The first day of fall is almost here, and I know I’m not alone in wondering where on earth 2018 went?! Even though yesterday was January pretty much, it’s already about that time to start thinking about your business’s holiday marketing. This includes planning for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and even New Year’s.
Has your business even started thinking about the sales and promotions you might run for the holidays? You’ve got to plan for doorbusters, gift guides, digital content, and maybe even holiday-specific products/services!
We’re currently working on our Q4 planning, so we wanted to share a few tips with you so that you can start preparing now, too.
1. Which holidays will you run promos for?
Although we love seeing business’s jazz up their online presence for all of the holidays (i.e., adding a pumpkin, turkey, or Santa hat to your logo or cover photo), that doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense for your business to run promotions or sales for every single holiday. So the first thing you want to do is determine which holidays are going to matter most for your business.
Will you have sales for the big shopping days like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and/or Cyber Monday? Or will you just focus on promotions for gift-giving holidays like Christmas? Now is the time to figure this out!
Here are the dates of this year’s holidays you may need to plan for:
11/22: Thanksgiving
11/23: Black Friday
11/24: Small Business Saturday
11/26: Cyber Monday
11/27: Giving Tuesday
12/2: Start of Hanukkah
12/10: Green Monday
12/14: Free Shipping Day
12/24: Christmas Eve
12/25: Christmas Day
12/26: Start of Kwanza
12/31: New Year’s Eve
1/1/19: New Year’s Day
2. Reuse successful promotions/campaigns
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? If you created a holiday-specific product/service last year that outperformed your expectations, or if you ran a successful campaign that generated record sales, do it again.
This makes your holiday marketing extremely easy. Very little thought has to be put into reusing a past campaign.
You also want to take note of any campaigns or promotions that maybe didn’t do so well so that you can refrain from using similar tactics or figure out how to improve it.
3. Plan ahead
Once you know what holidays you need to plan for and if you’re reusing any campaigns from last year, it’s time to start planning your promotions and content. Which avenues will you be using to generate awareness for your campaign? Facebook ads? Instagram? Are you using a landing page? Sharing any discount codes for free shipping during the holidays?
Get creative with your promotions for this holiday season. There are so many fun and engaging holiday marketing ideas and opportunities to take advantage of for big shopping days like Black Friday and holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa.
If you’d like to work together on a campaign for your business’s holiday marketing, call us at (888) 632-4499 or fill out our free, no-obligation consultation form!
