Customers Are for Life, Not Just for Christmas: Why Your Holiday Marketing Strategy Should Be Year-Round

The golden quarter is crunch time for consumer-facing marketers. With so much spend and limited media space, it’s easy to get muscled out of a target audience’s mindshare. If marketers can’t outspend their competition, however, they can outsmart them by identifying holiday shoppers and messaging them at the times when no one else is thinking about them and in the places no one else is looking.

These shoppers — people who are proactive in gift-giving and plan purchases weeks, even months in advance — are a distinct audience with surprisingly predictable characteristics. By understanding what makes this cohort tick 12 months of the year rather than just during the Christmas rush, brands can play the mindshare long game and make sure they’re top of the list come consideration time.

Find What Else Holiday Shoppers Are in the Market for and Get in Front

Marketers with a treasure trove of first-party data might assume they have a deep understanding of their core audience, but this data only covers what customers have shared through direct interactions. A jewelry brand, for example, might know that a shopper purchased a bracelet with a custom engraving in November (clear evidence of gift-giving), but be totally unaware that the same person is planning their honeymoon or adopting a healthier lifestyle.

This is where third-party data comes in. When layered onto customer profiles, it reveals the motivations and life stages that shape purchase decisions outside of peak gifting periods. Brands can gain insights into why someone may be preparing to buy again, how to reach them before the next holiday spending spree, and expand this insight from existing customers to prospective buyers.

Brands gain the ability to design campaigns that resonate on a personal level year-round, while also finding media environments that others would overlook. Digging into our holiday shopper data reveals a cohort that are twice as likely to be researching travel options; not a signal you might typically associate with gift buying, but one that can be leveraged in less saturated channels.

For example, a watch brand could advertise alongside travel content across web, socials, and connected television (CTV) to appear in front of holiday shoppers without having to share the space with competitors. It could even wrap the campaign in a travel theme, aligning its products with a sense of adventure to make a strong impression on holiday shoppers that will endure when they switch their sights from buying flights and hotels to gifts.

Weave Into a Customer’s Lifestyle and They’ll Advocate Your Brand Through Gifts

Lifestyle data uncovers yet more opportunities to get ahead. Holiday shoppers are twice as likely  to be invested in healthy living, eating a vegetarian diet, and buying herbs and supplements. These traits paint the picture of consumers who prioritize wellbeing and thoughtful decision-making, which will also influence how they approach gifting.

For gifts with a lifestyle angle, such as beauty products and homeware, this insight can be woven into everything from product positioning to creative messaging. Think skincare lines with an ethical focus, beauty bundles in sustainable packaging, and kitchen gadgets that promote health and wellness. Make buying a gift feel like doing the right thing and marketers gain a valuable differentiator that speaks to hearts and minds, rather than just wallets.

Building an association with lifestyle is also more enduring. If a brand becomes a trusted staple in a consumer’s day-to-day, they’ll consider its products a safe choice for friends and family come holiday season. Earn this trust through year-round positioning in lifestyle content and brands gain an advantage over competitors rushing for a place in annual gifting guides.

Competitors typically concentrate their budgets in Q4 in channels closest to the checkout page, leaving travel and lifestyle content underutilized even though these are exactly where proactive gifters can reliably be found. Find these underexploited opportunities to connect with holiday shoppers and you can turn them into customers for life, not just for Christmas.

Alison Harding is vice president of data solutions, EMEA at Lotame, a leading global data and identity solution.