As far as business marketing is concerned, the holiday season calls for some serious planning and marketing ideas! Come this holiday season, all brands and companies begin work on promotional campaigns and other activities to drive maximum sales. Planning ahead could mean starting the ideation process a year in advance! Below are a few marketing ideas that could help you kick-start the promotion of your business this holiday season.
Social Media Strategies: Holiday Cheer on Facebook
Don’t let your Facebook page look dull during this festive season. You could start off by creating a banner that says ‘Happy Holidays’. You could do a lot of customized marketing on Facebook, depending on the product or service offered by your company. For instance, restaurants and other eateries could put up special menus for the entire month or offer free desserts with every entree.
Define, create, and plan your key messages, and send them to your target audience through your website content, blog, email, and social media networks. Be sure to make your blog posts relevant to the holidays and schedule regular updates on X, Facebook, etc.
You could also think about emailing a special newsletter to all your customers. It could include a free gift, a discount offer or a voucher. However, remember to be consistent and retain the holiday theme in all your marketing activities. It is extremely important for businesses to ensure integration of their traditional and digital media campaigns while planning.
Discounts and Gift Cards
Buying trends change at this time of year, so try to connect with your loyal customers on a more emotional level by offering discounts on their most-wanted items. It is perhaps the oldest promotional strategy, but nevertheless, customers are always attracted to purchase discounted and/or time-limited offers. Another brilliant way to attract customers into holiday shopping is via gift cards.
Themes for Christmas: ‘12 Days of Christmas’
One of the most interesting ideas for holiday marketing is to plan theme-based promotions. For instance, you could announce ‘12 Days of Saving’ campaign and offer discounts on a different product on each of the twelve days. It could be a 12-day countdown to the festival! Such a campaign would give you the opportunity to increase your brand awareness, showcase a wide range of your products and also encourage loyal customers to purchase new products.
VIP Holiday Shopping Event
You could organize a special holiday event for your customers. Keep the entry invite-only to make them feel special. They could enjoy great discounts on exclusive products that are not otherwise available to the general public. For example, you could host a night-shopping event, offering 25 percent off to your customers and serving them champagne and exclusive bakery delights to make the shopping experience enjoyable and feel valued.
Marketing Ideas: Lessons Learned
The best way to plan your current year’s holiday season campaign is to look back at the previous year and identify what worked and what didn’t impact sales. It includes taking a deep dive into your top KPI’s and, where applicable, your online analytics. For both brick-and-mortar and online businesses, you need to track the success of your marketing efforts in a meaningful, actionable way. Similarly, spend some time analyzing your promotional offers and those initiated by your competitors.
McAllister Marketing is a full-service firm that specializes in aligning consumers and market strategy to increase business growth. We are more than your average marketing company that limits itself to campaign suggestions. We work with you to identify your customers, uncover your competitive advantage and fine-tune your marketing strategy. Contact us or call 250-380-2299 to learn how we can help you grow your business over the holidays and provide you with marketing ideas that work!
