With Easter fast approaching, how can brands make the most from seasonal digital campaigns? James Murray, Digital Insights Manager, Experian Marketing Services, uses Easter search trends as an example of how to think beyond the obvious to capitalise on seasonal activities.
While it may not feel like the warm weather is round the corner, we’re fast approaching those summer months and the public holidays and commemorative days that crop up annually – all of which offer marketers great opportunities to create tailored and relevant campaigns.
Easter is certainly no exception, and using insight to inform your marketing campaign is a great way to ensure that you stand out from the competition.
Using data and insight from previous email marketing campaigns, as well as analysing online trends and search terms, we’ve pulled together some top Easter facts to help marketers make the most of the period and really capitalise on the opportunities that present themselves.
Understanding the searches behind Easter
When we look at searches around Easter, there are a number of key trends that appear:
• Seven per cent of all Easter searches include the word ‘when’. Easter Sunday is on the 31 March this year.
• 16 per cent of searches are for eggs. Tesco was the most searched for supermarket brand for Easter eggs followed by ASDA, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s. However, of all searches for the term ‘easter eggs’ chocolate maker Cadbury is the biggest recipient of search clicks.
• Demand is increasing for more specialised Easter eggs. Vegan Easter egg searches have increased by 53 per cent since last year and searches for dairy free Easter eggs are up by 160 per cent year-on-year.
Around events such as Easter, brands need to make sure they have insight into how consumers are searching online, and tailor their campaigns to leverage this. Retailers in particular are in a prime position to capitalise on this.
Not just about the chocolate…
When thinking about seasonal campaigns, it’s easy to stick with the obvious – but where marketers can really make the most of online seasonal activity is when we look beyond this. Travel is a key sector during holiday periods such as Easter, and the UK will spend 50 million hours online this weekend browsing travel sites and booking weekend breaks and holidays.
Short breaks top the list, with many Brits looking to get away for the Easter weekend. Devon, Dorset, Kent and Yorkshire are currently the most desirable getaway destinations within the UK. And for those wanting to go abroad this Easter the hot destinations for holiday breaks which have seen the biggest increase in search volume since Easter last year are Malta (up 59 per cent year-on-year), Rome (+50 per cent), Amsterdam (+28 per cent) and Dubai (+25 per cent).
Last minute ski holidays are still on the agenda with Obergurgl, Rosiere and Zermatt the three fastest moving destinations compared to last Easter.
Learning from experience – using year-on-year data to time your campaigns
As you might expect, our Experian databases show that online activity always decreases over bank holidays and Easter will have two on Good Friday (29 March) and Easter Monday (1 April).
To ensure maximum success, marketers need to time email campaigns around these dates to ensure strong open and click through rates.
Accuracy, and in turn knowing your customers, is equally as important as timing. According to our data, Londoners are the most likely UK inhabitants to take a holiday away over Easter. London Internet users are seven per cent more likely than the average consumer to visit a travel site during the Easter period.
Holiday campaigns can be very beneficial to marketers, and by using digital insight to structure and inform your emails in the correct way, you can ensure that you are providing your customers with the right information at the right time to maximise on seasonal demand.
By James Murray
Digital Insights Manager
Experian Marketing Services
