Shopping for gifts and celebration supplies often occurs in a frenzy of holiday activity. As millions of people prepare to host family feasts, swap presents, and ring in the new year, the retail sector explodes. From household items to specialty gifts to groceries, holiday shopping defines the season for thousands of brands. The question is: how can you claim your share of holiday shoppers during the Christmas rush?
Shoppers are attracted to deals, easy shopping experiences, special services, and opportunities to feel festive. By weaving these essential elements of the holiday shopping experience together, you can attract a growing number of holiday shoppers to your brand, products, and seasonal deals. Let’s dive into the top ten holiday marketing tactics to claim your market share in the holiday rush.
1) Start with Early Promotions and Teasers
Get the word out. Let your regular customers and the wider audience know that your brand is ready to celebrate the holidays with deals, bundles, holiday services, and festive seasonal offerings.
Ring in the holiday season with sleigh bells, seasonal decorations, and an all-channel broadcast on how your brand will help customers celebrate through holiday shopping. Promotions and teasers can be effective in social media marketing, email marketing, streaming service commercials, and even local flyers, depending on your business model.
2) Optimize for Mobile Shopping
Make sure your brand is ready for mobile shoppers. Many people take care of all their digital tasks on their phones, including browsing for gifts and shopping for holiday cooking supplies. Ensure your website is configured for online shopping and thoroughly test its performance and appearance on phones of all sizes. Navigation, cart-filling, cart-reviewing, and checking out should all be a breeze for mobile shoppers to maximize your holiday customers this year.
3) Create Holiday-Themed Content
When everyone is feeling festive, holiday content helps them stay in the celebrating spirit. Decorate your website with seasonal graphics that feel like you’ve decked the halls. Write holiday-themed blog articles that speak to the way your audience plans for the holidays, especially what they’ll want to shop for ahead of time or how to handle last-minute shopping. Consider the unique way your brand interacts with the holidays and why customers would seek out your store for special requirements – like the perfect sweater, large-scale cookware, gifts for unique family members, or even travel insurance when visiting relatives.
4) Embrace Limited-Time Offers and Flash Sales
A sense of urgency is easy to inspire in holiday shopping crowds. You can create your own miniature holiday rush with limited time offers and flash sales that ignite your audience’s desire to dive into savings and catch seasonal deals while they are available. Limited time offers are, in fact, even more fun during the holidays because they play a role in the sense of excitement, we all get when counting down to the big holiday dates.
Many people wait until the last minute for flash sales not just for the savings, but because it’s fun. Take part in that and give your audience special sales events to look forward to while inspiring that urge to buy more with limited time offers.
5) Utilize Social Media for Targeted Holiday Campaigns
Social media platforms are among the best for refined targeting. If you have planned holiday campaigns that are designed to reach specific demographics, interest groups, and local populations. You can target knitting enthusiasts, teenagers, parents of young children, people hosting a holiday feast this year, jet-setting professionals, or any other group that might resonate with your brand and holiday campaign strategy.
Each social media platform has its own unique targeting tools, so tailor your campaigns per platform for the best results.
6) Offer Free Shipping and Hassle-Free Returns
Shipping and returns are essential when attracting holiday shoppers. After all, we’re talking about a bonanza of gift-giving. Free shipping, fast shipping, and dynamic shipping with no-receipt gift settings make it easier for your customers to send gifts to distant relatives or send gifts ahead of their travel so they arrive to a pile of boxes ready to wrap for the family gathering.
Hassle-free returns also ensure low-risk gifting. Customers can take a chance on gifts for friends and relatives knowing that the thought will be appreciated even if the gift turns out to be the wrong size.
7) Leverage Email Marketing for Personalized Holiday Campaigns
For your established customer base, email marketing offers a wonderful way to extend personalized holiday campaigns. Provide your valued regular customers with bundles and savings based on their past shopping histories, their built-up loyalty points, or give them an opportunity to build their gift-giving shopping list with your brand for special deals.
Emails can reach directly to your known customers and inspire them to come back to your brand for holiday shopping, where they are known, valued, and trust in the quality of your products and services.
8) Use Remarketing Ads to Re-Engage Potential Buyers
Remarketing ads allow you to target people who have previously visited your website or mobile app. Through remarketing tools, you can re-engage potential buyers, inspiring them to complete their carts, claim new flash-sale deals, or reconsider a product that tempted them before. Remarketing is also an opportunity to offer potential buyers special deals for making their first purchase or completing their holiday shopping with your brand.
9) Host a Holiday Shopping Event
For people who love to shop, holiday shopping events make the season bright. Whether you have a physical store or run an online brand, hosting a holiday shopping event is a fun way to celebrate for your shopping enthusiast customers. Decorate for the season and turn the shopping itself into a celebration. If you have a physical store, you can serve food or sell seasonal snacks during the event. For live and digital events, you can hold raffles and fun contests in addition to special deals and flash sales.
10) Optimize for Last-Minute Shoppers
The holidays are also the perfect time to cater to last-minute shoppers who are buying gifts or party supplies in a rush. Late store hours or same day / overnight delivery can save someone’s holiday whether they put off shopping too long or experienced an unexpected setback or change of plans.
Open Your Doors to Holiday Shoppers
Attracting holiday shoppers through marketing, logistics, and seasonal event tactics is a fantastic way to optimize holiday season revenue and build your brand during the holiday months of shopping and celebrations. Need help with your holiday marketing tactics? Contact us today.