re here, right?), the way we perceive stay-at-home dads, and the roles of men in general, has changed dramatically over the years. This shift has fueled the fire for daddy bloggers to show up in the blogosphere in droves.

YouTube creator Dude Dad has a pretty sizable following with more than 602k subscribers on YouTube. He isn’t necessarily a blogger, but he creates amazing dad-centered content that incorporates family, fun, humor, doing stuff, building stuff, hot wife stuff, and lots and lots of cool dad swag. And there’s a fair share of sponsored content in his videos.

Partnering with a creator like this provides brands with tons of opportunities to embed their products into some pretty entertaining and creative concepts. Like the time he built his kids a carnival ride. Or the Average Dad MTV Cribs episode

While this kind of content appeals to fathers, it also spurs creative ideas for dad that he’s likely to mention. And if he’s talking about doing it, Father’s Day shoppers can zero in on helping Dad to do the things he plans to do.

Working with Mommy Bloggers

Even though we just sang the praises of daddy bloggers, they’re not always as popular as their female counterparts. So, if you’re looking for a bigger reach and more options for influencer selection, mommy bloggers may make more sense for your Father’s Day campaign, particularly if you’re targeting older Millennials and younger Gen X women.

A mommy blogger can be a real powerhouse for your brand, because most mommy blogs focus on more than parenting. They cover a wide range of topics that will interest their readers – making them perfect for a wide range of brands to utilize for Father’s Day. Pinterest is packed with pins that link to blog content from mommy bloggers about Father’s Day gift ideas.

Consider Partnering with Kid Influencers OR Channels that Target Kids

Social media kid influencers and young creators drive much of what is available for kids to watch on streaming platforms. With the average school-age kid under 11 years old spending between 4 and 6 hours a day watching TV, smartphones tablets and other devices, purchases for and by kids are heavily influenced by the influencers they watch.

That said, kid influencers can be instrumental in the ideation process. You may know Ryan Kaji, the YouTuber whose mom began filming him playing with toys when he was just four years old. Today, Ryan is the face of a family-owned media company that creates family-friendly content for YouTube. But the kid also has a toy empire. And… I once racked up like 50 pizza slices play Tag with Ryan. So… there’s that part.

The video below was created a few years ago as a Father’s Day prank on Ryan’s dad. Ryan essentially taped a balloon inside a cake pan and iced it so that it looked like a cake. When Ryan’s dad cut into his Father’s Day cake, the iced balloon popped. It was cute. It was funny. And it featured lots of items you don’t typically associate with Father’s Day such as a balloon, painter’s tape, tons of pink Pillsbury cake icing, sprinkles, and Jet Puff Marshmallows.

The mom and son duo eventually made real cupcakes for Dad and presented but don’t you wonder how that idea may have sparked other outside-the-box Father’s Day ideas for other school-age pranksters?

Creators in Other Niches

Think of it this way: No father is just a father. Most dads have other interests. They are football fans, outdoorsmen, scholars, crafters, community activists, writers, anthropologists (shout out to my buddy, Attorney Rhodes, who is a raving anthropologist) the list goes on. And while fatherhood is honor of many men, sometimes it’s just good to remind Dad that before he was “Daddy”, he was just a really cool dude.

Enter CjCityTV, a YouTube channel that reviews the latest drops and the hottest products making their way into every guy’s man cave. The video below, while it hurt my feelings, did help shape my thinking with regard to Father’s Day gifting.

Father’s Day celebrates the multi-faceted men on the planet who happen to also have children. So, it’s wise to widen your net, so to speak, by thinking beyond fatherhood.

You may want to choose to work with an influencer who is in your brand’s niche, rather than in the parenting niche. A lot of people will be shopping for Father’s Day gifts, whether that means finding funny photos to share with Dad, or even recalling warming stories that tug at the heartstrings. Partner with influencers who can help you craft Father’s Day campaigns that focus on manhood, not necessarily fatherhood.

It’s Okay to Pull on the Heart Strings – Give ’em a Compelling Reason to Shop

Marketing directly to fathers can be as simple as finding ways to bolster their confidence, boost them up, and make them feel appreciated because sometimes, flattery will get you everywhere. The line between flattery and love gets sort of blurred around the holidays anyway.

I bawled when I saw this ad, and I watched the whole thing. All it really makes me want to do is buy myself a fishing pole and drive home to go fishing with my dad. For the first time since I was a teenager.

Influencers who are fathers can talk about their own fathers, or about the challenges and the wins of being a father in a branded message. This is a good way to link your campaign to the holiday and tug on those heartstrings to keep your brand top-of-mind without having to figure out a way to place your product in the shot.

Pitching Gifts for Fathers

Probably the easiest route to take for most product-based brands is to target people who want to buy gifts for their fathers.

You’ll really need to flex your creative muscles if this is your target audience. Most brands will shoot for this angle, so you need to do something to stand out from the crowd. With people-centric holidays like this, you want to be sure to make your marketing emotional.

You don’t have to make people cry (like I cried), but giving personality and feeling to your campaign will help attract the right kind of attention. And, influencer marketing is a great way to do this!

One thing you will need to bear in mind though is that not everyone has a father. Whether they live with a single mom, two moms, grandparents, no parents, or any other kind of family structure – not everyone out there will be celebrating this holiday.

And those who do celebrate may not be celebrating in the traditional manner. If you aim your marketing at this audience, you’ll have to be a little more creative. But, it does mean your market will be less saturated.

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A Few Things to Consider for Father’s Day Influencer Marketing

Whether your campaign happens before or on that day depends on what you’re selling. If you’re marketing directly to dads, it’s good to note that one-third of dads say they’re okay with getting gift cards and buying their own Father’s Day gifts after the holiday.

The Timing of It All

If you’re targeting your Father’s Day influencer marketing campaign at gift-givers, then waiting until the big day will not work in your favor. Many stores and consumer-focused brands will begin to advertise their Father’s Day sales a few weeks before the actual holiday. Using this kind of timescale means your campaign has more time to get visitors into your store.

This strategy works extremely well when paired with some solid email marketing. Sending out reminders for the holiday is a great way to keep your brand’s name at the forefront of people’s minds. This kind of reminder can also be really effective on social media. Get creative with your posts by having staff share memories of their fathers, or talk about what they’re getting their dads as presents.

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Generating Content

If you’re not offering up the kind of product that would work as a Father’s Day gift, launching your campaign closer to the actual holiday. To make the most out of this, we have a few top tips to help.

• Use a holiday-specific hashtag. You want to make sure your content gets seen among all the tributes and throwbacks that people post of their own dads. So, you need to make sure you’re using the best hashtags possible. Including the popular #FathersDay hashtag will help to boost your reach. Pairing your hashtag with a brand-specific hashtag will help to further refine your audience.
• Encourage audience participation. People love sharing their happy memories on social media, and days like Father’s Day are the perfect opportunity for them to do so. Ask your followers to share photos, stories and anecdotes using your brand specific hashtag, and keep the conversation flowing throughout the day.
• Work with live video. With all the gifts being opened, this is a perfect chance to make the most out of some live video. Give people a peek behind the curtain with some gift unwrapping, or show them what your team is up to and how they’re making Father’s Day special for all the dads.
• Stand out from the crowd. The best way to market your brand on Father’s Day successfully is to stand out. The more individual your campaign, the more people are going to remember it. So, use this opportunity to try something new and take some risks. You might just see some amazing payoff.

Creating the Creative

It goes without saying that you should plan to be smart about targeting your audience (and especially segments of your audience), and be creative when it comes to developing campaigns and content for your Father’s Day campaigns. Unlike Mother’s Day, Father’s Day isn’t as heavily marketed, which provides a fantastic opportunity for the brands that do invest in marketing to stand out.

No One Loves An Ad

The age of the ad is long gone. We talked a bit in on marketing to Millennial Men about the prevalence of ad blockers among high-income Millennials. Traditional advertising has died a quiet death, and as users get access to better tools to curate and customize the content they want to see, fewer and fewer ads will be shown.

Trust me. You don’t want your post to look like an ad. You want to look like an awesome piece of organic content, posted with care and awesomeness to your influencer’s feed.

Make sure that your influencer marketing campaign keeps things personal if you want it to succeed. Don’t fall into the advertisement trap – keep things original, fun, and individualized.

Personal wins every time

Using an influencer to help bolster your marketing efforts around Father’s Day helps to give your Father’s Day influencer marketing a personal touch. Consumers prefer knowing that a product has been recommended by an individual – even if it’s someone they don’t know – over an ad from a brand.  This Father’s Day, crafting a highly personal campaign can do wonders for your brand.

The post The Marketer’s Guide to Father’s Day Influencer Marketing appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

So, our annual Mother’s Day strategy post is aimed at assisting the marketers who are inevitably targeting the daughters, sons, hubbies, grandkids, and partners who will be making their way to stores between now and May 14th. Friend, it’s time for some Mother’s Day marketing strategies… and right here is where you’re going to find some really legit influencer marketing strategies. But first…

Here Are the Mother’s Day Stats That Matter to Marketers

Mother’s Day is now the second biggest gift-giving holiday, after Christmas, and the fourth-largest retail event of the year (Back-to-College, Back-to-School, and the Winter holidays – in that order – hold the top three spots). When it comes to gift-giving, moms typically receive more gifts than dads, and in an effort to make Mom feel super special, Mother’s Day shoppers consistently outspend Father’s Day shoppers.

According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation, 2023 Mother’s Day spending was on track to be the highest in the survey’s entire history at $35.7 billion. Consumers expected to spend more than $7.8 billion on jewelry, $5.6 billion on special outings, and $4 billion on electronics.

Thirty percent of those planning to buy Mother’s Day gifts planned to splurge on personal services like massages, manicures, and pedicures for a total of $3 billion.

Those buying for fashion-forward moms planned to spend another $3.3 billion on clothing and accessories. And for those keen on letting mom do her own shopping, the amount shelled out on gift cards could surpass $3.4 billion in 2023.

Now, this last group of purchases is where the big bucks are generally spent (like, every year…). Shall I compare thee to $3.2 billion in flowers and floral arrangements? Mother’s Day is one of the most active periods of the year for flower growers.

While three in four Mother’s Day shoppers will be adding greeting cards to the mix, the percentage of people who buy greeting cards for Mother’s Day has dropped 13 percentage points since their height in 2007.

Mother’s Day Trends That Impact Your Marketing Efforts

With millions of consumers in search of the perfect gift, they are spending billions of dollars on Mom. It’s no wonder brands compete to get in front of ready buyers in the days and weeks leading up to Mother’s Day. Here are a few Mother’s Day trends that marketers have had to keep in mind.

Subscription boxes… We’ve all done our fair share of online shopping over the last three years. So, it’s no surprise that one in three shoppers say they have their eyes on subscription boxes and services.

Experiences are also still pretty popular, considering… Experiences? Really? Yep. One in four shoppers are planning to give Mom some sort of experience for Mother’s Day. Also, consider this stat: 60 percent of celebrants are planning to take Mom out on a special outing. Millennial and Gen Z gifters are more likely than Gen Xers and Boomers to gift experiences. They’re also more likely to share their gift idea and Mom’s reaction on social channels.

This means… the gift – whatever it is – needs to be feed-worthy.

Social media is ultra-shoppable… Social media is a powerful, almost MATCHLESS sales tool for spring holidays like Mother’s Day. Not only is social constantly changing the ways in which consumers shop… social is also changing consumer expectations… and changing what they buy, how they buy, and why they buy.

New to Influencer Marketing? Start Here

The Complete Guide to Influencer Marketing

In This Particular Mother’s Day Marketing Post

We’re at a time in digital marketing when over 70 percent of the decision-making process is happening on phones and tablets, and half of all Mother’s Day shopping is being done on a smartphone.

That means being visible, searchable, and social just became the only way to get on anyone’s shopping list. So, we pulled together a list of social media and influencer marketing strategies that will help retailers craft Mother’s Day marketing campaigns designed specifically to boost traffic to your website and to your store.

Yeah, foot traffic. So, you need to give customers a compelling to spend their money on your site (or on-site), right?

Right.

To grab that attention, you’ll need to offer them more than just great ads. Storytelling is going to be HUGE for brands this Mother’s Day… as will creating customers experiences that help shoppers streamline and simplify the process of gifting Mom and Grandma something AWESOME.

The typical buyer is looking for something completely different than what they may have gifted in the past. The key to leveraging Mother’s Day gift-giving as a marketing strategy is to create a supply of experiences, special gifts, and rare items that will meet the demand for something awesome that mom will love.

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Strategy 1: Video Marketing with YouTube, TikTok, and Snapchat

Target Shopper: Gen Alpha, Gen Z, and Millennials

Gen Alpha? Yep. Gen Alpha should be on your radar this year. Because the oldest Gen Alphas are in middle school and the youngest are still on their way to Earth in the next two years.

There are lots of ways brands can use video in their Mother’s Day marketing strategies. Zeroing in on Generation Z and Millennial shoppers with a video campaign is smart because Gen Zers – the 13 to 27 crowd – defer to YouTube for product recommendations and to help them make final purchasing decisions. More than half of Millennials (54 percent) check YouTube daily. Their content of choice includes things like product unboxings, hauls, tutorials, and content that’s quick, fun, and entertaining.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Holiday-Focused Primer Videos

One of the coolest videos I’ve spotted in recent months is one the youngest girl in my household has probably already seen, and it’s from the Come Play with Me channel on YouTube. This channel is one that older shoppers may not have seen unless they have little ones in the house, but it’s bascially a channel built for kids who want to watch other kids (and I think adults as well) play with toys.

In this video, the kids and the dads – including Eric from The Little Mermaid, Snow White’s toddler daughter, Frozen’s Kristoff, as well as a host of other characters from Arendelle – are preparing a huge Mother’s Day brunch for the Disney Princess moms. So, they are expecting Princess Tiana from The Princess and The Frog, Elsa and Anna, Snow White, and other famous Disney heroines to show up for a fantastical Mother’s Day surprise.

There aren’t any products being promoted. Just a video that helps kids understand the value and potential of Mother’s Day, and provide them with family friendly ideas for how they can celebrate Mom this Mother’s Day.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Branded Insider Videos

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: The #EveryMum Mother’s Day Campaign from Blue Illusion

To watch this video, it wouldn’t be immediately apparent what Blue Illusion is – the video isn’t at all about the stuff it sells. The only hint is that Nicole, daughter to Lisa and one of the company’s apparel buyers, was included in the video.

Self-proclaimed curators of personal style, French-Inspired Australian fashion boutique Blue Illusion is dedicated to selling clothes that showcase the modern woman’s spirit, the pursuit of style, passion for life, and generosity of heart.

The company’s #EveryMum Mother’s Day campaign on YouTube was a sweet but candid look at the mother/daughter relationship, and how valuable the family is to Blue Illusion’s company culture by featuring employees who were mother and daughter.

These kinds of videos are often endearing and tug a bit on the heartstrings. More important, they immediately humanized your brand and give it a face… Actually, this video gave the brand eight faces… all of them believable and relatable.

There was dialogue in the videos between mother and daughter, where both mum and kid revealed interesting things… like Esther isn’t great at picking out clothes for her daughter Lexi.

Totally relatable.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Mother’s Day Gift Ideas and Guides

Another effective way to use video marketing for Mother’s Day is to partner with influencers who can create great gift-idea vlogs.

Now, YouTube videos will typically be one of the pricier options for an influencer campaign, especially if you’re partnering with a macro-influencer. Like, add-a-zero pricey. But these kinds of short, personal videos can get tons of eyes on your product and get ears listening to the good things about your product.

To reduce the cost of a sponsored YouTube video, consider including your product as part of a larger list of gift ideas rather than choosing to have an influencer make an entire video strictly about your product or products.

The challenge with sponsored videos is to partner with an influencer who can disclose that the video is sponsored without the whole thing seems like a big, fat sponsored video. Here’s a GREAT example of an influencer who’s great at that.

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Fleur de Force x L’Occitane

Lifestyle vlogger Fleur de Force (on Instagram @fleurdeforce and here’s her YouTube channel) put together a Mother’s Day video that now has more than 61K views.

If you have never seen one of her videos, they are very well done. Fleur de Force is easy to understand, personable, refined, and gorgeous. What’s cool about the way she does gift idea videos – and this one in particular – is even though it’s a sponsored video partnership with L’Occitane (which she noted in the video description and the title), the video itself really is full of good Mother’s Day ideas that feature lots of other brands.

In addition to L’Occitane gift sets, she talked about jewelry and modeled some comfy pajamas. She also noted in her video that after polling the moms in her life, she discovered most of them just want some time off, time to themselves, which gave way to the idea of creating a relaxation basket for moms that include things like books, bath salts, nail polish, a scented candle (which was a collaboration between Cowshed x Scamp & Dude), and those pajamas… She talked a bit about subscription boxes as well.

Here’s the important part: L’Occitane was featured in the video, yes, but it wasn’t a L’Occitane commercial in the eyes of her viewers, and THAT’S what’s powerful about a video haul or gift idea video like this one.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Hauls

Mother’s Day gift hauls are entertaining to watch. These informal discovery videos come in all types and are done by bloggers from all over the world who have audiences of all sizes.

What makes hauls so valuable to brands is hauls provide prospects with an easy discovery method as they are already knee-deep in Mother’s Day gift research. This is great for holidays like Mother’s Day when shoppers are more deliberate and thoughtful about the kind of gifts they buy. Gift cards are more popular at Christmas time than they are for Mother’s Day, and that’s because Mother’s Day is an appreciation holiday the Moms 84 percent of people are setting aside time and funds to honor.

Another thing that’s cool about hauls is they come across as authentic because they’re usually loosely scripted or completely unscripted. They’re not over-produced.

If you watched a bit of Fleur de Force’s video, you saw the lighting in her bedroom changed, probably affected by the cloud cover outside. That sorta thing doesn’t negatively impact haul videos.

Now, I’m not saying that production isn’t important at all. I’ve actually skipped haul videos that looked interesting because the vlogger’s messy bedroom in the background was distracting and I quickly realized that mess would influence my view of the products she found in her haul. What I am saying is no one’s winning an Oscar for their holiday hauls.

I think the key element that makes hauls compelling is the same thing that drives Instagram videos to grab so much attention – it’s the opportunity to engage with the video’s creator and to engage with other viewers about THEIR experiences with the brand.

Another thing about haul videos is that timing is important. Mother’s Day in the UK is just a few weeks before Mother’s Day in the US, and there are lots of Mother’s Day videos from bloggers in all those countries (and Australia).

As we’re writing this in mid-March, most of the new content we see is from UK vloggers preparing for UK Mother’s Day on March 31st. Keep that in mind when planning your campaigns.

Mother’s Day Campaign Example: In-Store Shopping for the Budget Shopping

This gift idea video is way more focused on Target than on a particular product, which sets up a really relaxed, in-store browsing kind of feel.

While the previous video was focused on extoling the virtues of specific products, this one zeroes in more on providing a bunch of different products that would be available at your local target store OR on Target’s robust, AR-powered ecommerce platform.

This video from Mily Fitzgerald is pretty much an in-store walk-thru – no faces, no family, no distracting personalities. It’s a straightforward method of creating a gift ideas video that’s not at all salesy.

While Mily actually has a whole list of trackable links in the description of her video, nothing about the video feels like she’s trying to push one product over another. AND the quality is great without being overly produced.

One of the benefits of a video like this is that the over-45 crowd tends to tune out recommendations. You’re talking to Gen Xers who are FAMOUS for being completely unmoved by other people’s opinions. And Baby Boomers who are far more swayed by facts and stats than opinions and editorials, the in-store browse would be engaging without being annoying. For those types of shoppers, this format would be ideal.

Mother’s Day Campaign Example: Shopper Mandy Luxury Haul

So, one of the more produced hauls we found was by a popular vlogger named Shopper Mandy (get her YouTube channel here and you can find her on Instagram @shoppermandy).

Okay, you’ll notice even from the screenshot below that Mandy’s video has been produced a bit. She puts the products featured in the haul in a little white box on-screen so viewers can see the actual color of the product, unaffected by her lighting and movements. Smart.

Shopper Mandy also includes in the description section beneath her video beauty and fashion affiliate links to the products in her posts.

Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing work well together. According to Rakuten, 80 percent of advertisers run affiliate programs, and you would be hard-pressed to find a micro- or macro-influencer who didn’t participate in affiliate programs.

For instance, the link for the Yves Saint Laurent ‘Volupté’ Lip Gloss Trio goes to the Nordstrom product page for that set. It’s sold out.

For instance the link for the Yves Saint Laurent ‘Volupté’ Lip Gloss Trio goes to the Nordstrom product page for that set. It sold out.

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: KyleandCourt | Bath & Body Works Mother’s Day Haul

Another way to do hauls is to sponsor an actual branded haul. Go Team Fam! is a family YouTube vlog channel from Kyle and Court Hale and their kids. Now, I don’t see any indication that this is actually a sponsored post, but… for Bath & Body Works fans, this would have been a legit win because of the Mother’s Day promotions that were going on in-store.

(Just an aside… Bath & Body Works is a BOSS at reaching customers where they are and driving traffic into the store, from their end-of-summer clearance sales (never miss ‘em) to their free holiday gifts, and those break-apart cards that come in direct mail promoting different time-sensitive offers for 30- and 60-day periods… this company knows how to drive foot traffic).

So, here’s what really grabbed me about this particular haul…

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: In-Store Mother’s Day Promotion

At the very beginning of the video, we find out that this haul video was compelled by a great in-store buy. Court went into the store and discovered there was also an in-store Mother’s Day promotion going on that allowed shoppers to get a large zippered navy or bronze tote in a chevron weave.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: The Free Gift

Shoppers who spent $50 could get an additional box of products valued at $100+ for just another $30. It’s possible to buy for Mom and yourself, or buy for Mom and Mother-in-Law, or Mom and Grandma or your best friend who’s a new mother…

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Digital Coupon Went Out to Subscribers

There was also a coupon available (list-building opportunity) to Bath & Body Works email list that gave them another $5 off their purchase. So, Mother’s Day shoppers paid $75 and got $167 in product + a tote.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Easy Returns and Exchanges for Moms

FINALLY, scents (even those given as a gift) were eligible to be exchanged for other scents. That means Mom could get her gift and go back to the store to swap out her fragrance and be upsold by a perfume, spray, scrub, or lotion with the same scent for layer.

(Coincidentally, I went to their site immediately to be signed up for upcoming email offers… even though I know I got direct mail Bath & Body Works offers that also send me running to the stores.)

STRATEGY 1 RECAP

Video marketing is legit, especially if you’re incorporating influencers into your strategy. Video gift guides and hauls really can come in all shapes and sizes. But remember, YouTube videos can get really pricey, especially if you want the entire video to focus exclusively on your products.

If the price of a branded video is too steep, consider including your product as part of a larger haul that includes complementary products from other brands.

Last thing to think about is timing. The UK vloggers and US vloggers produce tons of Mother’s Day content, but Mother’s Day in the UK typically falls a few weeks earlier than in the US, so plan to publish and promote videos starting in March for the UK and April for the US.

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Strategy 2: Create Experiences Outta Nowhere

Target: Adult children buying for Mom, adult children with families, free-spirited Gen Xers and Boomers (birds of a feather, you know…)

EXPERIENCES SELL. For social media users (which is literally half of all Internet users at this point), cool-looking experiences are Instagram fodder. Before COVID that meant Instagram pop-ups and interactive museums. These days, it’s a raised-bed garden in all its glory or a staycation backyard setup or documenting that all-important trip to At Home when it’s time to decorate a new house.

Not everyone’s ready to hit up the Museum of Ice Cream while cases are still spiking in hot spots around the world. And the pandemic accelerated the shift from the super-curated feed to the less perfect feed that was already happening on Instagram.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Create those In-Store Experiences

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Bass Pro Shops Does It All

Creating in-store experiences isn’t a new strategy. But it’s one that has helped retailers like Bass Pro Shops grab mall foot traffic from shoppers who may have had no intention of visiting the store, but who go into the store simply because of the forest-themed spectacle.

Getting in a little Easter Bunny action. : @shawnaalward

Image Source: Instagram

The company’s retail locations are humongous stores full of outdoorsy things (totally a scientific term), equipped with a 25-cent shooting range (not real guns), a fishing pond, full-sized stuffed wildlife, and one of my kids’ personal favorites, the in-store mountainside stream (the stream part is really just a gigantic aquarium) that’s gotta be like 20feet high.

Bass Pro Shops does a great job at translating the wonder and majesty of nature into an awe-inspiring in-store experience for visitors. The store’s team members are knowledgeable and accessible, with younger and (thank goodness) older team members ready to be engaged when you need them (translation: they don’t stalk you around the store).

But BPS doesn’t skimp on seasonal photo opportunities either. And that’s perfect social media fodder in a world where Instagram backdrop culture and pop-ups have all but disappeared.

Another thing Bass Pro Shops does well is they create opportunities offsite with special events to engage with customers. I screengrabbed this digital flyer that was on the company’s main website. This sorta segues into my next tactic, which is creating experiences that Moms can do with a small group of people who are in their bubbles in locations that naturally allow for social distancing (because who wants to be right near a woman firing off a bow and arrow?)

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Create Experiences That Mom Can Do with Her BFF, Not Her Famly (hello, REFERRALS!!)

One of the cool things about experiences is they pave the way for customer referrals. Fleur de Force mentioned in her video that many moms want some time to themselves for Mother’s Day. The flipside is, often moms who have adult children are game to do some activities either with their kids and grandkids for Mother’s Day, or share in experiences that allow her to still have a day off, but maybe spend it with whomever she chooses.

This is where things like gift certificates, paid reservations, open travel plane tickets, and accommodation/hospitality gifts can come in handy. These sorts of gifts compel Mother’s Day shoppers to buy “in pairs” so Mom has someone with whom she can share the experience.

Here’s the thing though: It’s smart to create experiences that she will want to share with a friend instead of a family member. I came across an interesting factoid in Mention-Me.com’s Referral Success for Luxury Brands report.

“As a rule of thumb, women share more than men & under 30s share more than 30+. However, whilst older ages share less, the shares they make tend to convert better.”

Strategy 2 Recap

Think about creating Instagrammable experiences that kids can share with Mom like Museum of Ice Cream, create in-store experiences that drive people to want to come inside like Bass Pro Shops, and create referral-worthy buddy experiences that Mom will want to do with her own friends.

Strategy 3: Go Narrower; Find the Outliers

Target: Gen Z teens, kids of 30-something moms, friends of Millennial moms

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Tap into Mom’s Uniqueness

“It’s a vegan, cruelty-free, no-waste, upcycled, circular movement naked cupcake. Proceeds go to save the Whatevers…” Right? Is that your mom, or a mom you know?

Different generations of women look completely different from one another… until they have kids. That’s when the youngest generation of parents start to adopt (and finally “get”) the principles and values their parents and grandparents were working so hard to instill. There are still marked differences in parenting styles from generation to generation, but it’s not oranges-to-apples differences… they’re green-apples-to-red-apples differences.

As parents start to deal with the very unsnowflake-like moments that come with having kids (temper tantrums, remote learning, iPads that work attached to school district virtual dashboards that are ALWAYS on the fritz, being captured yelling at your kids when you don’t know their mic is on, moody teens, weird things happening with grades, dating, crashing the car, missing curfew, dirty bedrooms, messy closets…), parents all start to sort of blend together.

Long gone are those early years when Mom still had enough energy to kick butt AND take all those names. But every mom want’s to be reminded of what a doll, boss, beast, maven, genius, Creative she was before kids came and tried to make her seem dumb.

Is there anyone out there who remembers when their mom had a black belt in Tae Kwon Do (mine did)? Or seen the footage of your mom raunchy and commanding as she fronted a pretty sick grunge band in the 90s?

Reminding Mom of all the things about her – unrelated to kids – that make her awesome is a great way to help her celebrate Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day gift choices that reflect her uniqueness, fire and strength are always winners.

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Lush Honors the Super in Moms

Lush Cosmetics is known for its vibrant, beautiful, vegetarian cosmetics line. The company prides itself on living by six principles: the freshest cosmeticas, 100% vegetarian products, ethical buying, homemade, naked (unpackaged), and the charge to fight against animal testing. During its Mother’s Day campaign, Lush offered special gifts for the SuperMom.

What’s cool about Lush is the company has a very strong social media presence, and there are multiple Lush accounts on Instagram alone. The one below is for the Australia / New Zealand Lush stores.

Here’s another thing you probably didn’t know – Lush had naked stores.

Yeah… naked.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Be Unapologetically Something

The next tactic is about going all-in on some fringe thing. Maybe your new company memo isn’t going to force people to come to work naked. Lush’s Naked stores aren’t really about being helped by naked sales associates. These are actually the company’s packaging-free stores. The naked workers thing just sort of drives the point home (and the traffic in).

Think that drives in-store traffic?

Okay. Okay. Maybe now’s not the time to do a naked store. But Lush also does the R&R-for-mom thing pretty nicely, too.

Source: On Instagram

Lush has been around since the 1980s, but it remains a staple for young, environmentally-conscious adults, regardless of their defined generation.

STRATEGY 3 RECAP

Help kids and friends find ways to remind Mom of who she was before motherhood consumed her (it’s totally an all-consuming type of thing…). Remember the movie Avatar… and how audiences made a big deal of the way they greeted one another? Well, instead of saying, “Hey, how are you?”, they greeted each other, “I see you.” Help kids see their moms again.

Bold, tongue-in-cheek, quirky products can grab the attention of shoppers and help them align the intention behind your product with their mom’s personality. And having marketing collateral that aligns with Mom’s sense of humor, her college days, her fearlessness, or her time as a singer/songwriter can trigger the connection for shoppers.

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Strategy #4: Target Non-Mom Moms (because everyone is a mother of something)

Target: Friends of older Millennials, friends of Gen Xers

Fun fact: Moms are liable to get gifts from just about anyone. Mother’s Day shoppers don’t just buy for the woman they call “Mom”, they buy for moms in general – significant others, daughters, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, other family members, and friends.

But there are non-traditional moms out there who also get Mother’s Day love.

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Barkbox Celebrates Dog Moms

Okay. This didn’t drive traffic into a store, but it was a great idea from BarkBox to kinda loop non-moms (and her friends and family) into the Mother’s Day shopping.

The web-based subscription took Facebook by storm as it dared to redefine the traditional idea of motherhood. #DogAnthem didn’t target all moms, just dog moms. As the two performers rap about the popularity of their fur babies, it’s almost impossible not to get this tune stuck on your head: “If you’re a dog mom, put your hands up. This song’s for all the ladies who provide for their pup. When you’re a dog mom, it’s just what you do. ‘Cause they say you’re not my baby but I know it ain’t true!”

Dog Mom Anthem

STRATEGY 4 RECAP

Widen your market by not taking yourself (and Mother’s Day) so seriously. If you don’t have traditional Mother’s Day stuff to sell, create a message that will resonate with non-mom moms.

Strategy #5: Take the Straight-Laced Out of Luxury Gifts

Target: Significant other, adult children

We came across a pretty neat little Mother’s Day haul video from popular luxury YouTuber Sonal Maherali (you can check out her channel here). Now, the setup of this haul is that Sonal is opening Mother’s Day gifts that she received from her husband, who was traveling on Mother’s Day.

(FYI: We didn’t include this video at the top with the other haul because this one targets a different buyer).

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: The Gift-Opening Haul

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Sonal Maherali’S Super-Luxe Haul

The video opens with Sonal sitting next to a set of black Chanel gift bags and a fourth big bag in the back. The first gift she opens is a genuine leather passport holder with a super-cool illustration on the front, featuring leopard print Christian Louboutins.

Other than that AMAZING passport holder, here’s what’s cool about this video – as she proceeds to open the rest of the gifts, there are times when she doesn’t know the name of a shoe and other times when she does… and she’s seen the shoe before online… but has never actually touched it.

She’s trying to describe each item as she sees it, instead of having scripted keywords that she had to use for the video. She comes across as really sincere, and the gift haul seems authentic.

It’s sort of a backdoor into a haul video that would make for great, low-key product placement.

Another thing that’s sort of clever about this particular type of haul is that for the products she doesn’t know well, that could have been a great opportunity to follow up the video with a blog post of her modeling the shoes and reviewing the products.

She didn’t do that, but what did happen in the days, weeks, and months that followed was that as people watched the video, other users chimed in with information about the products and their experiences with those and similar products.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving. And here it is two years later and we’re checking out this Mother’s Day haul as well.

PS. Sonal is extremely likable.

STRATEGY 5 RECAP

Gift-Opening hauls are a great way to foster YouTube engagement from viewers – solid engagement like comments and sharing experiences, and talking candidly about your brand and your products. It’s also a great way to source insights about the level of knowledge her followers have about your brand. And, of course, it presents a great opportunity for your team members to chime in organically about your products.

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Strategy #6: But If You Teach a Mom to Fish…

Targeting: Husbands and sons, brothers, dads and kids, daughters only

Our final strategy caters to the sentiment motivator for picking gifts and that’s DIY tutorials on or around Mother’s Day. Of course, there are tons of cool DIY and handmade videos, Pinterest boards, and blogs from everyday users.

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: Handmade Gifts Anyone Can Do

Mother’s Day Gift Inspo: Handmade Gifts from If You Want It D.I.Y.

If You Want It D.I.Y released a Mother’s Day Gift Ideas video that provided step-by-step instructions for four different DIY gift ideas in under 10 minutes. Brilliant.

The video is detailed enough for viewers to follow along and see the types of products being used. But it’s edited in a way that speeds up the video so it’s easy to follow but doesn’t take a lot of time to initially digest all four ideas.

Now, my original thought with the DIY angle was for a brand like The Home Depot or the local hardware store to create a series of detailed step-by-step tutorials targeting dads and sons who could work together on an outdoor DIY project for Mom in the days leading up to Mother’s Day. A tutorial.

SMART MARKETING TACTIC: DIY BIG PROJECT TUTORIAL FOR MOM

Why a Tutorial? Believe it or not, How-to videos and tutorials are what followers want to see most from the influencers they follow.

Courtesy of: The Shelf

Well, tutorials are crucial for the YouTuber. In our post on YouTube user stats (this one), one of the things we talked about was how Gen Zers and Boomers use YouTube as a learning channel. Baby Boomers are big on watching tutorials to decode tech-related stuff. And, of course, who fixes cars anymore without having their phone nearby to reference the tutorial that’s walking them through the task they’re doing? Nobody. That’s who.

Tutorials and DIY videos are powerful marketing tools for brands because most viewers will try to adhere to the tutorial as much as possible to recreate the results they saw in the video. So, this provides a good opportunity for brands to partner with DIY influencers for natural-looking product placements.

It doesn’t have to be a video though. Pinterest is a HAVEN for this kinda stuff, a virtual library of beautiful backyard projects from super-simple stuff to more complex large backyard projects. Plus, Pinterest is great for SEO, showing up in search results, and especially Google Image search results, which means shoppers don’t have to be pinning fanatics to find your tutorials on Pinterest… they only have to be using a search engine.

In the screenshot below, the content on the far right is sponsored by TimberTech, and the one below it is sponsored by The Home Depot.

We penned a post at the end of last year (this one) on how HUGE Pinterest is for home decor and DIY brands. Let me just recap one piece of that info here:

Pinterest alone reaches 40 percent of the people who have made home furnishing purchases within the last six months, and users say Pinterest is THE MOST influential platform for home decor and home design inspiration.

User-wise, Pinterest doesn’t have as many monthly active users as Facebook or Instagram. As of May 2023, the platform has 463 million monthly active users, according to the company’s Business page. But unlike Facebook and Instagram, 9 in 10 Pinners use the platform to plan for or make purchases. Sixty percent of Pinners have used Pinterest to actually MAKE purchasing decisions for home decor.

Home decor is one of the three most popular search categories on Pinterest as well as one of the top shopping categories that lead to purchases.

Now, a large DIY project (like building something in the backyard) is probably going to require a longer campaign to get the attention of dads, sons, and daughters, AND give them time to mentally plan how they would do it without Mom finding out, AND to buy materials, AND to do the work.

The key is getting them to finally DECIDE to do the project… which retargeting ads can help with nudging them toward a commitment to do the project and the subsequent purchases required to do it right.

So, the process could go this way – YouTube pre-roll ads for Mother’s Day targeting different shoppers. The brand grabs viewers’ attention in those precious first five seconds with an on-screen message. Here’s what I’m thinking as far as targeting goes…

To Mom from All of Us

To: Mom… Love, the boys

To: Mom… Love, Your Favorite Son

Here’s a Mother’s Day Project for Kick-Ass Daughters (I imagine this one in an Alec Baldwin / Will Arnett type of voice)

Smart Mother’s Day Marketing Tactic: DIY Project to Do WITH Mom (hear us roar)

Mother’s Day Campaign Inspo: Darvin Orvar’s Backyard Gazebo for Her Dad

Darbin Orvar created a step-by-step video for building a small, low-cost gazebo in her dad’s garden that is actually targeting people who aren’t carpenters… or may not be great with their hands. She uses hand tools in the video – not HGTV-grade super tools that need their own area of the yard to operate. Just something simple.

The video includes a trip to the local Lowe’s Store. She also talks about her hammering skills (great opportunity to teach, share techniques, and recommend gloves, hammers, and maybe even something to combat the calluses that will inevitably result from spending one day as a construction worker).

Take a look at this video because it also has a sponsor mentioned in the beginning, GAF, the company that provided the shingles for the roof of the gazebo.

The Smoaks Vlogs (they’re just so darned charming!)

Okay. I think this may be as unscripted as it gets. But, this video is a great example because The Smoaks Vlogs are laid back but really captivating.

In this particular Mother’s Day video, it’s Mom who wanted to clean out the barn and build a new kennel for the pups (looks like they have 7 or 8 dogs), so they head out to the stores and pick up supplies.

What’s cool about this video is actually Shawn Smoaks’s narration. The couple goes to The Home Depot and Tractor Supply Co and loads the flatbed of their pickup with supplies. Another easy way to incorporate products.

STRATEGY 6 RECAP

Like HAULS, DIY videos and tutorials can provide a natural product placement opportunity. I think the primary difference is it’s a little easier to zero in on grabbing men with DIY videos, compared to hauls.

One thing I didn’t mention is a lot of these home improvement project videos have natural spots in them for objective product reviews… like this drill works on this, but not on that. You may have heard Shawn Smoaks talking about the capabilities and limitations of his Milwaukee drill in his Mother’s Day video. Those types of objective reviews resonate with men and Baby Boomers who would much rather have the facts and make their own decisions about the product than an editorial. Just an FYI…

For larger projects, give your campaign more lead time because there’s a good chance you will need to incorporate retargeting as well as sponsored posts across multiple platforms (like, reaching Boomer husbands on Facebook, targeting sons on YouTube and Snapchat, getting to Millennial husbands on Facebook and through retargeting and emails).

Wrapping This Up with a Pretty, Pink Ribbon

It’s vital to get your product in front of the right people. And with Mother’s Day right around the corner, it’s really time to pull those campaigns together. If this post provided you with your game plan, awesome. We see you.

If it made your blood pressure shoot up and you had to take a Honey Bun break, you probably need our help. Don’t sweat. We’re cool, we’re creative, and we stay on top of trends and tactics that convert. Call us to set up a demo.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lira Stone | Effective, Magnetic Strategist

For over a decade, my focus has been ensuring that professionals stay ahead of the curve in the most time-efficient, task-prioritized, and stress-free manner possible. My extensive experience has equipped me with the knowledge to design a concise, company-culture-relevant, methodical approach to internet sales and marketing.

The post 6 Mother’s Day Marketing Strategies to Boost Foot Traffic appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.

The challenge with Instagram influencer marketing, or social media marketing on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and just about any social media platform is the sheer volume of content being created and published to each platform. Check out these numbers:

• Instagram has roughly 1.4 billion monthly active users publishing 95 million videos and photos to Instagram every day
• Facebook boasts 2.9 billion monthly active users publishing 4.75 billion posts each day 
• Apps like TikTok and Pinterest aren’t far behind, with 732 million and 478 million monthly active users, respectively

That’s a lot of posts. It can be easy for a brand to go unnoticed in the avalanche of content that comes through their audience’s feed every few seconds. The key – and the advantage skilled influencer partners can provide – is knowing how to get the right kind of posts in front of the right followers. Marketers need a way to grab and keep the attention of their prospective customers on platforms that are churning out more content than any user can consume. 

The good news is consumers do find value in Instagram ads. About 83 percent of Instagram users say they use the app to discover new products and services. And 80 percent of users say they use Instagram to research and decide whether to buy a product.

Once you have their attention, you can convert that attention to action, or even a purchase, with the right marketing strategy. As it turns out, 87 percent of Instagram users take an action, such as visiting the brand website, after looking at an Instagram ad. Even on Facebook, advertising images have a 4.66 percent click-through rate. And influencers are influencers, in part, because they have a knack for creating and posting the right images.

What to Expect in This Post

So, what is the right image? With billions of multi-media posts moving through social media platforms every day, figuring out how to post the right type of image isn’t always intuitive. In this post, we want to focus strictly on the creative aspect of influencer marketing, and that is creating an image that gets the attention of your potential customers and keeps them from scrolling past your sponsored post or swiping away from it indiscriminately.

So, let’s look at 14 well-styled social media holiday posts.

Incredible Instagram Posts from Top Influencers

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #1: HOLIDAY FAM JAMS

Nothing puts me in the holiday spirit like a cozy pair of PJs. It was a tradition in my family for the kids to open one present the night of Christmas Eve, and the gifts were always matching pajamas for the whole family. Influencer Courtney Brand Agbetola of @greeneyesgoldsoul is taking holiday jammies to the next level with her family and their partnership with The Honest Company. This social media holiday post exudes the family values and happy, healthy vibes Honest champions as a brand, making it the perfect sponsored post. 

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #2: BUILDING THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

Nothing says heartwarming like holiday activities with the fam. Burton B. Buffaloe of @bbbuffaloe specializes in festive family pictures and sweet captions that capture life’s moments. Like this one sponsored by LEGO, where Burton and his husband built LEGO ornaments with their two children. This post has it all. Family first. Product front and center. And holiday decor to top it off. 

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #3: HOLLY JOLLY HOME DECOR

While Americans are the largest Instagram audience, it’s important to remember 88 percent of Instagram users are outside the U.S. Home decor influencer, Claudia Guzman, hails from El Salvador. Her account @glamurosa_guzman_decor reaches more than 23.5k followers stateside and internationally. She has a knack for putting home goods front and center in her posts, like this one from last Christmas. This post garnered nearly 8 percent engagement and featured products from three different brands: Home Goods, Pier1, and Big Lots. 

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #4: #NEUTRALCHRISTMAS

Jo Shetley, the wife, mother, and personal blogger behind @the_simple_farmhouse, proves that you don’t have to stick to the traditional reds and greens when decking the halls. The holiday spirit is evident and elegant in this post featuring home decor products from Anthropologie, Crate and Barrel, and Bed Bath and Beyond. If you’re a decor brand looking for influencers, it’s important to align your store’s style with your influencer’s. Do your customers like a classic look like Claudia’s or do they lean more understated like Jo’s?

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #5: CHRISTMAS BAKES, COFFEES, AND CAKES

Another international influencer we love is @rubybhogal, affectionately known to Great British Bake Off fans as Rubes. Ruby’s feed is filled with delicious treats, recipes, and gorgeous selfies — making her a dynamic influencer. And influence she does! With a whopping 226k followers, Ruby connects to her fans through giveaways, sponsorships, and paid ads.  She has an ongoing partnership with Nespresso, and she posted several photos to her grid last year in anticipation of the holiday season. 

This three-photo carousel post brought in nearly ten thousand likes. Because Ruby tends to get more engagement on posts where she is pictured, whether a posed shot like the one above or a glam selfie, she was able to use her likeness to catch her followers’ eyes while scrolling. And of course, her Christmas Puddings got their own glam shot next to the tried and true Nespresso machine. 

Another great aspect of this post: aside from giving her followers product recommendations with her Nespresso partnership, she also provides value by providing her Christmas Pudding recipe in the caption. That way her followers can celebrate in style just like she does, down to the very last ingredient. 

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #6: SEASONS GREETINGS

Influencers specialize in all sorts of content. The perfect niche for your influencer marketing campaign might not be what you first expect. For example, @julesdenby focuses her page on the seasons of New England. That means you can find plenty of holiday content on Julie’s Instagram this time of year — like this expertly shot photo of her town. Can you say Hallmark Movie?

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #7: SET THE SCENE

You know what they say: location location location. Influencers like Trudy Leung of @missvancityfoodie know how to set the perfect holiday scene. Let them work their creative magic to highlight your product in the winter wonderland your consumers call home. If you own a small business with a storefront, it can be a huge advantage to find influencers in your city.

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #8: GET YOUR TAG ON

Don’t forget to list your products on your business Instagram shop tab. That way, when influencers post your products, they can tag them directly in their photo. 

Bonus points for showing up in the “similar products” suggestions when other influencers post items similar to those you sell. Instagram’s new social commerce features allow you to leverage influencer marketing on a whole new level. Maximize your influencer relationships and benefit from those who are using similar tactics and products in their posts. Win-win!

Check out these holiday mug suggestions that popped up when I engaged with influencer @robin.forslund’s post.

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #9: PUPS FOR THE PEOPLE

When searching for influencers, don’t sleep on the power of pets. Of course, if you’re in the puppy sweater business, influencers like @oka.the.corgi are likely already on your radar. But these pretty pooches can help sell more than dog accessories. This post also highlights some eye-catching holiday decor, and that only scratches the surface of possibilities for pup-fluencer posts.

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #10: RED, GREEN, AND YUMMY ALL OVER

Holiday posts don’t have to be relegated to decorations, cozy sweaters, and twinkly lights. The right image can make food campaigns very festive. And it doesn’t stop there! Look for influencers with a knack for up-leveling traditionally non-holiday products in celebratory ways. Like this charcuterie board!

Post from @petalandplatter.

Perfect Holiday Posts on Other Platforms

We may be partial to Instagram for picture-perfect posts, but it’s important to give credit to our Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok influencers as well. Here are some of our favorite festive posts on other platforms:

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #11: FACEBOOK FESTIVITIES

When it comes to influencer marketing for your holiday campaign on Facebook, don’t underestimate the power of video. Influencers like Rachel Zoe, built and maintain their followings by connecting with their audience. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million clicks. Or at least 11,000 in the case of this post from last December. 

POST EXAMPLE #12: TIKTOK TIPS AND TRICKS

I love a good montage, don’t you? TikTok offers incredible video editing capabilities that allow influencers to stitch together videos from their own camera rolls plus their sponsored brand’s content. This post by @theshayspence sponsored by Delta gave viewers a look into a trip to The Big Apple during the most wonderful time of the year. No detail is spared, from the flight to the festivities. It allows the viewer to take a journey with the influencer, and imagine themselves as the protagonist alongside them. TikTokers love that main character energy.

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #13: TRADITIONAL TOKS

Of course, more traditional TikToks, like this talking head video from @mrwilliamsprek, work wonders as well. Like on any other platform, TikTok influencers thrive on connection to their audience. So posts like these that put the influencer, and your product, front and center, often get great engagement. (With relatively minimal effort!)

HOLIDAY POST EXAMPLE #14: PINTERESTS THAT PIQUE INTEREST

Get the most from your influencer posts, when they capture the holiday magic from every angle. Slideshow posts like these are great for marketing home decor products and anything that shimmers from all sides. The more immersive the experience for the viewer the better! Instagram isn’t the only platform where influencer images reign supreme!

Post from RhiannonLawsonHome.

The Wrap-Up

By and large, the key takeaway for this particular post is the importance of the art of posting to Instagram and other platforms. Influencers like Burton, Julie, and Trudy have mastered the art of creating and curating engaging content for their Instagram followers. They know what their followers want to see. More importantly, they know how to present their ideas, products, news, and adventures to their audience in pictures.

It’s a skill, for sure. And one you certainly want your influencer partner to have. But it’s not always easy to find the right influencers like Ruby Bhogal or Jo Shetley, who can put your product in front of tens of thousands of people in a way that makes them remember and even share your product.

We can help you build relationships with the right influencer partners and create influencer marketing campaigns that impact your target audience. There’s no time like the present to start your holiday marketing efforts.

The post 14 Examples of Social Media Holiday Posts to Inspire Your Creativity appeared first on The Shelf Full-Service Influencer Marketing.