The holiday season presents a unique opportunity for brands and advertisers to market their products to a shop-ready audience. Most people set budgets aside for the Christmas season, as they prepare for Secret Santa, year-end parties, and more.
Taking advantage of these milestones can help companies gain insight into consumer behavior, their needs, and which products are popular. Companies optimize their web pages, increase social media presence, and conduct special discount sales.
According to Statista, during Christmas, sales increase drastically in all areas. In a survey, 85% of respondents mentioned that they will celebrate the Christmas season.
Ideas for Christmas Promotions and Holiday Campaigns
The latest 2022 Deloitte holiday retail survey showed that Americans are expected to spend around $1,455 each this season. This presents a huge opportunity for brands to capitalize on consumer spending.
Holiday content provides great opportunities for unique marketing tactics that will bring attention and increase engagement to your brand. We have listed some ideas on how businesses can take advantage of the holiday season to promote their wares.
1. Have a Christmas referral contest/ cashback
A holiday referral or cashback scheme works as a great promotional activity for your brand. It increases your presence on social media and also promotes word-of-mouth publicity. As holiday sales represent almost 20% of annual sales, it is important to increase promotional activities.
When companies offer attractive holiday referral prizes, customers will take it upon themselves to promote the brand and help increase revenue and engagement.
Some brands offer referral discounts when someone downloads their app using a code. This ensures that they have a new customer and can easily slide into their smart devices.
2. Offer gifting discounts
People sometimes use e-commerce websites to shop for family and friends. This way, things can be directly shipped to the person it is intended for. Often, while shopping for others, people tend to buy something for themselves too.
Offering discounts for buying gifts for loved ones or minimum buys will be especially irresistible and make holiday shopping profitable for both brands and consumers. For example, gyms can offer buy-one-get-one free membership for three months, or subscription-based cosmetics can be offered at a reduced rate for a yearly supply.
As Christmas is just a week away from New Year’s Eve, people also stock up for the coming year. Retailers can take this into account while coming up with Christmas promotion ideas.
3. Clubbed offers
Companies can also tie up with other brands to offer value-added services. One such collaboration is pizza chains tying up with soft drink brands and offering customers a complete meal at discounted prices. Such tie-ups increase awareness and also help promote new products.
If a company is known for selling high-fashion items, it could also partner with another brand to offer athleisure products at a discount during the Christmas holidays.
Shopping at one store lets you use a special discount when you want to buy from the other company. Co-branding is an effective way to build business, boost awareness, and break into new markets. Holiday promotions can benefit greatly by partnering with other brands that offer value-added services for your customers.
It also lends a certain authenticity to the partner brand and builds trust in case of exceptional customer service.
4. Conduct giveaways
Everyone loves to receive free gifts. A social media giveaway can boost your online presence and build credibility. Often brands run giveaways on Instagram wherein users are encouraged to submit pictures of them using the product and tagging the company.
Holding a social media giveaway during the Christmas season is a brilliant way to generate brand awareness for a much larger audience.
If you want to increase traffic to your brand’s website, curating a digital campaign with giveaways is the easiest way to achieve your goal.
Giveaways can include a gift hamper of the brand’s products, coupon codes for future purchases, the chance to participate in a brand event, concert tickets, or anything that will help your brand shine in the limelight.
5. Free Shipping
Most brands have a minimum buy limit for free shipping. During the holiday season, offering free shipping will boost sales and probably be the difference between buying from your company or your competitor’s.
Zippia found that US gift spending is expected to reach $178 billion in 2022 and 40% of all Christmas sales occur between December 15-24.
Free delivery will help last-minute Christmas gift shoppers send their gifts directly to the recipient without worrying about making it on time.
Free delivery also has a subconscious effect on customers, making them think that they are saving money on purchases. One of the causes of cart abandonment is shipping charges.
Offering free shipping will help you gain a competitive advantage and drive sales for your online business. Most Christmas promotions offer free delivery to lure customers who are otherwise reluctant to shop from our brand.
No matter how big or small your company is, Christmas promotions are an easy way to extend your brand reach and attract more attention to your business.
