I wanted to take some time out to give you a quick case study for a company that’s doing online holiday marketing the right way.
The company I’m referring to is Philosophy, a cosmetics company based in Phoenix, Arizona. For its holiday marketing campaign, the company built a branded holiday microsite. They didn’t stop there, though. They also crafted holiday-themed email marketing campaigns and banner advertisements, and they ran pay-per-click ads that directed traffic to the microsite.
The company’s email consultant helped it create a gift wish list email campaign that showcases the same visual design and branding as the holiday microsite.
The email camapign directs web users back to the online holiday boutique where where customers can create an online holiday wishlist. The downloadable wish list also provides customers that prefer offline shopping the opportunity to write their wishlist on paper and provides a list of retailers that carry Philosophy products.
Web banner advertisements touting the holiday message also ran on Oprah.com and WebMD, directing the customer back to the holiday microsite.
Philosophy also runs a Google Adwords campaign that is holiday-themed to drive traffic to the boutique.
Once Philosophy attracts customers to the microsite with the various forms of online advertising, they make sure the experience wouldn’t be a disappointment.
The holiday boutique does a great job at portraying a “magical” experience while selling products effectively. A large product presentation is shown on the homepage which rotates Philosophy products. Each product has a “shop now” button that takes customers to the product page on the Philosophy site where they can buy it. Customers can even “thumb through” the products by hitting a “next” button beside the product display.
All of the navigation in the holiday boutique is holiday-themed. Philosophy assembled six holiday-themed stores where customers can shop for similar product lines. The “need gift ideas?” section takes online shoppers to a gift finder on the Philosophy site.
There’s even a holiday sweepstakes where entrants can win Philosophy products. This feature helps Philosophy build it’s email marketing database while giving customers a chance to try their products for free.
