Valentine’s Day? Nope. Easter? Nuh-uh. The winter holiday season is the busiest shopping time all year, as celebrations across cultures converge in a universal time of giving.
Whether your consumers are decorating the tree or lighting the menorah, they’re gearing up for a season of togetherness—and buying. Set your brand up for holiday success with inspiring marketing tips to make the holidays merry and bright, and discover how LTK Connect can help.
How Brands Can Use LTK Connect All Season Long
We’re changing the game to make LTK your go-to during the holidays and all year through. In addition to the capabilities you’ve come to expect from LTK Connect, we’ve rolled out new capabilities to give you and consumers more.
LTK Match.AI
LTK Connect has a new Creator-matching feature that makes it easy for brands to discover Creators who fit their needs. LTK Match.AI lives on the Discovery page on LTK Connect as a resource to recommend Creators based on performance. LTK’s AI model taps into the company’s dataset – resulting in a new, powerful algorithm that precisely matches Creators with brands that will drive optimal results.
LTK Marketplace
Take LTK Connect to a new level. LTK Marketplace is changing the way business is done in the influencer industry. The intuitive new platform fosters direct connections between brands and creators, empowering creators to pitch brands to collaborate on their upcoming campaigns.
LTK Marketplace simplifies the Creator search by bringing tailored proposals directly to brands for review. Just post your campaigns to the Marketplace, and interested LTK Creators will come to you. Brands using LTK Marketplace see about 66 proposals per campaign!
Holiday Marketing Strategy Tips
Influencer marketing is as effective as Black Friday ads and commercials. Through a combination of the right audiences, Creator partners, and tried-and-true strategies, your brand can build excitement and anticipation for the busiest season of the year.
Basic Tips for Positive Results
The sky’s the limit when your brand goes all-in on Creator partnerships for the holidays. So, where do you start? First, consider the social media spaces your target consumers spend the most time in:
- Instagram provides opportunities to share images and Reels, shoppable posts, and add promos to bio links.
- Pinterest offers shoppable product pins, holiday outfit inspo, and gift suggestions.
- TikTok champions Creator partnerships, educational content, and TikTok Shops.
But don’t forget about efforts that build your relationships with Creators, either. Sending Creators product samples enhances your brand’s chances of gaining coverage, offering affiliate commissions gives Creators profit incentives for their efforts, and features in influencer gift guides showcase authentic recommendations at a key buying time.
LTK’s Tips for Creator Collaborations
At LTK, we believe successful holiday partnerships start from the ground up—by doing your homework way before you even dream up ideal social media campaigns. Luckily, doing so is as easy as 1-2-3-4:
- Identify goals: Before you dive in with a Creator on LTK Connect or anywhere else, figure out what you want to achieve in the short- and long-term. From ideal customer profiles to preferred social media platforms, as well as whether your campaign(s) should be seasonal or longer-lasting, hammer out what you want and then find the influencer(s) who fit the bill.
- Understand customers: Tap into your social channels for a closer look at your customers, including their pain points and how your products and services might help. Take note of their comments, likes, feedback, and even hashtags for insights into how a Creator partnership could improve brand perception, consumer behavior, and brand advocacy.
- Get to know influencer demographics: Starting to draft a short list of potential Creators? Learn about their audiences. LTK Connect pulls in vital details such as age, location, and gender to help you find the right match. Even if your brand isn’t a perfect fit, its message could still resonate with enough people to drive conversions.
- Size up the competition: Peek over the garden wall at your biggest competitors to understand their marketing efforts. What’s working in their social media campaigns, and what could your Creator partnership do better? LTK Connect even unlocks historical insights into top-converting competitor campaigns.
Effective Tactics for Connect Brands
LTK Connect empowers small businesses to partner with curated Creators, opening the door to millions of consumers on the LTK shopping app. If that’s not enough to put dollar signs in your eyes, consider the strategies that work for brands like yours during the holidays and throughout the year.
Holiday Shopping Collabs
Get into the spirit all season long. Hosting live events in partnership with influencers, developing campaign content, and promoting gift hauls all increase organic engagement. Shopping collaborations are especially effective for Gen Z and millennial audiences because they’re looking to use gift guides for holiday shopping this year—61 percent and 64 percent, respectively.
Influencer Campaigns for Last-Minute Shopping
Black Friday breezes by and the economy is restricting buyers, to boot. Your consumers are getting creative to save during the holidays, but that doesn’t mean the door is closed for your brand. Instead, reach last-minute shoppers by promoting deals and discounts to lighten the load on holiday spending.
shortyLOVE and LTK Connect
One former big-name retailer employee turned solopreneur and bag designer wanted to create awareness for her brand shortyLOVE and showcase ways to style her bags. TikTok videos and Instagram DMs provided a solid start but could only go so far. Enter LTK Connect, which made connecting with influencers a snap, from managing influencer selection and contracts to communication. With LTK Connect’s support, it was easy to build relationships with influencers to showcase bag designs and attract more customers.
Make Your Brand Stand Out This Shopping Season with Influencer Marketing
Take your influencer marketing on a sleigh ride this holiday season with LTK. From leveraging the power of AI to put content in front of consumers, to using winning strategies to develop relationships with influencers, to investing in the social media platforms your consumers engage with the most, your brand can become the big-ticket item this year. Get started now, and make your holidays merry and bright with LTK.
