Every year around this time, thousands of businesses start planning their holiday promotions. Are you one of them? You should be!
Holiday promotions are a great time to bring in sales and increase revenue during the end of the year. The average consumer spends 43% more during the months of November and December than any other month of the year! Since your audience is already primed for making extra purchases, you should absolutely consider running a holiday promotion.
This being said, planning out your holiday promotion does not have to be timely or costly for you now. In fact, a few simple tasks can set you up for an epic holiday season and successful promotion!
We want to share our top 3 tips that have led us to having successful holiday promos. Hopefully these give you a starting place to making your own with ease and even a little bit of fun!
3 Ways to Plan An Epic Holiday Promotion
1. Determine the discount you want to offer
For some, this is easier than others. But you should take some time to evaluate the best promotion you could offer your audience with THEM in mind. While you may have inventory, a program, or a specific service that you want to offer, keep in mind that you want to make it an effortless decision for them to take advantage of this promotion. What does your audience want / need the most this time of year?
Additionally, this is a great time to analyze what your competitors are offering and see what you can do to offer more. You have to weigh the financial sides to each offer, but using your competitors as a guide (even from former years) can be a great starting place.
Remember that this is often the time of year that businesses offer their biggest discount. Make your offer undeniable and tailored to your unique brand and you will see success!
2. Create a visual promotion strategy that is festive and on brand
We get giddy just thinking about the ways to add a little festive touch to our brand. You should also implement strategic and unique festiveness to your branding and promotional materials. Since the visual appeal is half the battle of getting your audience to keep reading, watching, or shopping, put a heavy emphasis on creating the right visual promotion. This comes in the form of email graphics, social media posts, videos, and even mailers.
When it comes to staying on brand during the holidays, you still want to keep your branding in check. But don’t hesitate to go full-send into the holiday spirit with iconic touches, such as wreaths, trees, stars, packages, cookies, reindeer, and more. If you need branding advice on this specific marketing element, don’t hesitate to reach out!
3. Emphasize emotion and gratitude
One of our favorite times of the year is the holiday season where the content we consume is more centered on feeling emotion, love for others, and especially gratitude for all we’ve been blessed with. Use that within your marketing promotions to appeal to your audience and the sensitive nature of this time of year!
This could look like telling a story about a previous holiday season for you, a loved one, etc. Or, you could play on the nostalgia of being a little child during Christmas time and the anticipation of Christmas morning. Whichever emotion you choose to target, make it genuine and real. Your audience will appreciate it most when it comes from your heart.
We are also big advocates of expressing gratitude a little extra over the course of the season. We know the hustle and bustle hits everyone differently, but the support shown our way means the world. We try to communicate that every chance we get and we recommend you doing that too!
BONUS TIP
We can’t wrap up our tips without sharing just one more that is crucial for holiday promotion success. And that is: Don’t forget to use the most popular holiday promotion delivery method of email!
We can all admit that the promo emails come in the HUNDREDS for most of us during the holidays. While you likely ignore many of them, there’s a reason businesses send so many and that is because they are effective. While we always recommend sharing your promotions across multiple platforms when they occur, don’t sleep on email as it typically is the fastest and easiest way to get information into your audience’s hands.
Who’s ready to plan out their holiday promos? We hope you are! Regardless of what you go with, we hope these tips help you navigate what should be a very joyous time of year for everyone!
Need more holiday promotion advice? Check out these posts!