seasonal content - Express Writers

Compelling Copy Home for the Holidays: 10 Tips for High-Performing Seasonal Content

December 31, 2020December 5, 2016 by Ashley

Christmas is almost upon us, and you can bet that your audience is feeling festive and frisky. But is your content set up to match? The holidays are the best time to alter your content in the name of engagement and celebration, and many site owners find that adding a bit of holiday flair and seasonal content to their web pages is an efficient way to draw attention and promote more conversions and sales during the holiday season. What’s more: there are dozens of places to do this! From product descriptions to blogs, bios, and social media updates, creating festive copy is a fantastic way to make your company more approachable and keep your readers happier than a group of hard-working elves on their day off. Bring Compelling Copy Home for the Holidays: How to Create Your Best Seasonal Content As Christmas draws near, people dive headfirst into purchasing mode, and they’re looking for things to buy, companies to engage with, and new brands to discover. What a perfect time to be a marketer! By rewriting your blogs, descriptions, and social updates to provide a bit more of the holiday spirit, you can create content with a seasonal appeal that will leave your readers wanting more. Holiday Content on the “Nice” List: 3 Examples of Companies that win at Seasonal Content For three examples of businesses that are great models to follow in seasonal content that wins every holiday, check out these three businesses: 1. ModCloth ModCloth is one company I always reference when we start talking about great product descriptions, and rightfully so. The clothing company is the queen of wildly creative copy, and the names of their clothing alone is enough to make you want to buy. For an example of a holiday-themed product description that went particularly right, check out the “Oh Christmas Treat Sweater:” While the sweater itself is cute enough, it’s the product description that drives the point home and makes holiday-focused buyers want to click “add to cart.” For another great example, check out the “Barkin’ Around the Christmas Tree Knit Top:” Sweet, reliable, and decidedly festive, these product descriptions add a festive feel to shopping for clothing, which may otherwise be a mundane process. 2. PooPourri PooPourri is famous for its decidedly raunchy but very (um…) honest product descriptions. For an example of some of their more recent holiday-focused content, check out last year’s “Even Santa Poops” commercial, which has earned more than 15 million views on YouTube. While you may not want to get this gross with your holiday content, this commercial just goes to show that ‘tis the time of year for creative copy to take hold. 3. Backcountry.com Backcountry.com is a “Gearhead’s paradise” that offers outdoor clothing and accessories for people who ski, run, hike, climb, and camp. Every year, the site puts together one massive product description. It calls this its “Holiday Gift Guide,” and it features curated gear for both men and women. As a user, you click the guide and wind up on a page featuring dozens of drool-worthy gifts for men or women. While the products are exciting enough, Backcountry got it right by compiling some of its most festive offerings into one convenient platform for its users. While the holiday marketing isn’t over-the-top, there’s no denying that this is a downright festive experience: How to Write High-Performing Holiday & Seasonal Copy: 10 Timely Tips When it comes to writing high-performing holiday copy, here are a few tips to get you started: 1. Keep your choice of holidays broad Because there are several holidays throughout December, it’s smart to avoid putting all of your focus on one of them. Unless, of course, your company sells Christmas trees, Thanksgiving turkeys, or something else that is decidedly singular. For everyone else, keep your holiday options open, or opt to choose a few holidays and work around them. In addition to allowing you to appeal to the broadest segment of the audience, this also gives you a framework for keeping your content fresh and ensuring that you’re not getting too wrapped up in a single holiday and neglecting the others. This can make it difficult to create useful topics, and people who keep things open-ended commonly have an easier time staying creative. 2. Offer surprises, discounts, or contests To make the most of the festivity of the season, provide your readers with the occasional holiday surprise, giveaway, or offer. Because the holidays are a season when people shop till they drop, now is a fantastic time to give things away and draw new customers through unique offers and surprises. If you’re not sure what to give away, don’t worry. Free downloads are a fantastic option, as are eBooks and other types of digital content. If you’d prefer to give away a product, run a holiday contest on a social media platform of your choice. In addition to spreading the word about your goods and services, this is also a fantastic way to keep your customers happy, festive, and engaged. 3. Add holiday graphics to your site If you look more closely at the Backcountry screenshot above, you’ll see that the company has developed a unique little Christmas logo to jazz up their holiday content. While you don’t need to go over the top with neon elves and light-up monstrosities, adding some festive holiday visuals to your site is an excellent way to get people into the Christmas spirit and ensure that your content is the one gift that truly keeps on giving. To maintain your brand identity in the process, work to make sure that your holiday additions stay in-line with your company colors, voice, and approach. Additionally, work to find areas in your existing brand strategy where you can add some Christmas flair like Moz did last year with a dog named Lettie Pickles, the company’s resident brand ambassador: 4. Revisit your older holiday content If you’ve ever created holiday-focused content before, now is an excellent time to bring it out to play once … Read more

10 Easy Ways to Get Your Content Calendar Ready for the Holiday Season

December 31, 2020November 17, 2015 by Josh McCoy

Alecs is our Client Accounts Coordinator at Express Writers. Did you know… Thanksgiving is just 1.2 weeks away; there’s a little less than a month until Chanukah; and six weeks till Christmas. We’re not trying to stress you out about getting the turkey in the freezer and gift-wrapping started, though. (Unless you haven’t! Get on it! Kidding.) This is something much more nerve-wracking (but it doesn’t have to be, and I’ll explain how)! While it’s the busiest time of year for retailers and shoppers, it’s also a busy time for getting your content calendar out and your content ready. The best thing to do? Prepare in advance. 10 Killer Ways to Get Your Content Calendar Ready For the Holidays 1. Get That Christmas Jersey On, It’s Picture Time With a little basic editing, you can quickly and easily get your logo on Santa’s nice list. Start by thinking of those iconic holiday themes for your business profile picture. You know, Santa hats, tinsel and fairy lights. Then incorporate them into your business’s logo. You may even play around with changing your usual brand colors for seasonal shades of blue, green and red. Just remember to stick to your CI rules. 2. Deck The Halls With Cover Photos We know you’re consistent so you’ll want to update your cover photos too. It’s pretty common to do this on Facebook but don’t forget about your Twitter header photo that could do with a little tinsel here and there. It’s the cover photos that can really draw attention to your campaign, content or hashtag thread that you’re running at this time of year. Checkout how UK chain store John Lewis, who usually produces one of the biggest seasonal campaigns has carried the campaign across their Facebook and Twitter sites. (You can see the incredible ad here). 3. Oh, Look, It’s So Pretty! We all know that visual content rules social media engagement. In fact, as much as 93 percent of senior marketers report that photography is a critical component of social media. Whether your images wish the audience happy holidays, invite them to your next launch or share an interesting infographic, find different ways to make your social media posts share the festive spirit. 4. Hang Your Stocking, Santa’s Bringing GIFs Since Twitter and Facebook support GIFs now, why not go all out and create a couple of holiday GIFs for your audience’s feeds? This isn’t as terrifying as it sounds. In fact, Instagram has an app that will let you create one-second looped videos you can share across multiple platforms. Just make sure you video follows Instagram’s best practices and remains relevant to your brand. 5. Strike a Pose, It’s Video Time Video on social media has come along in leaps and bounds this year and there is no doubt in my mind this will be one of the most popular marketing tactics these holidays. Don’t let your business be left out. Why not grab the camcorder and record a festive day in the office? No, not the office party – that stuff can stay off-camera. But go ahead and capture the essence of your business to share with your audience. Interview key staff members or shoot behind-the-scenes tidbits and get sharing. Use your video footage to get across a message or make a call to action. You could encourage viewers to head over to your website – remember to include the link in a caption. Always remember to encourage viewers to share your videos. 6. The Turkey’s All Gone, It’s Time for Some Friendly Competitions We all know now that arguably one of the best tools in a social kit is user-generated content. Let’s say you decide to hold a holiday Facebook competition asking fans to contribute videos, photos or posters in order to win a prize. Later on, you could use those entries to populate your social media pages. Don’t forget to mention in your competition rules that you reserve the right to use the posts at a later date. 7. #HappyHolidays It’s official!! @MapleHillGolf is open @TangerOutlets in Byron Center! #HappyHolidays #DiscountGolfEquipment pic.twitter.com/qNPWGZppfM — Andy Kitchen (@AndyKitchen3) November 13, 2015 Using trending holiday hashtags can go a long way towards improving your impressions and getting your brand in front of loads of new followers. Getting your own branded hashtag, though, could take things to an entirely new level. It’s a hugely effective brand awareness exercise and it also improves your ability to track that hashtag campaign and see how well it performed. See how MapleHillGolf did both in the tweet above: they used #HappyHolidays and #DiscountGolfEquipment. 8. All I Want For Christmas Is… A Well-Read Blog You’ve designed the GIFs, chosen the hashtag, filmed a few videos and snapped some great photos. Now support all of that with powerful, original content. Sending your fans and followers flocking to your blog like the Three Wise Men on a mission can help increase traffic, encourage sales, downloads and sign-ups and impress friends and family when they gather round to sing your praises. To help you sit down and start writing ahead of time and be ready to share your creative posts, start picking a theme for the series right now. Put in the time now and you’ll have more time to spend around the piano singing along with friends and family in the holidays. 9. Help Your Fans Do Their Holiday Shopping I’m not suggesting you moonlight as a personal shopper, but everyone needs a little inspiration finding the perfect gift for their special friends and family. You can help by providing themed albums and Pinterest boards with ideas that probably include your products, right? Take some time to think about your audience and what they’re most likely to be searching for at this time of year. Then go and create wish lists for them that will inspire them to start shopping. 10. U.R.L Better Watch Out… Social media is merely one touch point your customers have with you. If they see … Read more

15 Holly, Jolly Blogging Ideas (BONUS: Getting-Started Intros)

December 31, 2020November 30, 2014 by Adam Oakley

When it comes to content marketing, blogging is always in season. All puns aside, with the holidays right around the corner, you might be looking for festive ways to spruce up your blog in the name of Santa and the spirit of Christmas. There are a lot of holiday blogging opportunities to be discovered—nearly every niche can benefit from spreading holiday cheer right through their blog. Even if you are in the Christmas spirit this holiday season, it might be a bit perplexing as to how you can craft Christmas and the holidays into your blogging routine. If you are stumped on your holiday blogging ideas, we have some creative topics that will put your prospects into the Christmas spirit right along with you. As an extra special something to you, I’m including short intros that you can use to get your new blog topics started off on the right foot. Be sure to note you can’t copy and paste these: that will get you penalized for duplicate content! You can, however, copy and paste and then reword. It’s easier to do that than come up with these off the top of your head. With a new set of seasonal blog topics and fun introductions, you will be well on your way to one-upping your competitors with some very merry Christmas content. Holly, Jolly Blogging Ideas for Business Business blogs can be a bit dry, but it does not have to be that way for the holidays. These fun holiday blog topic can blend into a variety of business blog while giving your content a seasonal spin. 1. Six Solutions For Balancing Your Christmas Budget Most people are all ears when it comes to learning new ways to save money. Christmas time is no exception, where people tend to blow budgets to buy that perfect gift. Offering your audience some solutions on budgeting for their Christmas items can help keep money in their pocket during busiest shopping season of the year. Write your best and most informative money saving ideas to help your readers save some coin. Intro idea for your Christmas budget blog: As shoppers dig deep into their pockets this time of year, many may feel their bank accounts stretch to accommodate Christmas time expenses. You are making your list and checking it twice, but the price tag for gifts, wrapping paper, and seasonal decor continue to climb. Even though it may be Christmas time, there are smart strategies to budgeting wisely while still checking off every gift on your list. Below are our six smartest solutions for balancing your Christmas budget. 2. Ten Years of Christmas Expenses: The Average Family Budget This Christmas blog topic is a little more on the statistical side, but it can still make for an interesting read. Using the research conducted by American Research group, break down the statistics between 2004 and 2014 on the average Christmas spending for American families. Remember to tie in your own expertise and offer insight on why you think the budget has increased, decreased, or stayed the same throughout the decade. There is also a lot of additional information on this report that you can include in your blog post, such as analyzing Internet purchasing trends during the holidays. Intro idea for your Average Christmas Budget Blog: Have you ever wondered how your Christmas budget stacks up against other American families? The American Research Group recently released a report that breaks down yearly expenses between 2004 and 2014. As you can see, Christmas expenses have fluctuated throughout the last 10 years, and the changes typically correspond with the economy and job market. Take a look at the average expenses dating back to 2004, and see how your spending compares to others across the country. 3. 7 Tips For Scoring The Season’s Hottest Gifts While some shoppers choose to spend hours (or days) waiting in line for hot holiday items, there are a few tricks of the trade that can help you get those gifts under the tree this year. Research some of the ways that people successfully snag items before they go out of stock. This might include shopping on some hidden gem websites, strategies on finding early deals, or even include some tips of your own. Intro for your Scoring Hot Gifts Blog: Every year, there is always that one toy or gadget that flies off store shelves faster than the blink of an eye. Shoppers scramble to get the holiday’s most popular gifts with many coming out of stores empty handed. If you have ever experienced this disappointment, we are here to let you in on a few secrets to scoring the season’s hottest gifts. By following our guide, you will have better luck hunting down and snapping up popular presents before it is too late. 4. Best Apps To Help You Reach Your Resolutions in 2015 Aside from singing Christmas carols and wrapping Christmas gifts, many people are beginning to make resolutions for the upcoming New Year. Studies show that only 8 percent of people actually reach their New Year Resolutions, according to Forbes. One of the trip ups to those striving to reach resolutions is lack of organization. As a person who is business-savvy, you probably have a trick or two up your sleeve when it comes to organizational tips. With hundreds of apps that are dedicated to help people lose weight and managing money, showcase some helpful apps that will help those resolution-makers finally meet their goals. Intro for your Apps for Resolutions Blog: Determined to reach your New Year’s Resolution this year? There’s an app for that. One of the keys to successfully reaching your goals for the New Year is organization. Your smartphone can be used as a resource to helping you reach your goals, with endless apps that are designed to help you stay on track for multiple purposes. Whether you are looking to lose weight, manage your money, or travel to unexplored destinations, we have found the most helpful apps … Read more

How to Create Killer Seasonal Content For Your Social Media & Blogs

January 2, 2021January 8, 2014 by Adam Oakley

So the holidays are here—we are in the thick of it. Did you hit a store on Black Friday to buy five TVs you didn’t need just because they were on sale? How fun was it fighting the masses of people bumping into one another? Well imagine how it is on the business themselves. Are you a business owner? Either way the holiday rush leaves little time to attend to things like social media. Now for businesses, social media and blogs are great promotional tools. As a business owner these should not be abandoned just because of the holidays. In fact, it can be a fun way to get people in the doors. Who is up for a surprise sale? “10% discount for the next hour.” Think of offers that get people engaged and entices them to come in “NOW”. Creating Content Over the Holidays: 6 Social Media Tips For Businesses For the average Joe and Jane your social media and blog content can probably use a holiday break. But it is a valuable tool for you. Sure, it isn’t about money or getting your customers in the doors. Do you have family that lives far away though? How about friends you haven’t seen in years? They probably want to know what is going on with you and your family. Your parents in Fort Lauderdale want to see pictures of the grandkids in Flagstaff. So in a way it is important for you to be proactive on social media and your blog this holiday season and next. But the busyness of the season! How do you find the time to do it right? Let’s start by assuming you are a business (If you are not a business then read these for fun and move on to the you are a person category.) 1. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Once upon a time there was one social network and you could check in once a day and that was that. Now there are one dozen (at least). Update Facebook, Tweet this, Instagram that, so on and so on. It can be a full time job updating all of this stuff, just ask any 13 year old girl who spends 24/7 online. Focus on the biggest social networks and the places where you have the most frequency. Don’t worry about updating every single page you maintain with social media content and blog content. Jon Henshaw, who is an internet-marketing expert, encourages his readers to, as he puts it “leverage social networks.” If you absolutely can’t find the time, a recent article on Small Business PR discusses 3rd party tools that can be used to post on your social sites at predetermined times. 2. Think ahead. You have a million things going on. Not only are you managing the needs of your business for the holidays, but that of your family too. Why not add trying to figure out what to post or blog about on top of all of that. We recently discussed maintaining a content flow during the holidays (by planning ahead) in three of our five discussion points. How do you add more onto an already unstable pile of tasks? Before bed take ten minutes to think up some things to post tomorrow Keep it simple with things that require followers to build content. Polls and contests are good. Photographs. They take no time and little effort. Shots of holiday dishes, sales, etc. Plan way ahead and in September and October prepare a list of subjects. Remember they must cover Halloween to New Years. 3. Branch out. Step outside the box of your normal content. The holiday season is a fun time, so be fun with it. Find or create funny holiday photos to post to your social media page or blog. Do you own a motorcycle dealer? Then fire up Photoshop and pop Santa on a Harley. Normally you wouldn’t post silly stuff like this, but this time of year people want to enjoy themselves. Consider what you offer as well. It’s a season of giving right? So give. If you are running a retail business then go ahead and offer some exclusive deals. Give out a coupon code to your Facebook fans. How about a Twitter contest? Whoever retweets your post can be entered to win a free dinner at your restaurant. 4. Consider a cause. Once again it is the season for giving. Thanksgiving and Christmas brings about a lot of focus to charities and noble causes. Pick a charitable cause that is unique to your business or that means something to you. Now get on your social media pages and promote it. This does three valuable things. Gives you content to talk about Shows that you are not just a business but rather a community partner Ties in to deals. Donate to this cause and receive 10% off any one entrée. There are literally thousands of causes out there. Small businesses in particular should choose a cause that supports the local community. 5. Your blog is your solution. How does your business influence the holiday season? Do you run a restaurant? Then your blog content can discuss holiday meal solutions. Not everyone cooks, so maybe you offer up a complete holiday dinner. Hot and ready for your dinner table, only $12.99 per. What about writing a blog sharing your cooking tips? Come on, celebrity chefs do it. Write a blog post and give your readers a great recipe to include with their holiday meal. 6. Appreciate the people who make it possible. You can offer all the deals in the world and share all the helpful hints you can think of. The easiest thing to do though is be thankful. The fans of your business likely spend their money with you and make you successful. So do you want a brilliant idea to talk about in your seasonal social media content? Take the time to write your fans/customers a letter. You can say “thank you” … Read more