As the avalanche of ads from the holiday season demonstrates, any business that doesn’t take advantage of holiday purchasing enthusiasm misses on a lot of potential for sales. Fortunately, there are many ways to promote your business, particularly during the holiday season. In this article, we’ll present some of our favorite seasonal marketing tactics. We think you’ll love them, as they are fast, fun, and simple to implement.
Without further ado, here are some fast and fun ways to promote your business during any holiday season.
#1 Suggest gift ideas
Most of us struggle with gift ideas every year. There are a large number of important dates during a year in every person’s life; birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and of course, holidays.
Brands should recognize the marketing potential in helping people choose the right presents, both before and during the holidays. A handy way to promote your own products or services, in general, is to help people make tough decisions.
You might say: But, how am I really promoting my own business if I’m not talking about it directly?
Well, one of the main principles of successful marketing, either in its offline or online form, is that providing value is never a wasted effort. In this case, you might suggest amazingly creative gift ideas that even belong to another company. But remember, it is still your brand that’s providing the content, and this type of content is highly shareable. Rather quickly, your business can reach new audiences.
The goal is to truly make your customer’s life easier, and this marketing tactic brings potential customers closer to your brand.
Let’s grab some takeaways from this first holiday promotional tactic:
- Businesses can help people make shopping decisions, and get new customers in return.
- While gift ideas might not be directly connected to your own products or services, they’re still a valuable (and potentially viral!) piece of promotional content.
- This marketing method is by far one of the simplest to prepare and execute.
Bonus tip: don’t forget to mark your brand clearly, with a logo and your website, especially if you’re making an infographic or similar visual content. Always make sure that interested people can easily find you.
#2 Focus on social media
Social media networks have shown tremendous growth this year even as mature platforms, and virtually every business can benefit from having a rich social presence.
The holidays tend to see larger social media usage, and accordingly, a jump in the amount of promotional content you see. Companies compete more than ever to win a user’s attention and encourage purchasing in any way possible.
No matter how daunting it feels to be active on social media, it is a necessary tactic. It may be a bit more difficult to get noticed in the holiday traffic, but the effort will pay off. Think outside of the box, and grab the piece of that profitable digital pie.
This is what we’ve learned while observing general social media practices during holidays:
- Holidays are beautiful, but they’re also stressful. Whenever you have an idea that’s both entertaining and action-inducing, implement it.
- Avoid generic visuals by all means (especially around New Year’s). When something is seen thousands of times, it repels people.
- Be unique, state your opinion, go against the current.
- Don’t be afraid to post more frequently than usual. The feeds become crowded whenever a holiday is on the door. In order to stand out, you need to be noticed in the first place
- As the holidays approach, engagement levels on all major social media sites increase. Do not launch the campaign and vanish. Be present and ready to answer all questions, demands, and requests.
#3 Offer more than just discounts
Offering just a discount during the holidays is very unoriginal. The key is to stand out from the sea of competitors and always provide more than expected. These are a couple of ideas you can use to upgrade your promotional efforts during holidays, beyond just generic discounts.
- Free shipping
- Time-sensitive sales and offers
- Convenience tactics, e.g. purchase online and pick up at a store
- Highly helpful customer service
- It’s a gifting season, so why not add a surprise present for your buyer?
- Offer coupons or gift cards
Bonus tip: Some companies, especially the entrepreneurs who experience holiday campaigns for the first time, can get carried away by the omnipresent euphoria. Always be clear about your numbers, and careful not to over-promise when offering holiday discounts, gifts, etc.
Closing words
It is no wonder that many (offline and online) entrepreneurs start preparing their holiday promotions months before the actual season begins. Regardless of the industry, niche, and the size of your business, there is always an opportunity to gain more customers, and ultimately, more revenue during the holidays.
We hope that our suggestions for lucrative ways to promote your business have inspired you. Most importantly of all, make sure that your hosting provider can handle the increased traffic seen during the holidays, and that your site is always running as fast and reliably as possible. Here at CanSpace, we understand how important it is to have your website running at peak efficiency during the holidays (and always!), which is why we are trusted as Canada’s leading hosting provider.
