Fearless Foundry’s Top 10 Marketing Tips for the Holiday Season
The Fearless Foundry team has been working hard lately preparing our clients for the holiday season. We recognize that for many businesses, this time of year is the time of year to earn some extra income and give back to consumers. These 10 easy-to-implement tips can help you run a successful holiday marketing campaign!
#1: Give a Discount Code
Offering discount codes is a great holiday marketing strategy that can help boost your sales and your brand awareness. From November-January, there are numerous opportunities to run discounts:
Thanksgiving Day
Black Friday (November 25th)
Small Business Saturday (November 26th)
Cyber Monday (November 28th)
Christmas Eve
Christmas Day
New Year’s Eve
New Year’s Day
Try offering 10, 15, 20 percent off or higher. You can even run sales multiple days in a row, which can help get the word out about the discount you’re offering. Consumers spend a lot of money over the holidays, and appreciate when companies give them a little something back.
#2: Offer Free Shipping
Offering free shipping is an easy way to increase sales. Consumers will often abandon the items in their cart once they see what their total comes to with taxes and shipping. An extra $5 or $10 off from shipping may be just the incentive they need to pull the trigger. Plus, adding free shipping to certain order volumes can help increase your sales. For example, if you offer free shipping on orders over $50, your customers may add in one or two extra items just to get that free shipping, which earns your company more money in the long run.
#3: Use Emails to Your Advantage
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: email marketing is an extremely effective way to communicate with your audience and help them navigate which of your products are best suited to their needs. In today’s digital world, people will be expecting holiday content and discounts—give them what they want!
Your email campaigns during the holidays should focus on any discounts, deals, bundles, or promotions you’ll be running. Start as early as you can to build up the anticipation. For example, you might send an email about an upcoming Black Friday deal on November 18th, giving early access to the sale on November 23rd, and then send a final email on Black Friday. This gives people plenty of time to mull the sale over and think about what they might like to buy.
Another email related trick is to set up abandoned cart emails with discounts. Potential customers who abandon their carts will get an email with a discount code, which is meant to serve as an incentive to complete the purchase.
#4: Create Unique Holiday Content
Blog posts are great for positioning your company as an industry expert in your field. Putting a holiday spin on your blog content is a fun way to pay homage to the holiday season. Try publishing a holiday gift guide featuring your products or services, or highlight other companies you’d buy from this time of year.
If you already have holiday content on your site, refresh it, making it relevant for this year. Replace old images with new ones, and then reshare the blog post across your social media platforms and in your newsletter. And remember, holiday content doesn’t have to live solely in blog posts—get creative with your social media content and emails too!
#5: Reach Out
During the holidays, consumers are always looking for the next great gift idea. Your product or service might be the perfect gift for someone on their list, but if they never hear about it they’ll never make a purchase. Reaching out to publications to get featured in their holiday gift guides is a great way to boost your brand awareness. Publications in your industry will likely get you the most traction, so start there!
#6: Recommend Products
How many times have you checked out a podcast episode, show, or company just because a friend was raving about it? People love recommendations, especially ones based on their interests. Adding recommended products to your checkout or purchase pages is a clever way to boost your sales. By saying “customers who bought this item also bought ___” you’re playing off the power of recommendations, which could increase your sales.
#7: Giveaways
According to the latest data from the National Retail Federation, the average American consumer spends $997.73 on gifts and holiday items each Christmas. The holidays can be spendy, and not everyone’s budget can spare an extra $1,000. This is why giveaways are especially popular over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. People will gladly enter their email address or follow you on social media in exchange for an entry for a free gift.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity for some boosted brand awareness. Try your hand at one giveaway over the holiday season, or up it to two or three if you’re feeling bold. You can also cross promote and collaborate with other brands. Doing so will temporarily mean the audience of the brand you’re collabing with becomes your audience and vice versa. Win-win!
#8: Go Limited
If you want to boost your sales quickly, try offering limited edition products specifically for the holidays. If your customers know they’ll only be able to purchase a product or service once per year, they may be more inclined to buy it! Plus, they’ll appreciate the extra effort you’ve put in to create something special for the holidays. Clearly describe the benefits of the limited edition product or service you’re selling, and be sure to promote it on your website, in your emails, and across your social media channels.
#9: Make Sure You’re Mobile Friendly
Given that nearly everyone on the planet has a smartphone, it’s essential to ensure your website and emails are optimized to be mobile friendly. If a consumer opens your holiday sale email and the images or text are cut off, they’ll probably get frustrated and click out of it within moments. Having mobile friendly emails can improve your click through rate and increase visits to your website! Nearly 1 in 5 email campaigns are not optimized for mobile devices, but around 55 percent of global website traffic is generated from mobile devices, excluding tablets. Mobile-friendly email is the second most-used tactic email marketers use to improve their performance!
Here are some quick tips to make your emails and website mobile friendly:
Pick a mobile responsive theme or template
Keep your copy short and concise
Use pop-ups sparingly
Make your calls to action (CTAs) easy to see and click on
#10: Give Back
People are becoming especially conscious about who they give their money to—tying your regular shmegular holiday sales with a charity is a good way to win loyalty and give back during the holiday season. If you have a charity you feel called to donate to, why not set a dollar amount and say that for every X dollars you make over the holiday’s, you’ll donate X to the charity. You can even donate physical products or services if that feels more aligned.
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If the thought of holiday marketing campaigns gives you anxiety, take a deep breath—we’re here for you! Reach out to us if you’re feeling like you need some extra guidance and our overqualified team of creatives will help you decide what’s best for your brand!