With the ongoing threats of lockdowns and closures, experts are forecasting online sales skyrocket by around £5.6bn according to Internetretailing.net. With so many people expected to stay at home this holiday season, the increase in online spending comes as no surprise.
But for retailers like yourself, this does mean a more competitive online market. In this blog post, we are going over Christmas business promotion ideas to make you stand out from the crowd!
Let’s get started!
With each of your Christmas promotions, you need to be specific in targeting a certain buyer. This is so that your audience will feel compelled to purchase what you’re selling as you’ll be directly solving a problem that feels personal to them.
You want your customers who see your ad to feel like you’re not only talking directly to them, but you understand their needs and wants too.
For example, let’s take restaurants targeting home food deliveries for the Christmas period.
Their customers either desire a hassle-free meal without all the fuss of cooking themselves, they could be poor cooks, or they quite simply want to treat themselves and the family to a restaurant-quality meal- without risking being in public places.
Any messaging like these examples in their promotions will certainly attract buyers. People are drawn to experiences that fit within their lifestyle. Promoting opportunities that give people solutions to their problems will guarantee you more sales than a mere generalized holiday promotion.
When your customers see your updated website with Christmas themed designs it subconsciously communicates that not only are you current, but there are Christmas offers to be had!
Introduce a Christmas themed banner on your homepage that clicks-through to your specific Christmas sales page. This creates an improved user experience as the customer has less actions to take to get to their desired page.
As we all know, fewer clicks to checkout= higher sales made!
Pymnts.com found that a huge 40% of online sales are abandoned due to frustration with websites that make you take too many clicks until checkout!
Do the same with email signatures or Call-to-Action links. Do this by adding at least one link in your email marketing campaign that takes customers directly through to your Christmas offers.
Build on your customer relationships by giving this Christmas. There are many ways to ‘give back’ with Christmas promotions.
Some examples include:
Customers are all looking for advantages they can gain out of their Christmas shopping experiences. Giving a little back could make all the difference between choosing between you and a competitor.
For all businesses who operate through services, you need to switch up your promotions and sell gift experiences.
Too many times we see hotels and restaurants on social media promoting their room rates, spa days, restaurant meals with the link going through to direct bookings either through the website or to a phone line.
Sending a link directly to your gift voucher page has two advantages.
Selling the same option available in gift voucher form encourages spontaneous buying as people don’t need to make a decision on any of these things yet.
If you’re stuck for ideas on which services or products you can promote in gift vouchers, don’t worry, as we’ve written a blog post on this exact topic which you can read here: What are the best gift cards to give for Christmas?
The year 2020 has been a challenging year. With the global pandemic still lingering, fear and isolation is still a residing reality for many.
This year, promote ‘togetherness’ in a way to unite people. Whether that’s providing opportunities for your customers to donate to charitable organisations, working with local businesses or even providing opportunities for your customers to have memorable experiences with their loved ones.
In your promotions use wording that communicates care, love, sharing.
Create packages that give families opportunities to make beloved memories and to focus on what matters most- even in such an unexpected year.
Christmas is a wonderful time of year- but it also comes with its headaches!
If you can provide solutions to common holiday problems, you could be onto a winner.
Offer a gift wrapping service with your sales or a dinner delivery experience as we mentioned above.
Think outside of the box for unique experiences that would make your Christmas easy. If you can provide effective Christmas solutions, people will be driven towards your offerings.
Keep up with trending keywords by finding out what customers are searching for this Christmas.
Use tools such as Keywords Everywhere which provides keyword trends commonly asked questions on search engines, and related searches to give you great ideas on what people are looking for this Christmas.
Choose to use keywords that have high searches across search engines and social media, and be sure to include these in your product descriptions, social media posts and even blog posts to increase web traffic.
We see thousands of gift voucher sales go through on Christmas day itself!
So it’s important to recognize that not only are people still shopping on Christmas day, but also all the way through until the New year.
Quite often, customers will hold off purchasing gifts until the after-Christmas Boxing day sales.
Strategise your promotions so that customers who missed out on your holiday sales can still get a slice of the pie in the after-sales.
If you’re lucky enough to struggle with online shopping demand you’ll be amazed at how understanding and forgiving your customers can be if you’re upfront and honest in your communication.
Be sure to send communication about your delivery times and scheduling promptly as soon as you notice an issue in the fulfilment of orders. A great tip is to prioritise customers who need gifts before Christmas.
An example of this would be to prioritise urgent birthday gifts while the fulfilment backtracking gets sorted. This way you provide a solution for your urgent customers who are very unhappy with the delay.
As long as you make a promise to send all other packages by a certain date, the majority of your customers will be understanding and forgiving.
Whatever you're offering this year, play it smart with implementing some of our Christmas business promotion ideas mentioned above. It’s not too late to introduce your Christmas promotions to capture this great end of year opportunity.
