“Failing to plan is planning to fail” and “show, don’t tell” are my favorite idioms. They have also been part of my X (formerly Twitter) bio. These two simple expressions are excellent reminders of how developers and property managers of mixed-use developments can make the most of the upcoming holiday season. By planning and leveraging key shopping dates, and then executing that plan by showing – and not just telling – through broadcast media and social media strategies, developments can elevate their exposure in the marketplace and generate foot traffic during the busiest shopping season of the year.

Planning for Holiday PR and Social Media Campaigns

While it’s only August, marketing directors for mixed-use and retail properties across the country are already strategizing for the upcoming holiday season. They are thinking about how to attract shoppers to their developments with Christmas tree lightings, fake snow (if you’re in the South), and festive decor so their retailers will be patronized. This early planning is crucial, as the holiday season is prime time for retailers — in-store shopping still accounted for 84% of all retail sales worldwide in Q2 2024, according to the latest U.S. Department of Commerce release. 

There are many ways to promote these holiday delights, but the strategies most beneficial for our clients include showing, not telling, and planning ahead. From pitching broadcast media to partnering with social media influencers, we employ several tactics to amplify the holiday season at our clients’ properties and raise awareness among their target consumers. These include:

Leveraging Key Shopping Dates 

The holidays come at the same time each year. This should be a large part of your PR plan at the beginning of the year, and a good PR team looks for ways to bring in their subject matter experts at all applicable dates leading up to the end of the holiday season. 

For example, Black Friday and Small Business Saturday are quickly approaching, and now is the time to start preparing. These crucial holidays “kick off” the shopping season, and the media is always looking for sources to bring in new ideas and share data. 

Each year, the Wilbert team proactively pitches client CBL for the holiday season, starting in September when an annual holiday shopping prediction is released. Then, it’s on to Black Friday pitching, which includes sharing predictions before the holiday and being available on Black Friday for media inquiries. In 2023 alone, CBL was quoted as a subject-matter expert in several stories, resulting in a 53.3M reach, including in WWD, AP and broadcast stations local to their properties. 

Small Business Saturday is another good holiday to pitch early for our clients with small businesses as tenants. We try to find compelling stories that have not been told before, as pitching “we have small businesses at this development” simply would not work. 

At our client Alpharetta City Center, we interviewed small businesses to understand their unique offerings for Small Business Saturday so that we could look for creative ways to tell their stories. When we heard from a Forbes reporter about an opportunity to share how small businesses were working to attract customers, we knew we had the perfect fit with one of the tenants we interviewed, Southern Local. The owner talked to Forbes about how she would offer Prosecco to lighten the mood, which broadened the store’s audience and gave a national spotlight to a deserving small business.

Utilize Broadcast Media

Having your development on the morning news is a great way to show and not tell. Ahead of last year’s holiday season, we had a few tenants from Halcyon in Forsyth County on-air with Fox 5 Atlanta’s Paul Milliken (Halcyon). By utilizing broadcast and fresh ideas, these tenants had elevated exposure at a prime time in their sales timeline, and even the tenants that weren’t featured benefited from the amplification of the property and programming. 

As another example, our team partnered with the top TV station in the area to help emcee Fenton’s Christmas Tree Lighting extravaganza in Cary, NC. This not only nurtured the relationship between the station and the development, but it also guaranteed in-depth coverage by the top affiliate in the market.

Harnessing The Power of Social Media and Influencers 

Incorporating innovative social media initiatives to promote the holidays seems like a no-brainer, but maintaining the excitement throughout the season is more challenging than it looks. For example, it’s already time to start talking to influencers so you can be at the forefront of people's minds when shopping in early December. Influencers are busy during this time of year and are selective about how they spend their time. I have already had an influencer reach out to me this week about scheduling holiday content! Utilizing influencers is another great way to showcase the magic of the season.

We created different opportunities for Fenton’s influencer program and engaged creators with different audience types and sizes. Here are a few examples:

Through Fenton’s influencer program and organic and paid social media, we received nearly 260,000 impressions and nearly 11,500 engagements. The influencer partnerships garnered more than 1,100 new followers within two days of posting content, and the four local influencers shared Reels that reached nearly 275,000 people. 

At Fenton, we also worked to drive traffic to the property through other ways. We hosted giveaways, encouraged user-generated content – such as tagging photos of pets for a complimentary session for Santa Pet Night – and created various Instagram Reels that showcased the property as the top holiday destination in the region. 

As an example, we created this Reel to share all of the activations happening at Fenton at a glance. The post received tremendous engagement because it was informative and showed a variety of events. 

So, what’s your plan for the most wonderful time of the year?