No matter if your business provides goods or services, it’s always a good idea to begin getting ready for holiday promotions as soon as possible. Ultimately, the holidays are a great chance for you to raise your income and expand your business prior to the conclusion of the year, so make sure you make the most of it.
Do you really require a promotion that is specific to the season if you provide services? Absolutely. As the holidays draw near, many customers are looking for cost-effective options when it comes to purchasing items; however, this is not the only thing they are considering. The period leading up to the festivities is the ideal moment for any service provider to find customers and begin the next year with a profit.
Here, I’ll guide you through why service businesses should advertise their services during the holiday season, and together we’ll investigate the strategies any service business can take to promote their services during wintertime.
Why Service-Based Businesses Need Holiday Promotions
Are holiday promotions successful for companies that offer services? Absolutely. Here are the two main reasons why.
Firstly, not everyone wants a product for Christmas. Some people may favor taking part in an activity, such as learning how to cook. Service providers can offer just as much during the holidays as retailers who sell products.
Service-oriented businesses are not that much different from businesses that sell products. You are still attempting to generate revenue by offering a product or service to certain individuals in a specific group. Holiday campaigns are just another way to assist in achieving your objective.
Key Elements of a Successful Holiday Marketing Strategy
It’s important to plan ahead for Christmas or any other holiday celebrations in order to make the most of it and ensure that strategies are successful. If carried out correctly, the marketing strategies will motivate your clients to buy additional items.
These are the main components necessary for setting up a prosperous holiday marketing campaign and ensuring a fantastic shopping adventure.
1. Define your audience
Determine who your intended demographics are and accumulate comprehensive information about them. Find out what communication methods they prefer using, do they like to view content on their computer or mobile device? Getting these understandings assists in deciding wisely for holiday promotions in regards to marketing.
2. Review the previous holiday marketing campaign
Investigating how the seasonal campaigns performed in the past can assist you in getting a handle on your target market’s tendencies. You can gain a better understanding of past developments and how they contributed to the expansion of your business. Gathering every bit of data available will assist in establishing objectives for an improved holiday marketing plan.
3. Set up your goals
Once you have determined who your intended crowd is and conducted an assessment of prior holiday campaigns, you can establish attainable ambitions for the upcoming holiday period. The insights will aid in both making your objectives more centered around the customer and maximizing sales from customers purchasing holiday items.
4. Measure your KPIs
Once you have outlined your desired objectives for your holiday marketing campaign, you must determine the essential business performance indicators which will determine the level of increased sales. To deliver a great experience during the holiday season, you must establish the methods and techniques needed to interact with customers quickly through the channels they prefer.
Strategies for successful holiday marketing campaigns
Brands can take advantage of the holiday shopping season by utilizing the correct marketing approaches, methods, and technologies. Here is a compilation of helpful holiday marketing techniques and samples that can assist entrepreneurs to generate more profit and form lasting customer relationships.
Personalize your website for holiday marketing campaign
The holiday season can contribute almost a third of annual sales to businesses, making it an excellent opportunity to receive a substantial increase in income. Therefore, making sure that your website is ready for holiday shoppers would be an excellent way to promote your business during the holiday season.
A redesigned home page and seasonal Christmas decorations increase involvement, thereby improving the user’s experience. You can give your website a boost by introducing new components which always benefit from a new appearance, particularly during holidays.
Tips to personalize your website for holiday marketing campaigns
- Highlight festive CTAs – Holiday-inspired calls to action are a great way to get your online customers in the shopping spirit. Be sure to take the time to optimize your CTAs to gain the highest transactions during the festive season by using the right copy and color.
- Keep your messaging clear – Make sure that your website messaging is crystal clear. It should convey the benefits the customers would avail by purchasing your products or services.
- Add personalized greetings for holidays – Use personalized greetings messages and eye-catchers on the live chat widget to grab the attention of the website visitors and encourage them to browse through the holiday deals.
Give early access to VIP customers
Give your subscribers the benefit of getting in on the deals before the holiday rush by offering them early access. This lures customers to get their shopping done before the holiday season. Your subscribers will feel privileged to be able to enjoy a discounted price before anyone else.
You can encourage your faithful clients by sending out email campaigns with a good discount only to them, special offers to customers that engage by posting their anecdotes, pictures, reviews, and early-bird discounts on social media to create a stir before the holiday season officially begins.
What are the benefits of allowing people to access your holiday marketing campaign before the official launch?
- Provide early access – Give your premium customers the benefit of early access as it helps to retain your best customers with exclusive holiday deals and offers.
- Delight your customers – A sense of exclusivity and special treatment will make VIP customers happy and keep them buying for a long time to come.
- Start sales early – It benefits you from making sales early on, before the holiday frenzy. It makes it easier to manage and fulfill orders before the holiday chaos.
Run holiday giveaways on social media
Handing out freebies is a very economical way to interact with your supporters, invite new followers, and create anticipation for an event that is about to take place. Typically, encouraging followers to make comments, post it to their own pages, give a thumbs-up, etc. are wonderful strategies to increase interaction with your giveaway.
Brands have been offering free samples in order to create attention and success for their products or services. You can build enthusiasm for the forthcoming holidays and your company among your intended audience easily by employing giveaways and contests.
Depending on the amount of people in your team and money available, you can run any number of contests from a hashtag competition on Twitter, a photo caption challenge on Facebook, a festive quiz, or a “make-a-wish” competition.
Amplify your mobile marketing strategy
Mobile phones accounted for more than 61% of the web visits to retail sites.
The majority of consumers tend to look through items and purchase them while they are out and about. You cannot overlook the influence of cell phones and should instead craft a precise mobile advertising plan for the end-of-year period.
Mobile generated more than $35 billion in revenue during the holiday season. Tweaking your mobile applications for special occasions can result in more sales and provide your customers with great service.
Walmart, for example, changed its SEO approach for mobile devices and allowed those who downloaded the app to have a sneak peek at their upcoming offers.
Likewise, Amazon provided specials that could only be found on their mobile app, and customized advantages to those users who utilized their notifications on the app. The influx of visitors to their mobile application went up and the interaction with the users went up as well.
Best practices for mobile marketing strategy are as follows:
- Use A/B testing to ensure the highest quality customer experience on your mobile channels.
- While you are optimizing your messaging, consider your onsite mobile experience. For instance, filling out forms on mobile devices can be cumbersome. You can elevate your onsite user experience with expanding mobile CTAs.
Boost holiday conversions by offering free gifts
Companies can increase their profits by launching a promotional effort where they give away presents with each purchase around the holidays. It’s an excellent method of partaking in the festive mood and handing out presents without cost.
This puts your customers in a good mood and encourages them to purchase something. You can provide something low-cost that would not add on to the delivery expenses.
As part of their festive season, Pandora is offering a complimentary exclusive Christmas decoration with every order worth $150 or more.
Although the ornament is offered without cost, Pandora enhances its thought of worth by making it a limited release. It looks like this item will only be accessible for a single year.
What are some potential benefits of providing complimentary presents as part of a Christmas marketing strategy?
- Free gifts make everyone feel special. They show you care enough to share the holiday spirit with them.
- Needless to say, it works as a strong conversion booster so you will grab as many sales as possible.
Partner With Other Businesses
I want to make sure it is understood that I am not discussing collaborating with rivals. Ultimately, you do not want to risk having your customers switch to a competitor.
Collaborating with a partner business that provides complementary services.
These firms typically cater to a similar demographic (although not identical). Although they work in a different area, they give off a comparable feeling to that of your organization. You and your team can join forces to make something amazing for your clients.
Here’s a cool example from Uber.
Uber has created a “Holiday Shop” that provides pumpkins to customers in the Los Angeles region who would like to utilize them for Halloween decorations.
Why does this work? If you happen to run a service company like Uber, you are not simply trying to market local pumpkin patches. You are demonstrating your dedication to providing the services that your customers desire whenever they require them.
Think about collaborating with nearby retail outlets to bring attention to your business during the holiday season.
Host a Themed Contest
Feel the joy of the season by participating in a themed competition or giveaway. There are so many ways you can run a seasonal contest, but here are some suggestions for running your first campaign:
- Run a contest on social media. To enter, followers must tag a friend, like your post, or engage with your content in some other way.
- Offer prizes like gift vouchers that winners can use themselves or gift to others.
- Use bold, holiday-themed colors and images to draw attention to your contest.
- Share exclusive contests or giveaways with subscribers or loyal customers.
- Run a “countdown to Christmas” giveaway with different prizes each day.
Explore some ideas and see which one resonates.
Share Free Resources
You’re a knowledgeable professional. What about using some of this information to create a free resource that your audience can use?
It is the period for presenting gifts and donations, and demonstrating your professional acquaintances might be what somebody requires to contract you for your talents.
As an illustration, a family law firm could give out a complimentary guide to settling disagreements to every person signed up for their mailing list over the festive season. You could not just acquire fresh followers, a great advantage, but you could possibly also persuade individuals to select your company if they encounter matrimonial issues.
When you have disseminated the information, you can use retargeting advertisement to deliver content again to your customers in an inexpensive way.
How to Run Your Holiday Promotions
That’s it – those are some of the promotional strategies you can use to advertise your service-based company over the holidays. What criteria do you use to decide which promotion to go with, and how do you go about running the promotions you end up using? Here are some suggestions to assist you in staying on course.
- Always have a clear goal in mind. For example, maybe you have an underperforming service you’re trying to boost. The clearer the goal, the easier it is to choose the right holiday promotion.
- Know what your customers want and figure out how you can deliver through a seasonal promotion. Analyze your existing customer base before launching any campaign.
- Check out the competition. Think about what successful promotions other businesses in your niche ran in the past. What can you learn from their strategy?
- Plan your holiday promotions in advance, if possible. The earlier you start, the more time you’ll have to build hype around your brand and the promotions on offer.
No single approach guarantees success when it comes to holiday promotions, but these pointers can possibly help you fashion a lucrative marketing effort.
Conclusion
Service-based companies can take advantage of holiday season by employing special offers to embody the spirit of gift-giving. It is best to come up with your marketing strategy well before the deadline, if possible.
Start creating the significant advertising emails now and start organizing seasonal content for your social media platforms now.
