Tis’ the season for holiday promotions! (Perhaps you’ve noticed your inbox already filling up with those
types of emails?) Businesses really try to work their creative magic to get you buying during the last two months of the year, hence the plethora of emails. But this is a strategy you can also adopt!
We’ve seen all sorts of holiday promotions over the years, some being very incentivizing to take advantage of and some not grabbing our attention at all. So we wanted to highlight a few promotions that are *almost* always a slam dunk and can help YOU market your business just that extra during the holiday season.
But first, when it comes to holiday promotions, we always recommend advertising them in 3 places:
Your website
Your social medias
Your email contacts
These three places should be where you share your promotion details and let your audience know what they should take advantage of.
Keep in mind that it can be the same information presented in the ideal format for that platform (website: full details, social media: majority of details and point to website, email newsletter: majority of details and point to website). With your promo details spelled out in these three places, you’re sure to reach the majority of your audience and have success with your promotion!
Now that we’ve discussed how to share your holiday promotions, let’s talk about the top 3 holiday promos that every business can consider running.
3 Holiday Promotion Ideas Every Business Can Use
1. Free Shipping
We know this only applies to businesses with products to ship, but “Free Shipping” is a quality and effective holiday promotion to run that will more than likely get you higher sales compared to a non-promotion period. People LOVE free shipping!
The benefit to offering free shipping is that the consumer sees this as a “deal” where they save shipping costs and further consider spending more to get the best bang for their buck. This can be highly effective when paired with marking down products to try and get customers to buy more than one item, too.
If you offer free shipping, put any parameters in place that you may need to ensure you are not eating too much cost. These details should be spelled out on your website and in your other platforms to ensure there is no confusion. If a free shipping CODE is required in order to grant this promotion, make sure to set that up in your store and test to make sure that it works beforehand (saving you a customer service headache!)
2. Early Bird Offer
This is one of our favorite promotions to run during the holiday season because it allows US to get a jump start on sales or higher volume and of course gives our clients better savings before they get bombarded with other sales.
An early bird offer is technically a promotion that runs before a major event or timeline, i.e. Christmas, Black Friday, etc. You can decide on exactly when that works best for you, but keep in mind that too early may not seem relevant to your audience and too late would bump you right into the holiday spending season (Nov. 15th - Dec. 23rd).
We recommend an early bird offer on or around Nov. 2nd through Nov. 20th. It has become a lot more popular to shop for Christmas BEFORE Thanksgiving, therefore you don’t want to miss a good window to capitalize on a potential Christmas gift for your audience.
Lastly, make sure to advertise your early bird offer as a way to save, avoid stress, or convenience your audience by getting your product or service booked, purchased, or scheduled before things get crazy during the holiday season. Many people need that encouragement and will thank you later for it!
3. Holiday Bundle
Bundle your products or services, baby! Not only do people love free shipping or early bird sales, they definitely love a good bundle. Bundles speak the words “more value” to your customers and that typically incentivizes them to jump on the deal.
We particularly love good bundles of products or services that pair well together. Here are a few examples for various industries:
Hair Salon: Receive a FREE cut with color appointment when booked between Nov. 23rd and Dec. 23rd.
Beauty: Get a 12 oz. hair serum + contour pallet for only $39.99, usually $54.
Photography: Get 20% off your total booking when you schedule a family session + separate Christmas mini-session.
Event Planning: Take $100 off your event planning fees when you bundle Wedding Day + Bridal Shower packages.
Do you feel ready to set up a holiday promotion? We hope you do! With these three options to go off of, we’re confident you can make holiday magic happen for your business this year.
If interested in promotional graphics or materials for a holiday promo, don’t forget that our Creative Club provides you with dedicated design and copy hours each month to set you up for success and to allow you to focus on running your business.
Happy holidays!
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