Top 7 Marketing Strategies To Make Your Business Stand Out During Holiday Season

For most businesses, the holidays are the busiest time of the year. Consumers are more ready to spend. And businesses can take full advantage of that desire to buy with some excellent marketing. However, holiday marketing strategies may rapidly go wrong or not outstanding enough. Today we will go over the top 5 marketing strategies to make your business stand out during the holiday seasons.

Offer exclusive promotions

The holiday season is a perfect time to offer some exclusive promotions. Customers love discounts because it makes them feel like they can save more money. Moreover, a sense of scarcity can encourage customers to make a purchase. 

The tip to ‘spice things up’ a little bit is to combine these offers with your loyal customers. For example, during the Christmas season, you can provide your loyalty program members exclusive offers and discounts. You can send a voucher that says, “30% off your purchase of $30 or more exclusively for loyalty members”, as well as provides bonus points. Besides, giving Christmas customers an extra 5 points for every transaction they make in December can also be a great way to boost sales during this time of the year.

Show gratitude to customers

Customers enjoy being appreciated, so why not say “thank you” in a referral card delivered through email? Referral cards are wonderful holiday marketing strategies to expand your brand’s reach while also motivating your current customers. Moreover, you can also give them a physical thank-you card after they purchase something in-store. However, our final note is all of your efforts will be useless if you don’t genuinely care for your consumers. Make sure to show appreciation sincerely and wholeheartedly. 

If you are running a business with close connections with some customers, don’t hesitate to think out of the box. Give something more than a basic item with your company brand to make it meaningful—and memorable. You can, for example, send a branded onesie to a customer who had a baby, or a bone to a customer getting her new pet along with a gift voucher. This action conveys special messages to your customers.

Make outstanding window display

One of the most visually powerful ways to attract consumers to your store and make a lasting impression is a beautiful window display. With this holiday marketing strategy, businesses will be able to tap into the festive enchantment with ease. 

Make the display relevant to the upcoming holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Halloween, or Christmas. As a retail store, however, you don’t have to go for highly expensive or sophisticated decorations in order to stand out. Instead, you can think about making use of your own products as decorating materials.

Let’s take Type Books, an independent bookstore in Toronto as an example. Type decorated its huge square shop window with spectacular book-themed decorations throughout the holidays. It includes titles in the display that reflect a cross-section of their book inventory based on a pre-determined subject. In this way, Type did not only succeed in creating an outstanding window display, but also promoted their own products.

Use personalization

More than just creating a strategy that fulfills sales objectives, being impersonal and attentive to what your customers are truly searching for works more effectively in the long run for organizations. Some useful ways that brands can do include gift suggestions, shopping assistants, and more interactive methods such as competitions, surveys, and quizzes that allow viewers to get more involved in a brand’s campaign.

You might be wondering how can retailers understand each customer? The secret is the customer profile, which is supported by point of sale (POS) systems. Every time a user shops at your store, their transactions can be saved in POS. Over time, you can have access to their shopping patterns, such as what types of products they often purchase, frequency of buying, or their wishlists. This will help store owners understand their customers better and provide personalized supports based on each person’s preferences.

As a leading point of sale provider, ConnectPOS can help retail stores build customer profiles no matter where they shop – online or offline, thanks to real-time synchronization. Don’t hesitate to give it a try if you are looking for a powerful tool for the upcoming holiday season.

Don’t just focus on profit

The holidays are a time when people are more emotional than ever, thinking about family, gifting, and building personal connections. Therefore, it may not be wise to only focus on profit during these periods of the year (and you also shouldn’t!). Instead, this is the right time to elicit emotional responses from your customers, resulting in social shares and, eventually, purchases. In fact, nearly 80% of Americans feel that businesses have the responsibility to make a positive influence on society.

For example, businesses can try partnering with an NGO or charity organizations and donating their funds to people who need them. In these holiday marketing strategies, try to think of those who are related to the business. In 2016, 17 Amazon trucks distributed supplies to families in need throughout the country as part of a new Christmas project called Trucks Across America. As a result, more than a dozen hyperlocal NGOs situated near Amazon fulfillment sites received winter clothes, toys, and home basics.

Offer deals for late customers

There might be a variety of reasons why people are unable to shop during the holidays. Many businesses extend their Christmas campaign promotions in order to attract these customers as their holiday marketing strategies.

For those who missed out on the holiday discounts, Mahabis, a business that sells cozy slippers, has the appropriate email campaign. They utilized comforting words to demonstrate that they, as a company, understood what it’s like to not get what you want for the holidays. This holiday marketing strategy provided a second opportunity to prolong the festive spirit.

Encourage user-generated content 

It is important to plan the content for your holiday marketing strategy. One useful approach is to create content centered around consumers who share their pleasant experiences with others. It is user-generated content, which is often used on social media via hashtags or reviews.

For example, KitKat, the world-famous chocolate company, encouraged its consumers to get involved by asking them to showcase how they use chocolate in their holiday dishes and crafts. The customer-centric technique succeeded in making a brand more trustworthy for customers, because it is well-reviewed by actual consumers. 

Wrapping up

Now that you know several holiday marketing strategies to make your business stand out, it’s time to take action and achieve your dream. As a leading POS provider, ConnectPOS is more than happy to accompany you during this journey. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you want to know more about our solutions!