The holidays are coming and hopefully you’re not panicking for last minute holiday marketing techniques for the season. But if you are, no worries! There’s still a lot of time to prepare for exciting holiday promotion ideas and take advantage of the holiday hype. Here are some holiday marketing ideas you need to try before the year ends.
Holiday Marketing Techniques
1. Put holiday decorations in your store. Yes, even your e-commerce site. Get your customers into the festive mood by actually redecorating your physical store or your website to fit the season. Some decorations like Santa, ornaments, holiday window clings, or a mistletoe on your e-commerce site logo tells your customers you’re getting into the holiday spirit.
HubSpot created a holiday-themed page for their site.
2. Create a custom calendar that you can distribute to your customers. The year is ending and what better way to celebrate the coming new year than giving out free calendars to your customers? Design your calendar with elements of your brand name and logo to keep you in their minds throughout the year.
3. Hold an end-of-the-year sale. I might be stating the obvious here but you need to take advantage of your customers’ willingness to spend during the holidays. Lower your prices or have a buy 1 get 1 type of promotion.
4. Use email newsletters and direct mail holiday cards to announce your holiday marketing campaigns. The best way to promote your sale is to reach out to potential customers both offline and online. Send email newsletters and holiday cards to your mailing list a few weeks before your sale.
5. Offer Christmas treats in your store. It can be little things like candies or cookies that your customers can eat while they are browsing your products. This Christmas promotion idea will definitely leave a good taste in their mouths.
Offer Christmas treats likes cookies or candies to customers as they browse your store.
6. Offer a pre-Black Friday promotion. Tell your customers that for a limited time, you will match the price of a competitor’s Black Friday product similar to yours if they find one.
7. Join the Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday movements. Both come after Black Friday with the aim to focus on small businesses and e-commerce sites. Both are also gaining traction with business owners and customers alike so be sure to show your support.
8. Start a holiday-themed promotion on social media.For example, you can hold a photo contest on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Ask your followers to send a photo of themselves using your product in a holiday context. Use a unique hashtag to keep track of the entries. Be sure to set aside a great prize for the winners.
One of many holiday-themed gifs Starbucks used for their holiday campaign.
9. Try increasing your hours for the increased demand. Accommodate the increase in demand by having longer hours. I assure you. There will always be that person doing some late gift purchases.
10. Use flyers and posters to promote in high traffic areas. Take advantage of higher foot traffic in malls and shopping areas by putting up posters and give out flyers for your store. You can feature your holiday promotions to entice potential customers to come to you.
11. Feature your top-sellers as gift recommendations. Help your customers with their gift choices by sharing your top sellers and products that will be good to give to friends and colleagues.
12. Partner with other small businesses for a holiday marketing team-up. You can drive traffic to one another’s stores. You can also hold a cross-promotion with them, especially if their products are related but not directly competing with yours.
Show your appreciation by giving away gifts to customers.
13. Start a fund drive with your small business partners. The holiday season is a time for gift giving and giving back to the community after all. Organize an event where people can purchase your products and let them know you’ll donate a part of your proceeds to local charity.
14. Play holiday music in your store. Get your patrons in a festive mood by playing jolly Christmas classics inside your brick and mortar store.
15. Give out coupons that your customers can redeem for the New Year. After the busy business days of the holidays, sales usually fall off. You can pick up the slump by distributing coupons that can be used at the start of the year.
How’s your holiday marketing campaign going? Got any more tips? Share it with us in the comments below!
