Following the holiday season, many people invite positive change into their lives as they resolve to kick off the New Year with a fresh start. And they willing to pay for it, ringing up $5.6 billion in resolutions. New Year’s rings out with opportunities for marketers as well, as they empower people work to make their dreams a reality – or at least drop a few pounds in the process. The weight-loss industry will see the greatest spend annually at $20 billion in revenue.
While nearly half of Americans (45%) usually make a New Year’s resolution, by the end of the first week, only 75% have kept their resolutions. Needless to say, timing is critical for marketers.
The top New Year’s resolutions from last year include:[1]
- Lose weight
- Get organized
- Spend less, save more
- Enjoy life to the fullest
- Stay fit and healthy
- Learn something exciting
- Quit smoking
- Help others in their dreams
- Fall in love
- Spend more time with family
As you resolve to up your digital marketing game this New Year’s season, here are considerations to ensure your campaigns stay fit and healthy like those New Year’s resolutions. (And for more insights, see the SlideShare presentation at the bottom.)
1. How To Design A Winning New Year’s Season Ad Strategy
To design an effective campaign, it is important to understand the search habits and shopping behaviors of consumers during the New Year’s season. Our research shows that New Year’s-related searches begin in December and remain strong through January.
While people generally begin thinking about New Year’s resolutions as December draws to a close, their behavior and search activity is different depending on the type of resolution.
Fitness – Fitness searches on tablets and desktops was strong in both December and January, jumping within the week before Christmas and again around the first week of the new year. Some of the most popular searches on the Yahoo Bing Network were for Planet Fitness gym and Lululemon. [2]
Weight loss – Search volume increases a few days before Christmas, with strong volume throughout the month of January. Most popular searches on the Yahoo Bing Network included Weight Watchers and Garcinia Cambogia (a dietary supplement). [2]
Smoking cessation – These searches surge a couple of days before Christmas and continue to grow and remain strong in January. The most common searches were around Chantix and quit smoking on the Yahoo Bing Network . [2]
2. Get in shape with new trends in fitness – like wearables
This year fitness wearables, apps, and mobile devices will be important players in the fitness game. Nearly half of internet users in the U.S. (48%) would use a fitness device to improve their overall health, while 41% specifically would keep an eye on their nutrition and diet. [3] With an increasingly robust selection of health and fitness tools that allow people to monitor their sleep, stress, diet, and exercise, consumer behavior and habits are sure to follow suit.
3. Design your mobile strategy – more fitness searches take place via mobile
Mobile traffic is exploding. In fact, on mobile devices, more post-holiday fitness searches take place via mobile, whereas the search activity trends for smoking cessation and weight loss are similar to the desktop. [2] Having a device strategy can help you reach prospects at the right time with the right contextual message.
Mobile continues to be a strong influencer on in-store purchases, especially in the personal improvement game. They play a role in 50% of purchases of sporting goods, games and hobby materials; mobile influenced 35% of health and personal care dollars spend in stores. [3]
With 70% of mobile conversions occurring within five hours of mobile search, digital marketers have a tremendous opportunity at their fingertips.[4]
4. Leverage Key Tools For Campaign-Building
Whatever your objective this New Year’s, be sure to take advantage of some of the tools offered by Bing Ads and Google to give your ads greater impact. Numbers show that about 19 million people used the Yahoo Bing Network for some 85 million health-related searches; an opportunity to reach 34% of your potential health and wellness customers,[5] and at a lower average cost-per-click than Google.[6]
For marketers in this space, the opportunities are ready and waiting.
- To highlight key information in your products or site, check out Sitelink extensions. These additional links in your ads that take people to specific pages on your website and can boost click-through-rates by 12% within the retail category and 8 percent within the health and wellness category.
- To help drive foot traffic into your store, use call extensions in conjunction with location extensions. Your phone numbers will be displayed as well as directions to help customers find your store. And don’t forget to layer in location targeting to ensure optimal customer experience and the most relevant leads.
- Test ad copy early, beginning in early December, and then select the terms that perform best. Remember to use dynamic insertions in your ads, which allow you to offer searchers more relevant text while using a single ad for multiple keywords. Additionally, you should employ a clear call to action, such as: “Contact us today for a custom diet plan.” During the New Year’s season, shoppers are often looking for a deal, so make sure to highlight offers.
- Finally, Product Ads allow you to showcase your product online, including a relevant product image and product details.
Start the New Year right by crafting search campaigns that help both you and your customers achieve your goals this New Year. Cheers to a new year of digital opportunity!
For additional vertical and seasonal insights, check out our New Year’s seasonal insights deck on SlideShare.
[1] University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2014
[2] Microsoft Internal Data, December 2013 – January 2014
[3] eMarketer Healthcare survey, April 2014
[4] Microsoft Research, Telmetrics mobile path to purchase study, 2013
[5] comScore qSearch (custom), US, June 2014
[6] AdGooroo, Google Adwords vs. Yahoo Bing Network – Average Cost per Click by Industry, Q1 2014
