What Makes a Great Holiday Marketing Strategy?
Crafting a magical holiday strategy can seem particularly overwhelming. But don’t stress! Go back to the fundamentals of marketing and stick to well-established strategies, while incorporating some festive elements in the traditional tactics that have previously delivered excellent results.
Audit previous holiday marketing campaigns.
No matter the challenges life presents, you can draw upon the knowledge and planning of previous successes. Examine the figures from earlier days to identify successes and areas that may need upgrading. Going over past strategies and initiatives can assist you in not repeating past errors.
Along with examining performance numbers, it is worth checking out customer information. Have the people who purchase your products or services altered significantly over the last 12 months? What are the main demographics? What do they value? Learning the core features of your perfect consumer will help you create holiday content that resonates.
Identify holiday marketing strategies that fit your audience.
No holiday marketing efforts are created equal. Don’t simply mirror your competitors’ strategies. Getting to know your intended audience is essential for having a successful holiday marketing campaign.
If you have customers who are younger, such as those from Gen Z or the Millennial generation, intensify your social media commerce strategies to share exclusive deals and holiday-themed advertising.
If you own a physical store, think of imaginative presents you can offer people with the curbside shipment or buy online, get from the store (BOPIS) choices.
Create a schedule for syndication.
For a successful holiday ad campaign, take a tactical approach rather than being overly laborious. Look for ways to repurpose content that not only makes your work more efficient and economical but also provides your patrons with a more complete experience.
Holiday Marketing Strategies to Consider
These tips and ideas will assist you in preparing your attempts to increase sales during the period with the highest financial gain. Want some inspiration of your own? Have a look at our compilation of the top holiday marketing strategies.
Err on the side of simplicity.
One can easily become overwhelmed with all the activities that come along with preparing for a holiday. Rather than simply diving into holiday campaigns at the deep end, it is wiser in the long term to start small, particularly if this is the initial holiday season of your brand.
Even long-term, significant merchants typically draw on traditional methods of operations during the holiday season. It depends entirely on how much data transfer capacity your group has and the level of backing your workings will have over the festive period.
It would not be wise to try something new with customers during the holiday season, particularly if you have already invested time during the year pursuing comprehensive research and deciphering the optimal communication.
There is too much on the line. If you want to be imaginative and take a different approach, consider carrying out an A/B experiment.
The regard you have developed with shoppers throughout the year will be one of the major elements when they determine where to get the ideal present from Father Christmas or a present voucher for their relatives.
Be prepared to provide a customer experience that is comparable to the one they encountered when they made a purchase in the past. Incorporating social media marketing and hashtags in social media posts is an effortless technique to try.
Be ready to react and adapt quickly.
No phrase carries a greater weight of importance than “all hands on deck” when it comes to retailers during the holiday season. No matter the scope of your website, you must have a swift group of people able to deal with any difficulties that could appear in your activities, this applies to your website, digital advertising, social media commercials, or any other space in which you are pushing your product.
It goes beyond digital and content preparations. Think about changing the way your customer service, shipping, fulfillment, and operations teams work to accommodate additional visitors and orders.
You need to respond rapidly when things are not proceeding as anticipated.
Use a more content-driven approach.
As the number of people shopping online increases, shoppers are becoming increasingly aware and familiar with holiday promotions. They tend to witness the same matter every single 12 months, so their concentration could possibly wither away at the traditional selling and advertising approaches.
The same topics that became apparent over the past twelve months in online trading will shape promotional plans for the holidays. The central concept that will remain in effect during the holidays is the strategy of prioritizing content that leading, fashionable companies are presently utilizing.
Content marketing can be used as an approach to connecting with consumers, leading to brands providing more tailored shopping experiences such as reduced prices and holiday present ideas.
Be prepared for more competition than ever.
Email marketing is vitally important during the holidays and Christmas season due to the numerous promotions that are available. It can help grab customers’ attention and direct them to your online store. Be sure your email marketing tactics draw attention and make it easily understood why shoppers should choose to shop with you instead of other companies.
Attracting customers is only part of the challenge. The holiday season can present a challenge to retailers who are trying to stay abreast of the shifting behavior of shoppers, given the increase in competition and customers abandoning their carts.
Consider an influencer strategy.
It has been found that a majority (75%) of millennials have their buying habits influenced by a company’s activity on social media. The utility of influencers varies from sector to sector, but many businesses employ social media campaigns over the festive season.
Using marketing channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and in some cases, LinkedIn is a great way for companies to interact with customers during the holiday season.
Let people know that you’re around by taking advantage of the upcoming holiday season to implement an influencer-based advertising strategy that continues into the start of the new year.
Holiday marketing ideas for your seasonal promotions
Throughout the holiday season, people who are shopping usually have long lists of items they need to purchase and they are typically looking for ways to save money. Here are some methods you can utilize to thank your customers for continuing to purchase from you, which contributes to brand loyalty.
1. Offer holiday discounts
They’re tried and true, but they work.
The trick is finding the sweet spot. It is easy to offer discounts across the whole store, yet if you offer too many discounting opportunities, you may lose more than you would gain. Rather than offering a sale on your top sellers, market accompanying items that aren’t marked down to go along with them.
If you want to induce a FOMO effect when offering discounts, create promotions that reoccur on different days of the week. If they take advantage of the buy-one-get-one deal available on Monday and receive extra Loyalty dollars on Friday, they would be encouraged to return.
2. Leverage the power of a flash sale
Examine using flash sales rather than offering a discount for the entire duration of a season, or utilizing it as a way to induce customers to purchase locally in-store or on the Internet.
Establish a temporary sale in the backend of your Lightspeed system, and switch out the items on special every day. Advertise your daily specials in advance, and think of topics to make return visits more appealing. For instance, you could offer a reduced rate on outdoor equipment for a 24-hour period, and likewise with kitchenwares on a different day.
For the best result, don’t just post something online – use Marcello’s Lightspeed Marketing & Loyalty to target the right customer groups through email marketing.
3. Start a referral program
Referral marketing is one of the most successful techniques for promoting products and services. Lightspeed can assist you in profiting from the holidays by implementing a referral program with some effort.
Lightspeed Marketing & Loyalty makes referrals easy. Members of your loyalty program will receive a link that they can distribute on social media and will be given a reward whenever their contacts purchase something by using that link.
Put aside money for customers, bring in fresh patrons for the store, and initiate additional marketing during the holiday season for the company. That’s a win-win.
4. Give exclusive discounts to gift card users in January
Starting in January, people who have received your gift cards will come in to make their purchases. Take advantage of the reality that the majority of gift card users end up spending more than the value of the card by offering them special discounts.
Publicize that those who use gift cards will get exclusive savings during the holiday season, and you will be able to increase purchases twofold.
5. Offer secret discounts
Add a gaming element to your discount to make it even more thrilling.
Have your workers get jolly discount codes from a Santa cap at the cash register. Use a majority of small savings, like an additional 5%, with one main discount as a closing deal. Inform customers that there is a great deal to be won concerning the hats, and let them take out a code just once each day.
5-holiday marketing ideas for sales
Do not limit yourself to just offering discounts – make it more exciting and simpler to shop at your store. When shoppers come in during the holiday season, they can be certain they are getting bargains on the appropriate merchandise and the best possible customer service.
6. Make stocking stuffer bundles with your top products
What measures are you taking in your store to encourage impulse buying, since 84% of shoppers partake in it?
In order to get potential customers to be interested in what your store is selling and to increase the likelihood of them making a purchase, try putting together related items in groups and displaying them prominently in the shop as the perfect gifts to give away.
Ensure the stocking stuffer packages remain at a reasonable cost—perhaps $20 or less—so that they are affordable for spontaneous shoppers, resulting in increased efficiency.
7. Create gift guides for easy shopping
If you don’t feel like reorganizing your shop, or even if you do, you can come up with ideas for potential gifts to buy. Create a helpful and straightforward list of the best presents for various categories of people, with exact locations of where they can be found in your shop. Include related stocking stuffer ideas for upselling.
You should distribute your list in multiple different ways:
- If you have an ecommerce store, create a gifts page
- Craft an email campaign and mail it out to the right segments (such as engaged, loyal customers)
- Post your guide on social media in a shareable format, such as a post on Instagram with multiple images
- Depending on your customer base, consider a direct mail campaign, to capture customers who may not be connected with you digitally
8. Extend your hours during the holiday period
The holidays are a busy time. You may want to think about extending your store’s opening hours on popular shopping days, in order to make it an obvious destination and reduce congestion. Try examining your store’s sales data by the hour using your Lightspeed point of sale system to determine which days will be busiest for extended hours. Investigate which days over the past fourteen days have witnessed the most sales in the nighttime hours—these are the dates on which extended hours should be taken into account.
Opening a shop for longer periods of time allows fewer folks to be present in the shop at the same time, making the shopping experience more secure and effortless for both staff and patrons.
9. Create bundled gift bags to sell
Attract customers to purchase additional items at the time of checkout by having ready-made gift packages on display. Lure them in by customizing various presents for each segment and labeling them; for instance, stocking fillers for food fanatics presents for pet owners, and so on.
For the greatest effect, pair one or two popular items with items that are not currently in demand or selling slowly. The most attractive items will be attractive to customers, causing you to shift merchandise that isn’t being bought.
An idea: Launch Lightspeed and generate a figures report concerning stock performance to find these goods. Grouping the outcomes by the number of items purchased can help you identify what is trending among your consumers.
10. Sell more by cutting down on the line
Customers who have made the choice to purchase something may change their minds if they have to wait too long at check-out, resulting in a financial loss for the business. Generally, people are not prepared to wait longer than 14 minutes for any sort of assistance. You have a short amount of time to please them, which can be difficult during times of high demand. There is a large queue, making it difficult for customers to comply with social distancing regulations.
A POS system like Lightspeed allows you to move your cash register away from the front desk. Equip your staff with tablets during times of high business, allowing them to help customers pay for their items around the store or while they are in the queue.
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