13 Clever Holiday Marketing Strategies for 2023
Need some inspiration to get started? Try these 13 smart holiday marketing strategies for 2023!
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1. Offer the best customer experience
While the holidays are often a joyful time of year, they’re also notorious for creating stress — especially when it comes to gift shopping. Your business can alleviate consumer stress, however, by providing useful tips and tricks to make their experience even better.
Take a supermarket as an example.
Your store could produce content that offers simple holiday recipes to make cooking for the holidays even easier. Not only would this content provide helpful information to customers, but it would also motivate them to purchase more food from your supermarket.
For your business, you want to focus on producing content that relates to your products or services, as well as consumer needs. Before you develop a piece of content for the holiday season, ask how it will benefit and help your shoppers.
From a business perspective, it’s also worth mentioning how your products could help consumers. You should only encourage users to consider your goods if it makes sense, though. If you force your products or services onto readers, they won’t become a customer.
2. Show gratitude to shoppers
During the holiday season, consumers can spend a significant amount of time debating what — and where — they want to spend their money when it comes to purchasing gifts. That means even loyal and long-term customers may shop elsewhere this season.
If your business wants to pull potential and previous shoppers back into your store, then you need to stay top-of-mind. An excellent holiday marketing strategy for keeping consumers dedicated and loyal to your brand focuses on gratitude.
Show shoppers how valuable they are to your business. While there are many different ways you can thank clients, sending out a thank you email or a physical card are both simple acts that can motivate consumers to do their holiday shopping with your business.
3. Start your marketing campaign early
Too many businesses procrastinate when it comes to developing their holiday marketing strategy.
Your target market should start thinking about your business and their holiday shopping before December rolls around. That’s why your team needs to work on its seasonal marketing campaign early, like in August or September.
A holiday marketing campaign can also launch well before November or December.
While many consumers are prone to last-minute shopping, others buy gifts early. Capture this audience by sending out holiday advertisements and seasonal offers ahead of time. With this approach, you can motivate these early shoppers to purchase your product.
4. Offer free rewards
While many consumers focus on purchasing gifts, they’re still attracted to the idea of buying something for themselves. That’s why providing a free product or purchase gift is such a compelling holiday marketing strategy in 2023.
With this strategy, you can motivate shoppers to not only buy your product but also spend more with your company. For example, if you offer a free item with a $50 purchase, it encourages users to spend more. Rather than buy $25 worth of product, they splurge and spend $50.
If your company isn’t sure about offering free rewards, you can make the reward free shipping.
The holidays are a time of giving — and your consumers want to be on the receiving end of gift giving from time to time too. Highlight special offers, savings, and free promotions whenever possible to amplify your sales during this time of year.
5. Webroom your products
You may have heard of a showroom before. When a client wants to see a product in-person, they go to a store showroom, which can help them make a purchasing decision. Well, why not bring this tactic to the Internet?
Webrooming works the same way as showrooming, except you present your products on the Internet, rather than in-person. In most cases, a webroom allows shoppers to explore a product at every angle, providing them the complete in-person showroom experience online.
It’s a powerful holiday marketing strategy, especially when it comes to expensive purchases.
If your company’s interested in creating a webroom of your products, you need to start early. Building a webroom requires a team of developers, as well as professional photographers. Depending on the size of your product line, this can result in a few months of work.
6. Embrace email marketing
During the bustling holiday season, your target market finds themselves always on the go. Whether they’re out running errands or catching up on their holiday shopping, your ideal shopper doesn’t have a lot of time to dedicate to phone calls, in-person encounters, or physical mail.
You can guarantee, however, that your target market is checking their email inbox.
Throughout the holiday season, businesses send shoppers a variety of offers. That’s why consumers frequently check their email during the holiday shopping season. They want to get the best deal, and email can help them save.
Pay extra attention to engaging your subscribers during the holidays. Send out emails that highlight your promotions, sales, or seasonal product line. A simple email can make a world of difference by informing and encouraging shoppers, which helps you land additional sales.
7. Encourage discussions
Whether it’s through your website, blog, or social media accounts, you have multiple platforms to engage your audience. While your company can focus on interacting with consumers during the holiday season, it’s essential to communicate with shoppers year-round.
For example, you can make an Instagram post to ask followers what they’re most excited about this holiday season. Then, your team can respond to the user comments, providing personalized responses that users remember.
No matter when you interact with your followers, it’s imperative for your team to respond to negative and positive comments. If a user posts something negative, but your company doesn’t reply, it sends the wrong message to other followers and customers.
8. Use hashtags
Since 81 percent of people have a social media profile, you won’t want to miss out on the opportunity to reach new shoppers and influence current ones on these platforms. If you already use social media marketing, make sure to optimize it for the holiday season.
How can you turn your social media into a holiday marketing strategy?
Take advantage of hashtags on platforms like Instagram and Twitter. While you can use hashtags on Facebook, they’re not as popular or useful. That’s why it’s helpful to limit your use of hashtags to platforms that make the most of them.
With hashtags, you can spread the word about your sales and promotions. You can also encourage user-generated content by creating a hashtag for shoppers to use when posting a photo or status that features your product.
Hashtags are also easy to remember and make it easier for prospective clients to remember your company’s name. The right hashtags can help you reach new shoppers who are looking for the perfect gift this holiday season too.
For the best results, follow shopping trends relevant to your industry. What do your consumers seem to want most for the holidays this year? Use hashtags on your Twitter, Instagram, and various other social media profiles to create more buzz for your business.
9. Produce festive ads
Depending on your company and products, you can use this holiday marketing strategy.
If you’re investing in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, you can focus on creating ads that feature a holiday touch in the ad copy or ad itself. For example, your ad copy may say, “Get the perfect gift this holiday season,” to emphasize the holidays.
You can extend this strategy to your content too.
Maybe, for example, you produce a series of blog posts or social media status updates that focus on the holidays. A supermarket, for instance, may highlight recipes and decorations via their blog while a manufacturer may create an “Elf on the Shelf” series for their social media.
10. Retarget customers
An astonishing 96 percent of customers will leave a website without making a purchase. This means that only four out of every 100 people visiting your site buy your product or services. With a remarketing ad campaign and email marketing, however, you can change that.
If a shopper provides their email, for example, but doesn’t check out, you can send a follow-up email. This email reminds the reader that their cart still has an item in it, which can encourage the user to complete their purchase.
In comparison, a remarketing ad campaign focuses on users that visited your site. That’s a broad group of people, however, which is why you can narrow your audience down to a specific product page.
No matter how you remarket your business, it’s critical for your company to understand each user’s motivations. Try to find out what made a user leave your site. In some cases, a user would have bought your product, but your website made the process almost impossible.
That’s why you need to pay attention to your marketing strategy and your website’s usability.
11. Appeal to shopper emotions
The holidays ignite a mixture of emotions, from excitement to nostalgia. A smart holiday marketing strategy appeals to these emotions, which can encourage users to make your company apart of their holiday shopping.
When you’re building your holiday marketing campaign, pay extra attention to the emotional appeal of your content. Share inspirational messages on social media, for example, or provide a behind-the-scenes look at how your company celebrates the holidays to evoke powerful feelings.
12. Launch a video marketing campaign
A minute of video is equivalent to eight million words, making video marketing a revolutionary holiday marketing strategy. According to 90 percent of users, video also helps them make a purchase decision, which tremendously benefits your company.
Adding a video to your website, emails, or social media page can help you share your company’s message in a way that invites users to learn more about your brand. Videos are user-friendly too, plus make it easy for viewers to learn more about your products and their uses.
If you haven’t already, create a YouTube page to market your business and share your videos.
13. Market your brand
During the holiday seasons, it’s also essential for your company to promote its brand.
When you focus on sharing not only your products but also your brand, it can leave a lasting impression on shoppers. If your company focuses on producing eco-friendly products, for example, it can encourage users to choose your business versus a competitor.
If your company offers exceptional customer service, you can also use it as a unique selling point (USP) for your brand. This kind of USP not only demonstrates what your company values but also what users can expect as a customer.
Before the holiday shopping season, pay extra attention to how your business presents its brand. Put some added effort into your branding so that your customers have more of a reason to invest in your business — especially when the holidays roll around.
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Ready to make the holidays delightful?
With some planning, your team can develop a one-of-a-kind holiday marketing strategy that drives your seasonal sales upward. From offering personalized experiences to sharing gratitude, your company has a variety of options when it comes to promoting your business this season.
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