In a candid conversation with Mike Zima, Co-founder of Zima Media, Jagruti Bhargav gained helpful insights into holiday campaigning. Mike is a remote-work entrepreneur, who works completely online from a small island near Spain, Europe.
Listen to the insights shared by Matt Erickson.
Q: Is the holiday season a big deal when it comes to the European market or the American market?
A: We have clients all over the world and everyone is in a hurry to get their products’ ads out at the New Year. It’s supposed to be the biggest quarter for everybody.
Q: Have you run any holiday campaigns for your clients?
A: Yes, our clients typically consist of eCommerce and other small businesses. During the holiday season, all of them have a goal to generate leads. We are doing campaigns for them and seeing a lot of success. Since we help them capture information so that they can create lists because usually the first touch doesn’t close a sale and there is a lot of depth in marketing today.
Q: How do you differentiate among the different offers coming from your clients, since eCommerce is a highly competitive market?
A: With eCommerce, the offer is up to you. You can promote it through advertising. The differentiation is possible through the features. You can take advantage during the holiday season. For Google ads, for instance, you can do shopping ads on YouTube. You can also use dynamic ad builders, which can give you thousands of custom ad variations. The platforms such as Google and Facebook are giving us more, new options to take advantage of. So you can really push it out a little further because your competitor may not take on such a feature right away. They might overlook it, which may give you an edge over them.
Q: Have you observe any seasonal rise in the cost-to-click when you run Google Ads or something similar?
A: Of course, there are a lot of components to marketing and advertising. When marketers build ads, there are enough inventories available. It’s like the Uber business. When a lot of people are trying to get into an Uber, you see surged prices. Similar economics apply in advertising business too. Depending on your industry, the prices can be more or less severe, because you are trying to compete for the sheer voice. If you don’t have a budget set aside for advertising, you may fail. You must have a holiday spending budget, especially knowing that you are trying to drive results to your store.
Q: Have you also run holiday campaigns for industries other than eCommerce?
A: One of the campaigns that we do is the RH campaign. For instance, if as an organization, you want to connect with your community and connect people with some of your potential clients, we help them with scholarships and corporate sponsored events that benefit a foundation or organization. It gives another face to the company as every company is trying to promote itself. When you step out of the business suite, and step in as a motivator or passion, it’s not only important to associate with your colleagues and organization, but also with people that are passionate about similar issues.
Read the full interview and more actionable insights from other marketing experts and influencers in our Ebook – Actionable Strategies for Your Holiday Campaign. Click here to read the Ebook.
