Holiday Influencer Marketing Guide 2024

Introduction

From fireworks to stocking stuffers, holidays evoke excitement and celebration, reminding people of pure happiness. Social media encourages spreading the holiday spirit, enabling businesses to create holiday influencer marketing campaigns. As the festive season nears, brands often experiment with strategies to drive holiday sales. Influencer marketing’s popularity has soared in the digital age.

Last year, 34% of holiday shoppers planned to use social media to assist their purchasing decisions, a trend that has shown a consistent annual rise in social media holiday shoppers, and 2024 is forecasted to be no different. For brands aiming to elevate their business through holiday marketing, developing an impactful plan is crucial. This guide explores leveraging influencer marketing to maximize holiday influencer marketing campaigns, offering strategies, trends, and successful case studies.

Background

Influencer marketing has become a cornerstone of digital strategies, adapting to media trends. During holidays, it thrives as consumers seek gift ideas, inspiration, and promotions. Understanding the basics of influencer marketing and its application to holidays is essential for crafting successful campaigns.

The Holiday Influence

The holiday season, from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, represents culture, encouraging socialization and boosting consumer spending. Brands can capitalize on this peak time period by launching holiday-themed campaigns designed to increase brand visibility. Influencer marketing adds authenticity, helping brands connect with consumers on a personal level, which is crucial during the holiday season.

Planning Your Holiday Influencer Marketing Campaign

1. Setting Clear Goals

Before launching a holiday influencer campaign, it is crucial to define clear goals. These might include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, boosting sales, or growing social media engagement. Having specific, measurable objectives will guide the campaign strategy and help evaluate its success. When everyone aligns on goals, tracking reach, and outreach, the campaign is more likely to succeed and impact your brand.

2. Choosing the Right Influencers

Selecting the right influencers is vital to the success of a holiday campaign. Brands should look for influencers whose audiences align with their target demographic and whose content style matches their brand ethos. Micro-influencers often have highly engaged audiences and can be particularly effective for niche markets such as specific holidays – and of course, can be more accessible to brands with specific audiences, products, and services. 

For brand campaigns prioritizing reach, macro-influencers deliver better results, creating tailored content for their large followings and increasing visibility. Mid-level influencers, nested between the two, often have significant followings – ranging from 60,000 to 200,000 – with a better balance of engagement and reach. Choosing the best influencer depends on your goals and audience. Engagement and clicks may be more important than follower count.

3. Crafting Engaging Content

The content created by influencers should be engaging, authentic, and relevant to the holiday season. This could include gift guides, holiday recipes, or festive fashion tips. Visual content like photos and videos performs well on social media during the holidays, as consumers prefer decorative, engaging material.

Crafting engaging content varies by brand but should always be authentic, align with your mission, and fit the holiday. Gift guides, recipes, and fashion tips often perform well during the season.

Visually engaging unique content tends to perform best, regardless of platform, but if you’re primarily creating short-form content, consider Instagram Reels, in-feed posts, stories, or even YouTube shorts. To target younger generations, prioritize video content – as video-centric social platforms like YouTube and TikTok are most popular with Gen Z audiences. 

Especially when targeting new audiences yearning for connection online, visually engaging content has radically transformed – consider Vogue Business’ “infinite consumer loop,” as an alternative to the traditional funnel, where users are inherently drawn to content that fosters community and individuality with product/service advertisement, rather than funnels consumers. Platforms like TikTok, whose comment sections are equally valuable to original posts, can both reach audiences, while keeping them engaged – instead of traditional advertising campaigns that have been shown to “turn off” many generations of online consumers and users. 

4. Execution and Optimization

Timing is critical for holiday campaigns. Brands should plan their campaigns well in advance, considering key shopping dates like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the days leading up to Christmas. Coordinating with influencers to ensure timely posting can maximize the campaign’s impact, as demand for consumers can be highly variable in the days approaching holidays. Depending on your specific campaign goals, consider the ideal time you’d want your consumers to see your post – whether that means posting in the days before a holiday, to catch last-minute shoppers, or inspiring the host of an Olympics watch party. 

Meeting consumers and users where they are will optimize your entire campaign – ensuring that all your planning, preparation, money, and effort is best utilized for your goals. The content timeline below not only prepares you for the work needed to craft and optimize your content, but also advises on when to post, how to track its metrics, and when to report on its success. 

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Phase 1: Planning & Strategy (2 weeks)

Week 1:

• Define objectives and set campaign goals.
• Identify target audience. Determine demographics and interests.
• Allocate budget. 
• Choose your social platforms. 

Week 2:

• Research and shortlist influencers.
• Develop a consistent campaign theme. 
• Plan content types and key messages.

Phase 2: Outreach & Contracting (2 weeks)

Week 3:

• Complete influencer outreach and present briefs. 
• Discuss terms and compensation for influencers. 

Week 4:

• Finalize and sign contracts.
• Complete detailed creative briefs with influencers. 

Phase 3: Creative Development (2 weeks)

Week 5:

• Plan your content with influencers. 
• Review initial content drafts. 

Week 6:

• Manage influencer content production. 
• Provide feedback, review content, and request revisions.

Looking for phases 4-6? Make sure to download the full guide here! 

Case Study 1: IKEA’s “Take a Holiday from the Holidays” 

Cemented as one of the most popular annual traditions for brands, the holiday season wouldn’t be complete without sentimental storytelling and emotional advertisements. However, only some brands are successful in catching the eyes of consumers. IKEA’s 2023 holiday campaign did exactly that – urging consumers to “take a holiday from the holidays.”

Strategy: Prioritizing Connection

Instead of focusing on the typical consumer funnel, IKEA crafted an aura of relatability with their 2023 holiday campaign. With the message to “relax” amidst the chaos of the holiday season, they not only provide grace to their consumers, but urge them to take care of themselves. The film captures a variety of characters, from Santa Claus to the average mom, escaping from their busy dinner tables or family events to seek solace.

Especially given the already consumerist-driven holiday culture, having a brand take an opposing angle to their advertisements served as a breath of fresh air. Not only did IKEA do their research talking to consumers about their holiday struggles, they also crafted a campaign that demonstrated their commitment to listening.

Impact: Corporate Relatability

While it’s somewhat of an oxymoron to many consumers for a brand to prioritize humanity, those who can tend to be cherished by their viewers. A brand’s ability to craft emotion is one of the main drivers for successful engagement.

“The holidays are one of the busiest times of the year, and as much as we anticipate and treasure celebrating with family and friends, at some point, we all need a little break,” said IKEA Canada’s Head of Marketing, Jonelle Ricketts. “[2023’s] holiday campaign is all about showing how IKEA can help create those spaces within any home that are perfect for taking a little breather from the mayhem of the holiday season.”

Not only did IKEA’s 2023 holiday campaign successfully capture that aura of relatability, they did so in a way that transformed into a greater trend throughout the season. From numerous creators’ holiday content to large-scale shifts in consumerist values, this aura of grace during the holidays was perfectly relayed by the campaign – giving them a sense of credibility in the industry at large.

Case Study 2: Spotify Wrapped 

An annual tradition that most Spotify users are anticipating all-year-long, Spotify has taken the cake when it comes to famous holiday campaigns. Despite being an incredibly famous yearly tradition bolstering an incredible reach and engagement, even outside of its holiday metaphor and timeline, “Spotify Wrapped” follows macro-level trends that most brands can take note of. From shareability, to visual narratives, to personalized and well-planned content, the campaign evolves every year with something new and exciting for users. 

Typically released in late November to early December, Spotify Wrapped is a personalized summary of user’s listening data – serving as a “present” to reveal their top artists, albums, podcasts, and general listening habits. 

Strategy: Personalization & Shareability

Not only are each of the Spotify Wrapped “presents” received by users incredibly anticipated by users, they’re personalized to reflect their listening habits throughout the years – making them uniquely sentimental. Utilizing data analysis and AI technology to summarize users’ listening habits, they’re able to produce unique, share-worthy, visually appealing cards – often shared on a mass-scale on social media by their users, without Spotify ever having to advertise the tradition. 

 

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A post shared by Spotify (@spotify)

Impact: Virality, High Engagement, Loyal Users

Not only is the event a tradition alongside the holidays each year for Spotify’s users, it’s also commended for its incredible engagement. Whether they’re boasting about their favorite artist or looking forward to receiving a personalized message as a fan – they’re going to be returning to the app to show their support, listen to their favorites, and anticipate the Wrapped season. 

Conclusion

In 2024, influencer marketing continues to be a powerful tool for brands to connect with their audience in an authentic and engaging way, which is indispensable to catering to the intimate nature of the holiday spirit. Key steps for success include sufficient preparation of goals and influencers, production of well-timed and quality content, and thorough analysis of business results to gather insights. 

Successful case studies from reputable brands like IKEA and Spotify demonstrate the potential of well-planned influencer campaigns to drive significant engagement and sales. By merging the popularity of the holidays and social media with the authentic feel of influencer marketing, brands can reach communities organically through relevant and customized content, allowing them to both promote the holiday spirit and achieve their marketing objectives.

By enlisting the support and expertise of a marketing agency, brands can take a more polished approach to crafting their holiday campaigns – giving them the freedom and opportunity to hyperfocus on the unique content, missions, and products they’re passionate about sharing. 

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