How your small business performs during the holiday shopping season can set the tone for the new year. Don’t miss out on potential profits because your holiday marketing campaigns aren’t ready in time or done well. Instead, follow these holiday marketing tips to get your online presence prepped for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and other end-of-year holiday sales.
Start Holiday Marketing Early
It may feel odd to start planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing before Labor Day, but it’s often necessary to catch your audience at the right time. Almost half of consumers start their holiday shopping between August and October, and 42% expect to do most of their holiday shopping online, making a well-planned digital marketing strategy essential.
If you don’t start your marketing early, you may miss your customers when they’re in the crucial information-gathering stage of the consumer decision-making process. Early marketing efforts help boost brand awareness—the crucial piece at the top of the marketing funnel—when people are finding new products.
With most events and holidays, you should start your online marketing strategy at least two to three months before. For fall and winter holiday marketing—which can include U.S. Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and the New Year to name a few—it’s best to start planning your holiday marketing campaign sometime in August. Here’s a sample of what your holiday marketing calendar could look like:
Take Advantage of Small Business Saturday Visibility
While Cyber Monday and Black Friday are seen as the titans of holiday deal days, Small Business Saturday is the most useful for small business owners. Held the day after Black Friday, this shopping holiday gives local businesses a chance to shine—it’s even surpassed Black Friday’s popularity in recent years, with 5% more shoppers choosing to shop Small Business Saturday.
As Allie Gritt, Hurrdat’s Director of Social Media, points out:
“There’s a big difference in customer service when it comes to small businesses, and adding that personal touch helps customers feel seen and heard in ways larger businesses can’t. Since small businesses have a face to the name, it’s easy for customers to feel like they ‘know’ you and want to support you.”
Take advantage of this connection and create Small Business Saturday success with some of the following strategies:
- Extend your hours for Small Business Saturday
- Hold an in-person event
- Launch a new product or service
- Partner with other small businesses
- Offer special one-day-only or limited-time deals
Focus on the “Reason for the Season”
The winter holidays have long been associated with family, friends, uplifting feelings, and religion for some. Your holiday marketing needs to reflect these values in a way that aligns with your brand if you want to connect with customers in a meaningful way. If you avoid these values—or worse, go against them—you run the risk of losing prospective customers, as well as the customers you already have.
Take Bloomingdale’s infamous 2015 Christmas ad as an example. The tagline, “Spike your best friend’s eggnog when they’re not looking,” was intended to be playful, but came across badly for obvious reasons. The backlash was swift, and Bloomingdale’s was forced to issue an apology for the holiday ad.
Alternatively, Aperol—most well-known for its alcoholic Aperol Spritz drink—kept things pure and light-hearted with their “Merry Spritzmas” campaign in 2022. The brand released a range of holiday cards and vouchers that could be redeemed for a free Aperol Spritz for both the gifter and recipient, promoting the idea of getting together with loved ones during the holiday season.
The simplest way to avoid possible holiday branding pitfalls is to know your customers and stick with your existing brand strategy. Staying true to your current brand sentiment within your holiday campaigns also helps you stay more authentic, which goes a long way in building and maintaining customer loyalty.
Update Holiday Hours & More on All Local Listings
You should be updating your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) and other local business listings consistently throughout the year with new business information, but a refresh before the holiday season is especially necessary. Add updates on holiday promotions and special services offered during the season as Google posts, offers, or events. Ensure all NAP (name, address, phone number) data is accurate so customers will be able to find your physical locations more easily as they start holiday shopping.
Google Business Profile also allows you to set special hours to let your customers know when you’ll be closed or have modified holiday business hours without having to completely change your typical hours of operation. Update your business hours for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day so searchers know when you’re open and available. While you’re at it, update your holiday hours on your website and post about special hours on your social media profiles, too.
Offer Exclusive Holiday Promotions
One of the best ways to show appreciation for your customers during the holiday season is to say thank you! Rewarding customer loyalty—whether you actually have a holiday loyalty program or simply want to acknowledge longtime email subscribers, frequent shoppers, or followers—is an effective holiday marketing campaign that packs a punch. Here are a few holiday gift ideas and promotions that small businesses can offer customers:
- Free gift with purchase
- Free gift for email subscribers
- Free gift raffle for social media followers
- Holiday loyalty program points
- Gift cards
- Free shipping
- Free gift wrapping
- Discounts increase with size of purchase (buy more, save more)
- Exclusive first look or first access to new products
Optimize Your Website for Holiday Shopping
The number of Americans who shop Thanksgiving weekend has risen to over 200 million in recent years, with over 134 million shopping online. Your website needs to be prepared to not only handle an influx of traffic, but also deliver customers a terrific online purchasing experience so that they can take advantage of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday deals.
As you prep your website for online holiday shopping, make sure to:
- Confirm your return policy is up-to-date
- Use website pop-ups to spotlight holiday deals and discounts
- Ensure your hosting plan and website plugins can accommodate increased web traffic
- Look for ways to boost page speed
- Optimize all images with alt text and relevant tags to help products show up in image search results
Finally, consider including a shipping deadline so your customers know how much time they have to order and still receive their items before the holidays. Since most small businesses don’t have the resources to ship as fast as big companies like Amazon, you need to give customers plenty of notice on fulfillment estimates so they don’t wait to order until the last minute.
Organize Your Inventory for Holiday Promotions
If you’re looking for a holiday marketing idea that builds community, consider hosting an in-person holiday event in your brick-and-mortar store. Just be sure that your inventory tracking system is working if you also have customers shopping on your website to avoid overselling and underdelivering your products.
This holiday marketing tip is necessary for both the items you’re promoting in your holiday marketing campaigns and your normal stock. Both have a chance at selling faster than you’re used to, and the last thing you want is to lose momentum from your holiday marketing by running out of merchandise in the middle of the season.
As you’re planning your holiday marketing campaigns, be sure to specify which products and services will be a part of your best sales and discounts, and stock up on that inventory. Additionally, replenish your bestsellers and start tracking of your inventory—if you don’t already—months before the holidays so that if you do run low on something, you’ll have enough time to restock well before your busy season.
Produce Helpful Holiday Content
Your holiday advertising ideas don’t have to be limited to the deals on the products or services you’re selling—you can expand your holiday marketing strategies to making useful, seasonal content. Creating quality content that solves problems, answers questions, or makes the idea of holiday shopping more fun with concepts like gamification can draw more customers to your website and even help build trust in your brand. Helpful holiday content will also make customers who aren’t ready to purchase gifts think of your brand when they’re preparing their shopping lists and holiday supplies later.
Here are a few holiday marketing ideas your small business could use. A food-related brand could share recipes for Christmas dinners or holiday cocktails using their ingredients, like the Fisher Nuts “Make It Together” campaign or Bailey’s holiday Instagram campaign recipes. A home maintenance store could upload a YouTube video demonstrating how to spread deicing salt on driveways and sidewalks. E-commerce businesses could provide a holiday gift wrapping guide, a gift guide quiz like Well Told’s, or a guide covering how your products can be gifted, as with Nordstrom’s holiday gift categories. More useful holiday content ideas for businesses are:
- 12 Days of Christmas promotion
- Advent calendar promotion or Hanukkah countdown calendar
- Holiday gift guides for Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s
- Live holiday countdown
- Holiday scavenger hunt
Leverage Holiday User-Generated Content
Another holiday marketing tip that’s minimal work for small business owners is to let your customers generate your holiday marketing content for you! User-generated content provides free advertising for your business and shows that customers like and trust your brand. Using this as part of your holiday marketing can be a more authentic and diverse way to spotlight your brand and your holiday sales.
This holiday marketing strategy could be as simple as a Christmas ornament tutorial posted by Michaels. The video shows the craft supplies coming out of a Michaels bag, and the original creator is tagged in the caption alongside the hashtag “#MakeItWithMichaels.”
There are also more complex options like the longstanding Office Depot Elf Yourself campaign. The yearly Christmas card creator has been around since 2006, and Office Depot continues to develop the software and add features to make new and exciting shareable holiday cards.
For additional user-generated content around the holidays, have your customers post unboxing videos, photos using your products with special holiday hashtags, or ask them to leave reviews in social media posts and on Google. Sometimes, you can even offer rewards or incentives—like free gifts and discounts—for posting or sharing.
Send Out Holiday Email Promotions
If you’ve been building your email list throughout the year, the holiday season is the perfect time to leverage the work you’ve put in. 60% of people say email marketing influences their purchasing decisions, so sending specialized holiday promotions could help drive more sales.
Start with a great email subject line, using no more than nine words or 60 characters. 47% of recipients open marketing emails based on their subject line, so you need to make sure it’s effective and descriptive enough to pull in attention. Using seasonal language or fun quotes is a great idea, but make sure they don’t replace a callout of the deal or promotion you’re trying to send. Some other best practices include personalizing your email subject lines and testing them to ensure they appear the way you want them to.
Additional holiday campaign ideas using your email list include:
- Sharing exclusive offers and holiday sales, holiday gift guides, and other holiday content
- Offering holiday promotions and personalized gift suggestions based on previous purchases, available only to email subscribers
- Using email segmentation to personalize holiday marketing emails to your customers’ preferences (especially if your audience observes different holidays)
- Delivering “abandoned cart” emails and other retargeting campaigns to remind customers of products they were interested in but have not yet purchased
Send SMS & Mobile Holiday Marketing Messages
If you don’t already have a mobile or SMS marketing strategy, the holidays are a great time to start! Because SMS marketing messages typically have a 98% open rate, this is one of the best forms of holiday marketing to get your seasonal promotions seen by more customers.
In your SMS holiday marketing campaign, send out a message with links to your deals or a simple notification of upcoming holiday sales. Or get more creative with holiday promotion games and activities like scavenger hunts, or hold a text reply contest or raffle to further engage your customers.
Share Your Holiday Branding on Social Media
Social media is one of your most valuable tools for branding, and a great holiday marketing tip is to lean into seasonal branding to share your unique personality with customers! The holidays are meant to be a time focused on camaraderie and connection with loved ones, which you can show through photos of you and your team decorating the office, volunteering at a local food bank, or celebrating during a holiday party. These posts help generate interactions and make your brand more relatable to customers.
Gritt says,
“Using social media to pull at people’s heart strings with a touching video, unique items, and personalized packaging can help invite new and returning customers to shop small this holiday season.”
You can also temporarily change your branding on social media to something more festive. Share fun, colorful holiday graphics advertising your promotions or holiday content, like this festive Instagram graphic promoting Hurrdat’s holiday Spotify playlist. You can also post photos and videos of your holiday decorations, displays, and products to draw customers into your store, like this Christmas drinks review from Hurrdat Sports Bar & Grill.
