As the end of year approaches, you are counting on the holiday sales season to help you boost your bottom line. It has been a very difficult year for all companies, especially for small and medium sized businesses. So you really count on Christmas and New Year sales to make up for months of low profits. We want to help you achieve this wish, so we will share with you some of the most effective holiday marketing strategies for 2021.
What Do Consumers Want This Holiday Season?
The last two years impacted the entire world and changed our entire way of living. Many habits are now gone or dwindling, while new ones appeared and took hold. One of the new habits that is here to stay is the digital interaction between consumers and brands.
While the whole world was obeying stay at home mandates, all age groups learned what the younger generation were already doing: using the mobile internet to shop, watch films, interact with friends, and work. At the present, according to Think with Google, no less than 70% shopping journeys include at least one digital interaction.
Strengthen Your Digital Presence – a Mandate for Businesses All Year Round
Building a strong and visible digital presence is not merely a holiday marketing strategy. It is an ongoing strategy for the foreseeable future. Online interactions are here to stay. For consumers, these interactions mean:
- Safety, as they do not have to go to a crowded store
- Convenience, because they can shop whenever they need a product
- Fun, because many online interactions are gamified.
Also, by shopping online, people save time. One thing that the COVID pandemic taught us is how important it is to spend more time with the people we love, because tomorrow is never guaranteed. So, everyone is looking for ways to have more time for their family and friends. Online shopping is one of the efficient solutions to this end.
What Kind of Holiday Marketing Strategies Work in 2021?
Let us now return to the key topic of this article; holiday marketing strategies for 2021. What will determine your customers to buy from you and not your competitors? Here are some simple and effective ideas:
1. Create an Interactive Gift Guide
One of the simplest and most effective holiday marketing strategies for 2021 is to save your customers’ time by giving them creative gift ideas. To make their experience even more pleasant, create an interactive guide.
It looks just like a magazine, with pages that flip and turn when the users taps on the corner of each page. There are various apps that help you create this type of guide and they are quite easy to use. Make sure to publish this catalogue on a separate landing page, which you can link to your email marketing campaign, social media ads or PPC ads (if you plan using them).
2. Offer a Free Gift
If you want to win your customers’ loyalty in these difficult times, generosity is your strongest point. You don’t have to cut your margins too much to offer a meaningful gift to each customer who makes a purchase.
With the rise of online shopping, a simple box opener with your brand name and logo engraved on it is a great gift idea. Consumers are now looking more towards the practical side of gifts – both when they give them and when they receive them.
3. Leverage the Power of Video on YouTube
We keep talking about Google as the number one search engine. But which one is number two? No, it’s not Microsoft Bing, nor DuckDuckGo. It is YouTube – also owned by Google.
Whenever consumers are looking for a video, they go straight to YouTube to search for it. It can be anything, from a music video to a funny clip or a tutorial to learn how to use a device or app. Thus, one of the biggest trends in holiday marketing strategies foe 2021 is creating videos and sharing them on YouTube. Make them funny, useful and interesting – the so called “infotainment” type of video that teaches people something and makes them curious to learn more.
4. Offer Free Gift Wrapping
For some time now, free shipping has been the number one perk for consumers. For small and medium sized businesses, this is not an option. However, this does not mean that you cannot offer your customers something meaningful.
Offering free gift wrapping is one of the best holiday marketing strategies for 2021. It is in line with all the other strategies that help people save time and focus more on what is important for them: their loved ones.
5. Reinvent Graphics for the Holiday Season
Some companies have templates for email marketing campaigns, social media cover photos, and other visual elements for the holiday season. And they keep reusing them. A few years ago, it was not an issue. People were so busy with their lives that they would not notice.
But now something has changed dramatically and people are actually paying attention to small details. They will remember last year’s email header and footer graphics. They will remember the videos you used last Christmas to promote your sales. And they won’t like the fact that you are not making an effort to come up with something new.
6. Work with a Charity
Some of the people most hardly hit by the global pandemic were the vulnerable groups assisted by charities. These people and the organisations supported them were sidelined in the fight against the deadly virus. There were fewer funds available for them and reduced access to essential services, such as home care and relief for caregivers.
So many companies have decided to show their generosity by donating a percentage of their holiday sales to charities that support these vulnerable people. Working with a charity and pledging a few dollars to them out of each sale is one of the most meaningful holiday marketing strategies for 2021. Customers will actually buy more, because they want you to be able to make a profit while being generous to people in dire need of help.
7. Be Focused on Local Experiences
Not everything in this year’s holiday marketing strategy had to be online. There is still a world outside and people still go out for various chores, for work or simply to exercise a bit. Thus, do not ignore the opportunities of participating in your local community and its efforts to bring some holiday cheer to the people, such as:
- The Christmas market
- The Nativity scene at the local church
- Santa collecting donations for a local hospital or nursing home.
Everyone will appreciate your bit of help and offer you opportunities to make your brand name known and to promote your products. In difficult times, humanity pulled through by coming together as one. This year, it is not just a beautiful phrase, but something you can actually do.
Conclusion
Kindness and generosity are the main keywords for this year’s holiday season. Your consumers are wary about the future and careful with their money. When they start planning their holiday shopping, they will look for businesses that appear genuine, invested in giving back to the community and reliable. Thus, your best holiday marketing strategies for 2021 revolve around one core principle: doing something good in return.