In the autumn, shoppers begin to consider holiday plans, with 21% of shoppers starting their holiday shopping in October, and 40% in November.¹ While overshadowed by the Christmas retail frenzy, New Year’s is an often-overlooked, but essential part of the winter retail push. Marketers need to be thinking about their holiday promotions now.

New Year’s celebrations offer a massive opportunity for travel marketers, as a rising number of consumers are looking to celebrate the New Year at a new destination. One study² showed that 103 million people in the U.S. alone intended to travel for New Year’s, while over 6 million were purchasing airfare to get there.

New Year’s also represents an opportunity for marketers in the health and fitness industry, as the new year has historically represented a time for people to make a fresh start in many aspects of their lives. The top New Year’s resolutions for 2018³ include three devoted to health and wellness (eat healthier, get more exercise, focus on self-care). This holiday represents the ideal time for marketers to use all channels available, to put a compelling, personalized offer in front of an interested target audience.

Offline retargeting is ideal for New Year’s marketing campaigns. It represents a way to reach a segmented audience of interested customers (anonymous people who have shown intent by actually visiting the brand’s site) with an offer that has been personalized to appeal to an individual shopper, based on their own characteristics and their stage in the sales funnel. With offline retargeting, a marketer can reach the right person, at the right time, with the right offer.

A shopper that is currently making holiday plans begins with research, and the vast majority – 95% – of consumers prefer to conduct that research online.⁴ However, many potential customers will start to research a travel destination and leave the website without making a purchase.

How Does Offline Retargeting Work?

Offline retargeting offers the chance to find those customers that have left a site without making a purchase and present them with a custom offer through direct mail. Using a combination of data analytics, artificial intelligence, and creative personalization tactics, a marketer can craft an offer based on an individual’s interest level and attributes for maximum effectiveness.

While digital retargeting strategies can be useful, it can be difficult to gauge a shopper’s interest level or stage in the path to purchase. The message that would be effective for a person at the awareness phase is very different from one further along, closer to the decision phase.

Offline retargeting also offers a chance for marketers to strengthen the brand by delivering a consistent message both online and offline. An audience that is already segmented by displaying interest in a product or service is more likely to convert than a general audience. Further segmenting based on personal attributes, data science, and artificial intelligence can help a marketer to pinpoint the exact offer that will compel a shopper to convert.

Holiday shopping begins with research, and the vast majority of that research is done online. With consumer interest in travel and wellness rising over the New Year’s holiday, the opportunity to capture an interested audience of potential customers with offline retargeting is one that should not be disregarded.

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Jonathan Treiber is the CEO & Co-founder of RevTrax

Sources:
¹ https://www.statista.com/statistics/243495/period-when-us-consumers-began-shopping-for-the-holiday-season/
² https://www.travelpulse.com/news/features/fun-us-travel-facts-about-new-year-s-eve.html
³ https://www.statista.com/chart/12386/the-most-common-new-years-resolutions-for-2018/
⁴ https://www.statista.com/statistics/666622/preference-of-online-or-offline-vacation-research-us/