For marketing professionals, every year’s festive season is an opportunity not to be overlooked. In the second half of 2023, Malaysia will have several festivals, and business owners should be prepared to make the most of these opportunities to attract consumers and boost sales. In the previous article, we discussed how to create diverse and engaging advertising campaigns for events like Double 11. Today, we will focus on understanding user demands and planning marketing strategies. Let’s dive in!
Let’s Take a Look at Malaysia’s Festivals in the Second Half of the Year !
After understanding user needs, let’s explore the festivals that take place in Malaysia during the second half of the year. Malaysia is bustling with many festivals during this period, including National Day, Malaysia Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, Hari Raya Haji, Deepavali, and Christmas, among others. You can leverage these festivals for marketing purposes to achieve better business performance. Here are some examples to consider:
Hari Raya Haji
Hari Raya Haji is the Indian New Year for Malaysians of Indian descent. It’s one of Malaysia’s significant festivals where many Indians purchase new clothes, prepare traditional snacks, curries, and celebrate Hari Raya Haji with family and friends.
December School Holidays
December marks the long school holidays for primary and secondary schools in Malaysia—a whole month off! Many parents take this opportunity to travel abroad with their children, making it an excellent time for the tourism industry to roll out promotions. Of course, some students and parents use the holidays to focus on extra learning. Therefore, tuition centers may also consider offering relevant courses to capitalize on this holiday period for business growth.
Christmas
Considering Malaysia’s religious demographics—with approximately 61.3% Muslims, 19.8% Buddhists, 10.2% Christians, and 5.3% Hindus—one can imagine that at least one in ten Malaysians celebrates Christmas. More people exchange gifts and indulge in delicious food with friends during this festive season. Hence, Christmas is also a peak period for business opportunities in Malaysia!
When is the best time to start planning my advertising?
Now that we’ve discussed the upcoming festivals, let’s talk about when is the best time to start planning your advertising campaigns. Read on!
Taking the Double 11 Shopping Festival as an example, retailers can begin planning their product discount strategies and crafting suitable promotional plans in late September and early October. In the 1 to 4 weeks leading up to the event, you can launch limited-time discounts to incentivize users to make early purchases, thus reaching peak sales on Double 11 itself. Even after the Double 11 Shopping Festival concludes, you can still engage users by offering promotions like “buy one, get one free” or “buy two, get 50% off,” sustaining their shopping enthusiasm until Christmas.
The 4-8 Weeks Before the Event: Pre-Warmup Period
During the 4-8 weeks leading up to the event, you can build consumer expectations, capture customer attention, and prepare for subsequent promotional activities and campaigns. This is a crucial planning phase that can help businesses achieve better results when the event begins.
Here’s what you can do for advertising creatives: You can create the presentation style for seasonal limited-time ads and develop various concepts and formats for ads to generate freshness.
For audiovisual materials, you can plan a pre-warmup content schedule. Instead of producing one-time audiovisual content, establish a pre-warmup content plan. During this 4-8 week period, regularly release new content to sustain interest continually.
1-4 Weeks Before the Event: Pre-Event Phase
During the 1-4 weeks leading up to the event, retailers can capitalize on the pressure of the shipping deadline to drive product purchases. Additionally, the strategies during this phase should remain relatively stable, avoiding major adjustments to allow for systematic learning.
Here’s what you can do for audiovisual materials:
- Teaser Trailer: Create an engaging teaser trailer highlighting the product’s highlights and uniqueness. Spark audience curiosity with a few seconds of a teaser trailer.
- Countdown: Develop a countdown video, counting down with users to the arrival of the product or Double 11 offers.
- User Experience Sharing: Produce interactive content related to Double 11, such as polls, surveys, or contests. Interacting with users can stimulate audience participation and enhance their engagement with the event.
During the event week
Audiovisual materials during the event week should primarily focus on reminding the target audience of the event’s proximity and the associated discounts.
Here’s what you can do with audiovisual materials: Use social media platforms for live streaming to show behind-the-scenes glimpses, special interviews, or Q&A sessions to the audience. Alternatively, you can directly email or message subscribers to remind them of the relevant offers and discounts during the event.
After the event
After the event concludes, it is essential to continue engaging users’ attention, as their shopping needs will continue to grow. Therefore, if businesses can sustain user engagement at this point, they can effectively drive marketing performance further.
In terms of advertising creativity, you can consider the following approaches: Update the presentation of advertisements and suggest extending the promotional period to encourage consumers, especially those with a habit of stocking up, to make additional purchases. For example, continue offering discounts for a week after the event has ended. Another strategy is to employ “re-purchase incentives” by providing rewards for customers who have already made a purchase, offering them additional discounts or small gifts on their next purchase.
Regarding multimedia materials, businesses can create a summary video of the event, highlighting key moments, highlights, and participant experiences. Additionally, they can share feedback and reviews from event participants. Sending a thank-you letter to those who participated in the event or made purchases, along with links to the event summary and multimedia materials, can serve as a reminder of future discount events.
Shopping season is approaching, but you don’t yet understand your users’ needs?
No worries! Performance measurement can assist businesses in preparing for the holiday shopping season marketing activities. Retailers can gauge the effectiveness of their marketing efforts through performance measurement, enabling data-driven decision-making and strategy improvement.
Retailers can build relationships with users through communication software:
- Messenger Direct Messaging Advertising:
- Include CTA buttons to invite users to chat directly with the retailer.
- Offer automated customer support services.
- Engage in one-on-one chats with users to promote products.
Engaging in one-on-one conversations with users through Messenger provides an opportunity for retailers to offer personalized recommendations. Additionally, Messenger allows for the swift delivery of important information, promotions, or notifications, making it very helpful for driving immediate sales or event participation.
A whopping 78% of users consider communication features as their primary choice for interacting with retailers. Furthermore, 66% of users are more inclined to purchase products from companies that have messaging features and are easily accessible for contact.
- Instant Forms
- Suitable for mobile use
- Instant Forms load quickly and automatically populate customer contact information previously shared with Meta.
Instant Forms are one of the most direct ways for retailers to discover new customers. Additionally, Instant Forms can be used for collecting feedback, opinions, or survey responses, helping businesses gain a better understanding of customer needs and pain points. This information can be used to improve products, services, or marketing strategies.
Reels Advertising Three Tips: Entertainment, Clarity, Resonance
In addition to using advertising placements on Meta, consider advertising through Reels, which can reach a younger consumer audience and expand your reach. Here are some relevant tips for creating Reels advertisements:
- Ensure Entertainment Value
Retailers can create entertaining content and combine it with advertisements to attract consumers. For example, during Halloween, clothing stores can share costume ideas that go well with Halloween and utilize Reels’ “Add Yours” option to allow more people to see and participate by sharing their own Halloween outfits.
- Clarity
Simple and clear content helps consumers understand the essence of your advertisement at first glance. It’s advisable to get straight to the point at the beginning of the video, sharing the key message with the audience. This approach captures users interested in the relevant theme from the start.
- Resonance
Creating videos that resonate with users can make them feel personally connected, strengthening the relationship between consumers and your brand. For example, if it’s a Valentine’s Day advertisement, use elements like pink and red colors, hearts, rings, and other items associated with couples to set the romantic mood and resonate with consumers.
Whether you’re refreshing advertising creatives or utilizing audiovisual materials, it’s essential to adjust your strategies according to different periods and holiday shopping seasons to ensure the best marketing results. Therefore, make the most of this shopping season by carefully planning your advertisements and marketing strategies.
►︎ Interested in planning holiday marketing campaigns?
►︎ Contact us now! The cacaFly professional consulting team is here to help.
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