We all know a new year means more resolutions, more plans and more organisation but here at Organic, we’re not interested in hitting the gym harder, or cutting back on the chocolate (January is depressing enough already, right?!), instead we’re all about planning our digital strategy for the year ahead. 

Like with all things digital, it’s key to make plans in plenty of time and forgo the last minute rushes, tantrums or tears that can be induced when optimising your website behind schedule. Every year there seems to be another event to plan for, and we know it can be super hard to keep up with each and everyone, as well as ensuring they’re all planned out in enough time. 

So, we thought we’d be really kind and give you guys a heads up on the dates you need to be preparing for, the timescales in which to plan and all the technical bits in between you need to get familiar with. As always, if you’re still not sure after reading this very informative article, then of course we’re just an email away. 

We won’t go through each individual possible holiday that you might want to keep your eye out for, because you’d be reading for several days. We do strongly recommend however, that you make a list of days and celebrations that relate to your brand and weave them into your strategy as soon as possible. 

Getting prepped

As Benjamin Franklin once said ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail’, which is why planning ahead, in plenty of time, is at the top of our to-do list. If you’re not already using one, set up a project management system so you can remind yourself of upcoming dates and ensure you get a head start. Think about how much time it will take to create content and assets, the likely resources you’ll need and what other actions you have on your plate during that time. You need to be preparing content and pages for your website at least 3 months prior, and if you want your pages to rise to the top of search engine results, it’s crucial to stick to this timeframe. Not sure what else it takes to get those rankings? Well here you go:

• Publish relevant content that positions you as the authority on your subject matter. 
• Update your content regularly, and keep it fresh.
• Have a link-worthy site to help your website visitors learn more about your content by providing links to other sources.

Yes those keywords again

Keywords are king, and we know you might be bored of hearing us say that, but keeping them on point is really important. You want to make sure they’re effective at driving the right sort of traffic to your website which will again increase your rankings and improve visibility. 

So how can you optimise your keywords effectively?

Find the keywords for your site by doing a little bit of research, identify words and phrases that align with your content and create a solid strategy with your target audience in mind. When these search terms peak and dip due to the changes in the year, make sure you create a paid and organic search strategy to start positioning your content and landing pages to be relevant for these researched terms. Don’t forget this type of extensive research takes a lot of time and effort, even more so if you have an e-commerce brand that can benefit from several key retail dates throughout the year, keep ahead of your competitors by implementing the above at least 3 months in advance. Heres a handy article by our SEO guru, Luke Whitaker!

Go beyond your website with advertising 

SEO is a big part of getting your website where it needs to be to really be driving sales however it’s not the whole picture! Start researching popular websites that have a similar target audience and reach out to them to publish editorial content on their website. Identify which topics might be of interest to their customer base and create content to compliment this audience. Find out if there are newsletter and sponsorship opportunities and think about how you can increase awareness for those key retail dates at peak times. 

If you haven’t already, make use of Google Ads Promotion Extensions on your search text ads, this allows you to automatically start and end promos, discounts and special offers for your target audience. By doing this you increase visibility on search results pages and also allows you to entice your users to take action on limited time deals. 

Clear goals, clear planning, more traffic 

You’ve made the plans, you’re created a knockout strategy but now it’s time to set goals and KPIs for each event. As gruelling as this sounds, providing your team with set budgets and requirements for end results, means you will know exactly what good looks like (and more importantly, when it’s time to crack open the champagne!). 

There may be some events throughout the year that are more important than others – for example, the Super Bowl may be a significantly more important event for your business than Black Friday. Once you’ve decided which events are a priority, you can then allocate your budgets for marketing activities accordingly. It’s important to allocate enough to set yourself up for success, without spending it all on an event that is not so key for you. 

Don’t forget to include these in your plan 

If you’ve made it this far you’re 100% going to be in tip top shape this year for your marketing campaigns and although we’ve kept it short and sweet, there’s still a few little pointers we want to share. Here are some extra things to keep in mind: 

• Opt-in subscriber emails – Start collecting these earlier on in the year and throughout so you have a good size permission-based database to email key holidays tips, insights and special offers. 
• Implement remarketing pixels on core pages of your website earlier on to start building up audiences that you can target with display remarketing campaigns during peak holiday seasons.
• Track users who have abandoned the cart or conversion path to then create special discount offers (only visible to them), bringing them back to the website using Google Display Network, Facebook, LinkedIn or other open exchange platforms.

We can lend a helping hand 

It’s clear that a lot of time consuming research is needed along with well timed execution for successful marketing campaigns to come into effect. However with all the planning, research, goal and budget setting in the world, time is precious and in the digital world there is never enough of it. If you’re looking at the mountains of extra work and worrying about having to put tasks on the back burner in order to complete your strategy, there’s this great company that is top in their field and has won a couple of awards that can help…oh wait, that’s us! 

If you have it all down and are ready to get stuck in, why not check out our list of very important key retail dates to have on your radar this year. Check it out here!