Christmas is considered by most to be the happiest time of the year, it can also be the most lucrative for businesses that have the right marketing strategies for the festive season.
It’s never too early to start brainstorming about holiday promo ideas to design a successful marketing strategy to end this year as your most successful one yet.
Keep reading for some awesome holiday promo ideas to get your creative juices flowing and help you get in the holiday marketing spirit.
1. Christmas in July
If you’re too excited to wait until the holiday season to get into the giving spirit, you could always start celebrating now. In fact, why not have Christmas in July.
Offer customers who buy today saving that will have them thinking Santa came early. Whether you pass the savings on to them now so they can get their holiday shopping done ahead of time or you give them a deal that entices them to return later in the year.
You can give them customer loyalty cards or exclusive specials they can cash in on closer to the holiday season. Give them reasons to keep coming back for more chances to save between now and the end of the year.
Everyone loves the festive look of Christmas lights and tinsel. Why not do it up right? Decorate for Christmas in July to catch consumers attention. It’s much easier to wow them with your decorations and displays when you’re the only one in town celebrating.
2. The 12 Days of Christmas
If you aren’t ready to start celebrating the holidays quite yet then you may want to plan for 12 days of Christmas promotional event.
This could involve different savings or giveaways each day or offer a gift such as custom Christmas stockings with every purchase.
Social media, your website or mailers can be used to promote your holiday specials and promote your giveaways to get people in the door. This is also a great way to gain the attention of potential customers from cyberspace.
3. Holiday Photo Contest
We live in a society that spends more time posting and sharing pictures on social media than almost any other activity. It’s become an obsession and why not find a way to cash in on that trend?
Invite consumers to post pictures of their summer holidays or photos of them preparing for the winter holiday season with your brand. This not only encourages customers to engage and interact with your brand online but also gets your brand exposure as each of them shares pictures with their followers and friends.
Offer a Swagbag or prize pack to the winners of the contest. If you want consumers to be encouraged to interact, even more, have visitors vote on the best photo.
This will entice those who’ve entered the contest to repeatedly share the promo details to win votes from friends and followers who will share with their contacts to solicit more votes and help you gain more exposure.
4. Holiday Humor
Everyone loves to laugh so why not reel customers in by appealing to the lighter side of life. Let staff and customers share holiday videos, blog posts and funny holiday jokes and cartoons to get them laughing. If you’re successful at producing giggles, they’ll be begging to learn more about who’s behind the wicked sense of humor.
Invite consumers to join in on the fun by providing them with an app that allows them to make their own holiday video or upload their own greeting or attempt at humor. Again, people love free stuff and you can get their attention and encourage their participation by offering something for next to nothing.
5. Holiday Promo Ideas That Appeal to All Ages
Sometimes adults are a much harder sell than the younger generation. Gain the attention of parents by winning the hearts of their kids. Children have a huge influence on the choices consumers make.
Parents, grandparents, and relatives of all ages worry more about making sure there’s a smile on the young faces around the Christmas tree than anything else.
Even if none of your products and services are for children you can gain a loyal customer in a parent by gaining the favor of their offspring. Have fun holiday promo games and fun activities online or instore to catch the attention of kids so they upsell your brand to their parents.
6. Photo with Santa and a Twist
Stores like Eaton’s or Bloomingdales have line-ups out the door for a chance to get a photo taken with the store’s Santa Claus. Offer photos with Santa or for a twist you could have your own awesome unique photo opportunity with a different character.
Perhaps something like Woody the Christmas Tree, pet photos with Rudolf or Buddy the Elf. Offer a family photo for customers to use on their holiday card and subtly include your brand somewhere in the backdrop. Let them have fun at your store’s holiday photobooth loaded with props for them to choose to personalize their holiday photo.
They may come just for the photo but you can win them over and gain publicity through the event and for the year to come as they share with others where they got the photo done. It gives you a face-to-face opportunity to win them over and close a sale without even leaving your store.
7. The Giving Season
Christmas is the giving season and you can promote more sales by being charitable. Whether you give a small percentage from each sale to a charitable organization or you come up with your own cause to donate goods or money to, you can get customers in the door.
People want to be charitable too and if they can do it while getting something for themselves it’s even better. They get to give and get which is even more incentive because they can finish their holiday shopping and their charitable giving all at once.
Holiday Promo Ideas All Year Long
You don’t have to wait till December to start getting in the Christmas spirit. There are holiday promo ideas that you can successfully use to get your customers singing your praises all year round.
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