You can never plan early enough for some things. Take holiday marketing campaigns, globally. Some marketers plan for next year’s campaigns even as the current year’s campaigns are still on. Plans gather steam after July. Launching them is not until much later, between November 1 and 15, just before Thanksgiving. According to Experian Marketing Services, there are some clear trends in the 2014 holiday season — paid Facebook advertising will rival organic campaigns across other social networks; e-mail will be central to marketing campaigns; and mobile marketing will be prevalent globally.
Discussing challenges about targeting the best customers, Experian recommends using the loyalty programme database as the determining factor to profit from this year’s campaigns, and make it a point of focus for next year.
It also recommends more focus on mobile and deals and offers. A total of 379 marketers across EMEA/UK&I (Europe, Middle East and Africa — 28 per cent), North America (51 per cent), South America (15 per cent), and APAC (6 per cent) were surveyed. Due to the small sample size, APAC was not referenced in the data but was included in global numbers. Industries include agency and marketing services (28 per cent), retail and e-commerce (22 per cent), consumer products (9 per cent), media and entertainment (7 per cent), financial services (5 per cent), travel and hospitality (5 per cent) and more. Eleven per cent of the marketers represent companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.