5 Holiday Marketing Ideas

As we all know, the time between Black Friday and Christmas are the biggest shopping days of the year for almost all businesses. We’ve done a few podcasts of ways to prepare your business for upcoming holiday marketing (you can watch those episodes below); and today I’m giving you 5 steps for your holiday marketing plus a bonus specifically for social media.

Step 1 Keep Your Promotions Simple

Most important is to keep things simple – for your clients and for yourself!

When I can, I try to give authentic engagement to other entrepreneurs when I see their posts on social media. I give it a like or comment when I can (and when it’s something I actually want to support).

I came across one post, and the promotion they were running ended up being so complicated that I just gave up. I think in their case it was actually a main company that developed the promotion (she sold products through one of the MLM type of companies). But they wanted you to like and then comment and share and go to the website and do something else then upload an image … you get the idea. It was SO complicated that it made it where it turned people away.

Your customers need to quickly understand how to do whatever it is you’re asking (even if it’s a coupon code, they need to know how to redeem), and it needs to be simple for the to actually do.

But don’t forget you and your staff! Unless you have a really robust system in place, any promotions you set may require some manual work on your end. You want to make sure that you haven’t set your holiday promotion up in a way that it becomes cumbersome and almost impossible for you to keep up with.

Step 2 Get Your Community Involved

Consider both your online community, and if you have a brick and mortar location, also get your in-store community. What are ways you can get them involved in your holiday marketing?

Also consider ways you can cross-promote the two. Get your in-store shoppers doing something online (maybe your store has a PERFECT holiday selfie spot and you encourage them to post and tag your business). And give your online community a reason to come visit your physical location. This type of cross-promotion gets everyone involved and gives you even more ways to interact with your customers.

Step 3 Coupons, Discounts, Contests, Giveaways

While coupons and discounts are always things you should do in moderation, it can be a great gift to your customers to provide them with things that will be meaningful to them during the holidays.

Think through carefully what you can offer – consider WIIFM (what’s in it for me) for your customers so that you understand what would be a meaningful discount, contest or giveaway.

Step 4 Give Your Whole Business Presence a Holiday Feel

Nothing is quite as fun as festive decor for the holidays. You want to try to recreate that same feeling in your online presence as well. This can be particularly important in your branding as well. One of the biggest parts of branding is your visual image. We constantly talk about how if McDonald’s suddenly put out visuals with one golden arch, it’s confusing as to whether or not it’s actually McDonald’s with their two golden arches.

Similarly, finding ways to match your in-store physical decor to your online website and social media presence and have a cohesiveness to the holiday theme across your entire presence can be of great benefit. Plus it can just be fun.

Is there also a way you can get your customers involved in the designs? This can be an inclusive way to get your community involved.

Step 5 Plan a Special Promotion for Last-Minute Shoppers

We all know people (*ahem* my husband) who wait until Christmas Eve to do their shopping. And plenty of other people either procrastinate or just get so busy with everything else involved around the holidays that they are doing their shopping last minute.

Plan now for a special promotion designed for these shoppers. How can you make their last-minute shopping a bit easier? Planning now for a promotion then will benefit everyone.

Bonus Social Media Holiday Marketing Ideas

Here are a few specific holiday promotion ideas for you to use on social media.

Gift Guide – put together a gift guide geared towards your target audience. Include some of your own products or services, as well as those from complementary businesses. Such a guide can be of great value to your audience.

Holiday Hashtags – while the impact of hashtags is decreasing slightly, they can still play an important part in helping your marketing messages be seen. Research any industry-specific holiday hashtags that you may be able to use in addition to the more generic holiday hashtags. We offer a full in-depth training to develop a focused hashtag strategy for marketing your business (and for a short time this training is FREE!).

Facebook Live – live videos are still very popular on Facebook and tend to have good impressions and engagement. How can you bring some festivity into your live videos? You can do live giveaways, give prizes, or maybe even play some festive games.

Need more holiday promotion ideas? We have 12 separate posts (one each month) for monthly promotion ideas for your business. November and December are full of many opportunities for creative ways that you can promote your business.