The holidays are a great time to promote your business and brand. There’s only a select number of times per year that large groups of potential customers are actively searching for gifts or presents. The holidays that most brands focus on are: Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and New Year’s. It’s important to get the best out of these times of the year. You can come up with the best ways to entice people to buy your products with some clever marketing strategies.
The most important thing is being prepared and having a plan for each individual event of the year. For the bigger events, you’ll need to start your promotions at least one month prior to the holiday. You’ll need to have all your content and products in order for each one. Consider doing limited edition products, adding relevant accessories and unique twists to existing items or content. Have your calendar marked so you have an overarching strategy to approach the holidays in an effective manner.
Provide sales and discounts. People are always looking for good deals while weighing up their options - if they feel like they’re getting a great offer on something they’ll lean more towards it. Alternatively, some people are just waiting for some kind of discount to purchase a product. They expect during the holidays there will be sales. Avoid disappointing people and manage expectations. If you had a great sale the previous year, customers might be expecting the same this time around. Getting the balance right is vital.
There’s no point in having a sale if no one sees it, so promote your brand throughout the holidays. Use your social media platforms, your website, and your blog to full advantage during these times. Use holiday specific themes, deck out your website and create unique content. Promote your sales, products, and discounts. Run competitions and interact as much as possible with your target audience. Building up a relationship with people during the holidays can bring people back as customers all year round. Promoting is not just about direct sales, it can be about building communities of people willing to make purchases in the future and growing your brand. There’s plenty of competition as brands try to stand out from the crowd so creating unique content that’s true to your business is essential.
On the Zazzle platform, it’s important to consider all of the above to drive traffic to your store page and to increase sales. Including links to your store and photos of your products with matching holiday themes is a good way to start. You’ll need to get creative with publishing your promotional content to stay ahead of the game. Always check out what the most popular brands are doing all year round - you might learn a few tips and tricks that you can apply to your own business. Creating a strong holiday tradition, like a heart-melting ad at Christmas time, competition at Halloween or funny behind the scenes video at Thanksgiving, can be a good way of building expectations each and every year. It might even lead to people associating your brand with certain times of the year. If you’re just starting off, it’s important to remember that these things take time to manifest.