Optimising Your Q4 Marketing Operations with Cape: A Guide to Streamlining Workflow

As the 2023 Holiday Shopping Season unfolds, retailers are trying everything to connect with their customers. From loyalty programs to discounts, increased convenience, price match guarantees and more. Yet, these initiatives are just part of the equation. The pressing question is whether it's feasible to implement these strategies and whether these will truly connect with the customer and meet their expectations. Human resources are struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demand, resulting in a growing gap between production resources and content demand. But not to worry! We've curated a set of tips so you can sleigh ride through the holidays with ease.

How to be prepared 

Defining your campaigns early on, and creating and scheduling them before the busy holiday season can reduce a lot of pressure during the December month. However, manually creating these ads is still a timely task, and you have to start months in advance while other campaigns are running as well. 

This is where marketing automation comes into play! This growing player in the industry can make your entire campaigning process faster, better, and easier. There are several features that are especially useful during this busy holiday season.

• Feed connection: The current market asks for an insane amount of content with dozens of local interpretations, like market specific offers, deals, translations, and city- or even street names. Manually creating that content can feel like an impossible job. Connect to feeds to automate ad creation, including dynamic countdown elements, up-to-date deals, A/B(C/D/E) testing, as well as automated pushing, removing, or pausing ads based on your selected criteria. 

• Campaign library: Local teams and franchises often lack the expertise to create strong campaign concepts in line with the brand identity, though they do have different products and deals they want to promote, especially during the holidays. Empower them with a campaign library with on-brand ads that are ready to use. Cape’s input validation functionalities ensure that local teams and franchises can only change those elements in the campaign that are essential for the local touch, such as product, destination or the offer they want to promote.

• One-stop shop: The holiday season can lead to a lot of frustration and ping ponging back and forth with agencies, brand teams and marketers, especially when launching in multiple markets. Mastering your campaign management means that last-minute promotions or deals pose no challenge. With an efficient workflow where everyone is working, approving, and chatting in the same environment, missed opportunities become a thing of the past.

• Omnichannel publishing: Use an omnichannel approach to increase the convenience for your customer and your online visibility. If you are present on several platforms, there are several ways for your customer to encounter your products. Marketing automation can automate your publishing to all desired platforms. 

Equip yourself with the right tools and strategies to thrive through the holiday shopping extravaganza. Maximise your brand's impact and connect effortlessly with your audience by embracing the efficiency and innovation that marketing automation brings along. Cheers to a seamless and successful holiday season for your business!