The holiday season is among us, and you’ve only got a couple of weeks left to convince customers that your product is the best thing they can give someone as a gift. People spend weeks trying to find the perfect gift for someone they love, and your company might offer it. But how are they supposed to buy it if they don’t even know if it something that is available to them? That’s where your marketing efforts come into place. Here are 8 tips for marketing during the Christmas season to make sure you reach your audience.

1. Use Machine Learning Data

Machine learning companies give your business the ability to analyze customer habits and behavior and tell you exactly who your audience is and what they want to hear from your business. It will also tell what platforms of marketing are going to be the most effective and exactly what information your customers want to hear. Machine learning can access and analyze data to give you recommendations significantly faster than humans, meaning you can get real time solutions to problems. Plus, if a marketing tactic isn’t working, machine learning can give the information, so your business can change tactics immediately instead of waiting a few weeks to see results. That’s especially important right now when we only have a couple of weeks left until Christmas.

2. Christmas is all about the feels

Whether people are religious or not, Christmas is a holiday they are very emotionally attached to. There’s a magic in Christmas that children remember and adults want to recreate every year, so advertising with all the feels will get customers excited and interested in what you have to offer. For example, Amazon did an ad this year with packages making their way all over the world to people while singing songs. In the beginning of an ad, a person sees a young girl and then sends the package. At the end, that young girl gets her package and seems beyond excited. It makes the prospect of magical Christmas shopping easier than ever and shows exactly how happy people are when they receive a package in the mail.

3. Don’t forget humor

The other exciting part about Christmas is this giant secret that adults know but children don’t. That makes it easier than ever to pack some humor into your ads that get the parents laughing without kids ever knowing what is going on. For example, McDonald’s did an ad this year where a young girl gets a carrot for the reindeer. When she realizes she needs more carrots for more reindeer than just one, the dad takes her back to McDonald’s. They order a bag of carrots for the reindeer and a cheeseburger for Father Christmas. When the girl tells her dad that Father Christmas doesn’t eat cheeseburgers, he proceeds, with a disappointed look on his face, to only order the carrots for the reindeer. It is funny for the adults to watch and points out that McDonald’s has healthy food options available for children.

4. Texting works

Almost all texts are opened by consumers in the first 3 minutes they arrive, guaranteeing your message will be received by customers right away. And with only a couple of weeks left til Christmas, customers really don’t have that much time left to place an order for Christmas. By sending them text messages reminding them you exist and what you have to offer, you’ll give them gift ideas and will help them to know exactly how much time they have to order it if they want that for someone they love.

5.Email marketing campaigns

One of the first places customers will look for coupons is in their email. So, if you plan to offer a discount code to customers to get them through the door, a marketing email is a good idea. Send out your holiday email discounts soon if you want people to take advantage of them.

6. Influencer marketing works wonders

Focus on influencer marketing all the time, but especially during the holidays. It is a fantastic way to bring in new customers who you haven’t worked with yet. Plus, customers are already working overtime right now referring customers to different product recommendations for Christmas gifts.

7. Embrace social media

Social media is the place where customers go to complain, refer their friends, and check out different businesses. That means your company needs to be actively involved. You should be posting regularly to try and get customers to interact with your business, and it’s a great place to post current deals for the holidays. You can also run social media ads that will market towards your audience base to get them interested in your product. And you should be interacting with customers who post any public questions or concerns to your wall, so show future customers you care and will always be there for customers.

8. Always be clear about how long it will take to get there

If you promise customers that the item will get there before Christmas, you better do everything in your power to make sure it does really get there. You should have a countdown on your site for how soon an order needs to be placed to arrive in time including overnight shipping options, and then your business needs to do its part and make sure to send the products in time.