Holiday Hustle: Mastering Holiday Marketing Campaigns for Increased Sales (E-commerce Focus)

Online holiday spending in the U.S. grew nearly 5% in 2023.

Is your e-commerce store taking advantage of the upward trend? 

Whether celebrating mothers, recognizing veterans, showing appreciation for their significant other, or gathering together as a family, holidays provide the perfect opportunity for heartfelt gestures and meaningful connections.

And with those experiences comes shopping for gifts, food, candy, flowers, and greeting cards. What does this mean?

This means your brand has an increased opportunity to attract new customers, retain existing ones, and increase average order value (AOV). 

But to achieve this, you need an effective holiday marketing strategy that offers compelling incentives and engages your audience with personalized and relevant content.

Plan Your Campaign

Marketing for the holidays is a time-sensitive process. You must reach customers in enough time for them to shop and take advantage of your offers.

So, always start early for every holiday you’re launching a campaign. That means planning your campaign several months ahead to ensure you have enough time to strategize, create content, and implement your ideas.

Consider the different holidays. Each one should have its own campaign. Below are popular holidays during which brands promote special offers and sales:

• Small Business Saturday

• Valentine’s Day

• Cyber Monday

• Mother’s Day

• Thanksgiving

• Father’s Day

• New Year’s 

• 4th of July

• Labor Day

• Halloween

• Christmas

• Easter

Next, set goals for your campaign. Some of the most common objectives for holiday marketing strategies are increasing sales, boosting brand awareness, and enhancing customer engagement. 

After establishing your objectives, create a timeline with key milestones and deadlines for each campaign phase. For example, you could set a deadline to perform market research and segment your audience for six months before the holiday. Or, maybe three weeks before the holiday, you might want to already be done designing and scheduling your email marketing campaigns.

Establish key performance to track your progress, such as conversion rates, average order value, and customer acquisition costs.

Utilize Multiple Marketing Channels

Don’t stick to one medium. Here’s how to spread your reach across channels. 

Social Media Marketing

Leveraging social media marketing during the holiday season can significantly boost engagement and sales for e-commerce stores.

Why? The number of social buyers in the U.S. was 106.8 million in 2023. And there’s no slowing down in sight for the number of people looking to make purchases through social platforms.

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By deploying festive posts, Stories, and ads, you can captivate the holiday spirit, attract more of these viewers, and enhance your e-commerce brand’s appeal. This approach is particularly effective for creating a festive atmosphere that encourages shopping and sharing. 

For example, StudioSuits, known for its custom suits, pants, and wedding suits for men, expertly uses this strategy. It crafts engaging content that resonates with its audience’s festive mood, using visuals and narratives that highlight the elegance and exclusivity of its offerings. 

This targeted content keeps StudioSuits’ followers engaged and drives conversions by aligning its products with the celebratory and gift-giving nature of the season. This turns viewers into customers.

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But you can go beyond winter holidays and even promote your business during random, obscure holidays like “National Picnic Day,” as Henry Meds did.

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The brand didn’t just post about picnics for the heck of it, though. It was sneaky (in a good way) about linking everything back to its semaglutide products. For example, its posts make you think, “Huh, I could totally enjoy a picnic while sticking to my semaglutide diet plan.”

It’s not in-your-face advertising or anything. Henry Meds shows how its products fit into everyday life—even on those quirky holidays nobody really celebrates. 

It’s a cool way to keep your feed fresh and relatable. Plus, it can help you connect with people who might not be interested in traditional weight loss content.

Email Marketing

Use emails to promote special offers and entice potential customers to make a purchase. 4.24% of email purchases lead to purchases.

That number is relatively high compared to other marketing channels. 2.49% of search engine traffic and 0.59% of social traffic result in sales. 

Why is email able to convert customers so effectively? It’s likely because people who consent to receiving emails from your e-commerce business are already interested in your products.

To start leveraging the power of email for holiday marketing, create a plan for a compelling email campaign.

This should involve a series of emails:

• Last chance emails

• Countdown emails

• Thank you emails

• Early bird offers

• Teaser emails

Next, start thinking about the content of your emails. What key value proposition do you want to communicate? What about marketing messages, language, and tone?

Incorporate holiday-specific themes, imagery, colors, and fonts to make your emails stand out. For example, a Valentine’s Day email might include a romantic theme. You’ll usually see images of hearts, cupids, couples, and romantic scenes (i.e., candlelit dinners and scenic walks).

Red and pink are the most common colors on Valentine’s Day. But white, gold and soft pastels also create a romantic, inviting atmosphere like this promotional email from Lush.

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Elegant cursive fonts look great in promotional Valentine’s emails, too.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising allows you to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your website. In fact, paid search ads can increase brand awareness by as much as 80%.

Social media advertising can also produce positive results. People discover new products, services, and brands more often through social media ads than they do through word-of-mouth, company websites, and reviews.

Social media ads that include a compelling offer, instill a sense of urgency, and feature a strong CTA tend to perform the best.

Need inspiration? Take a look at this Facebook ad from Magic Hour. It outlines the benefits of drinking their Amethyst strawberry-passionfruit tea, which is part of their Sleep Tea collection and ends with a CTA to shop now. It provides a simple way to purchase this tea and reap the benefits. 

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Video ads are highly valuable, too. 45% of people say they bought a product or service after discovering it in a view ad.

You can choose one or a combination of all these advertising strategies in your holiday marketing campaign to expand your reach and generate brand awareness.

To help you decide, consider where your audience spends their time and consumes content. Then, you can choose advertising channels that offer the greatest reach and engagement. 

No matter which method you choose, create compelling and visually appealing content that resonates with your target audience.

Try to use storytelling to evoke emotions and connect with your audience on a deeper level. These narratives should inspire holiday emotions, such as joy, nostalgia, gratitude, and togetherness.

You can tell stories of family traditions, memorable moments, or acts of kindness.

Here are some more tailored advertising tips for different channels:

• TV ads: Start with a captivating scene. Connect emotionally with your audience by emphasizing shared holiday experiences

• Digital video ads: Showcase your products or services in action.

• Social media ads: Create beautiful ads that blend seamlessly with users’ feeds. Use holiday-specific hashtags and emojis. Feature limited-time offers or seasonal promotions to drive urgency and engagement. 

• Search engine ads: Use holiday-specific keywords, tailor ad copy to highlight seasonal sales or offers, and include a clear call to action (CTA).

• Display ads: Design visually appealing banners or animations that incorporate holiday motifs and colors. Highlight special discounts or seasonal sales to attract clicks and drive traffic to your website.

SEO & Content Marketing

53% of content online users consume comes from organic search. So, it definitely wouldn’t hurt to add SEO to your holiday marketing mix.

You can create holiday-themed content that provides value to holiday shoppers. This might include blog posts, such as gift guides, event planning tips, or holiday recipes.

Another tip is to build dedicated landing pages for holiday promotions. If you’re selling holiday-themed products, it might also be a good idea to optimize your product descriptions with holiday-specific keywords and phrases.

To boost engagement, you can create interactive content like quizzes or polls related to the holiday (e.g., “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” or “Which Halloween costume suits you?”).

Perform keyword research to find out what your target audience is searching for related to different holidays throughout the year. For example, “Easter basket ideas,” “4th of July sales,” or “Mother’s Day flowers.” 

You can get even more laser-focused by looking for long-tail keywords that capture specific holiday search intent, like “last-minute Valentine’s Day gift ideas” or “Thanksgiving recipes for large families.”

Then, incorporate these keywords throughout your website, pages, and blog posts. Share your content on social media to drive even more content and boost search signals.

Be sure to plan your content well in advance so that it has time to rank in the search engine results pages (SERPs). So, when the holiday rolls around, you’ll be in the top results (if you have high domain authority, high-quality backlinks, etc.).

Here’s a great example of content marketing done right:

SoFi offers a comprehensive guide on holiday financial planning. Its striking, holiday-themed visuals draw the eye and address audience pain points with practical budgeting tips.

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So, if you’re in the financial services or personal finance industry, consider providing personal finance tips and resources into your holiday marketing strategy by adding a dedicated section to your website or marketing materials. 

Offer practical budgeting advice, encourage customers to create a holiday spending plan, and provide information on responsible credit card use or personal loans for holiday expenses. 

By addressing these concerns, you demonstrate your e-commerce brand’s commitment to your customers’ overall financial health, which will extend well beyond the holiday season.

Craft Compelling Holiday Marketing Messages

Follow these simple tips to design the best marketing messages that convert viewers into buyers.

Create Engaging, Holiday-Themed Content

Creating engaging content is key for e-commerce stores during the holiday season. You can do this by using themes that fit the festive spirit. You can also do it by using compelling storytelling. 

This will boost your sales, strengthen relationships with existing customers, and attract new ones. This strategy also makes promotions more memorable and shareable by enhancing their visual and emotional appeal. 

For example, Cruise America, a company that offers RVs for sale in the United States and Canada, excels in this area. The brand creates fun content on its social media profiles. 

It shows the joy of owning an RV. The posts show RVs in lovely winter scenes, capturing the holiday spirit. This keeps existing customers engaged and attracts new ones. 

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The new customers are drawn to the festive lifestyle an RV can offer. This strategic content significantly enhances their sales during the holiday season.

Personalize Your Offer

Whether it’s in a marketing email or targeted ad, personalize your message to fit the needs and preferences of a specific audience segment. 

Use data from your customer relationship management (CRM) software, web analytics platform, social media insights, location-based data, purchase history, and transaction data.

From there, you can create highly targeted campaigns that resonate with your target audience.

Here are some tips for effective personalization: 

• Retarget customers who haven’t converted with personalized ads or emails based on the content/product they viewed

• Send targeted emails based on where a customer is in the buyer’s journey

• Address the customer by name in emails and SMS messages

• Reward loyal customers with personalized holiday offers

• Recommend products or gifts based on past purchases 

Use Social Proof

Boost trust and credibility with potential customers by showing them social proof. When leads and prospects see that others are getting value from your product or service, they’re more likely to trust your brand.

So, highlight positive reviews and testimonials from satisfied customers on your site, social media channels, and holiday landing pages.

Encourage user-generated content by enticing customers to share their holiday experiences with your products on social media using specific, branded hashtags.

Run holiday-themed contests where customers submit photos or videos of their holiday celebrations featuring your products. Offer winners prizes like holiday discounts or gifts.

You can also partner with influencers for an even bigger show of social proof. Get them to showcase your products on a series of posts. This can really capture your audience and boost credibility. If the influencer they trust is vouching for your e-commerce brand, then you must really be providing valuable and trustworthy products or services.

Conclusion

Attract more leads and increase sales for your e-commerce store with a sound holiday marketing strategy. 

Sending personalized emails, delivering relevant ads, or creating quality content are great ways to communicate your message and holiday offers to customers.

We recommend using a combination of the strategies we discussed in this blog. Experiment to see what combination works best for you.