For those of you who have increasing productivity as a resolution in 2018 — the time to start planning your marketing efforts in 2018 is now.

The holidays and many other major shopping days of the year are huge opportunities for Shopify merchants to win over customers and make more sales. With so many dates to remember, we try to simplify things a little by compiling 2018's key ecommerce holidays into an infographic for you to start your planning with - click on link below to download our 2018 ecommerce marketing calendar:

FREE DOWNLOAD: Start Planning For My 2018 Marketing Campaigns

Since Shopify merchants also need inspiration on how to promote their brand and products, we even came up with tips, which we've arranged into a 2-part series, to help you along with your brainstorming for your 2018 holiday marketing plans:

Tap Into Shoppers’ Emotions

Festivals such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day bring out lots of different emotions in people. There are good feelings of hope, togetherness, forgiveness, gratitude and warmth, and then there are also unpleasant ones such as frustration, tension or stress.

People tend to engage more with emotions. Hence, one way to make your audience remember your brand is to create content that can evoke strong emotions associated with the festival. A compelling story helps - check out M&S Christmas advert for 2017. Apply your persuasive storytelling skills into writing effective copy and making creatives for your marketing campaigns such as social media ads or even your website.

Provide Useful Content to Shoppers

Planning and making preparations leading up to special events like Chinese New Year or Valentine’s Day can be frustrating or even downright daunting for many shoppers - they will definitely appreciate content such as your offering tips and hacks, how-to guides as well as templates. To make your content more interesting, use a variety of formats for presentation: Instead of publishing an article on hacks for more effective spring cleaning or finding the perfect dress for Valentine’s Day, experiment using a video or infographic instead. Infographics and videos make powerful marketing tools as they are easy to digest and people love to share them, hence they are great for driving referral traffic and backlinks. Not to mention, there are a number of free, online tools out there that allow you to create such content easily at a small price.

Showcase Your Company (or Team) Culture

If you are running your Shopify Store business with a team, another way is to showcase the going-ons within the team or company that will help to show a more human side to your business - Authenticity sells. For example, you can interview team members on how they celebrate New Year’s Day. Live video is a huge trend in 2017 that is definitely continuing into 2018 given its immense popularity. With the nature of live video being simply raw, actual footage, it doesn’t require a lot of budget to execute nor does it call for heavy preparation. Consider streaming a live video of everyone preparing gifts and food for a Christmas party or a visit to the Old Folks Home, or even a small internal contest to come up with a Chinese New Year themed company logo design.

Volunteer

Shoppers typically like to transact with businesses that they like or trust, and there are several ways to grow trust and appeal among your audience. Giving back is one of the most powerful and popular tools you can use to enhance customer loyalty, increase brand awareness and boost your brand reputation. Support a cause or volunteer during the Christmas season for instance, and promote them on social media with a photo series or short videos of the activity. You can even encourage your followers to join you in the activity - such volunteering efforts can include visits to an orphanage or giving away gift packs.

Like what you see? Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series!

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