Winning Holiday Marketing

The holiday season is here! It’s a big time of year for family, friends, and businesses alike. No matter the size of your business, your audience, or your industry, taking advantage of effective holiday marketing can make all the difference in meeting your yearly sales goals. Many companies rely upon the holiday season for a majority of sales, meaning winning holiday marketing should be a priority.

What Makes Holiday Marketing Important

American spending dramatically increases during the holidays. Last year, holiday spending in America totaled $886.7 billion according to MoneyTransfers. Average per-person spending is projected around $1,000 for the 2022 holiday season with 55% of consumers expected to begin their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving. Now is the time to launch your holiday marketing strategy, but how do you go about it to maximize success? We’ll walk you through the steps you need to take to get the results you want!

Best Marketing Practices During the Holidays

• Offer a Special Holiday Sale or Giveaway

Who doesn’t love an irresistible sale, especially during the holidays when everyone is in a gifting and spending mood? Offering a holiday promotion including discounts on your products is a great way to generate cheer in the form of revenue and product sales during the season. Even if your business generates sales mostly in the summer months, you can still run a sale, so consumers buy your products as gifts for others to use down the road. 

Free giveaways also generate buzz during the holiday season. You can add a giveaway that acts as a lead magnet to generate sales. For example, running a giveaway where whoever purchases $100 or more worth of merchandise receives a free item entices customers to spend even more at your business. People are all about buying gifts for others during the holidays, but don’t forget they still like to treat themselves. If you aren’t too sure about giving away free items, make the free item shipping.

• Create Festive Ads and Content

If your company has already invested time and money into paid ads on Google or social media platforms, this strategy will fit right into what you’re already doing. For the holidays, focus on a themed ad campaign with a holiday touch to add warmth to your offers. You can accomplish this either through simple wording like, “Grab the perfect gift for holiday cheer this season,” or by creating visuals surrounding the holidays. A combination of both should be the goal to execute a sold holiday ad campaign.

Aside from ads, you could take an organic route by writing blog posts and social media content centered around the holidays. A retailer may highlight how a combination of furnishings and fragrances perfectly exhibits the holiday spirit or a supermarket could create content around holiday recipes. Both examples lead customers to buy from you and once they are shopping, they may buy additional items which generate more sales for your brand.

• Prioritize Retargeting This Season

Did you know only about 4% of customers who visit a webpage to buy purchase something without leaving? That number may seem scary, but with effective retargeting, you can lure those who left back to finish a purchase. If you can capture their email address with implemented software, you can send a follow-up email reminding them of your awesome deals and that their cart still has their items in it. 

You can also retarget visitors with an ad campaign that focuses on all previous visitors to your website for example. This type of ad retargeting will pull from a much larger funnel, making it an opportune time to direct visitor attention to a particular page or product focused on your holiday promotions. Any retargeting campaign works best with some kind of sale, even just 10% off to lure potential buyers back. The greater the discount, however, the greater the return rate of past visitors. Offer these “flash” sales on items that make sense as you are of course still trying to make money on all sales. 

• Send Thank You Cards to Your Customers

One of the best ways to attract and make customers loyal to your brand is by showing gratitude. This is easily shown using a holiday thank you card you send to all your customers. You can even throw in gifts such as tickets to events, gift baskets, or company swag for your bigger accounts showing how much you value their business. 

US consumers spend a lot of money and time thinking about where they will buy products, so don’t take your current customers for granted. They may easily switch if they see a better deal elsewhere. Don’t stress, you’ll stay top of mind by sending holiday cards and gifts of your own this season!