At Tradecraft, our mission is clear – to help local businesses like yours thrive. This holiday season, consider adding a few of these last-minute and cost effective holiday marketing strategies to your end-of-year marketing: leverage social media countdowns, host flash sales, and collaborate with businesses in your community for mutual promotion. These approaches are designed to resonate with your community and elevate your holiday outreach.
Explore these simple and actionable last-minute marketing ideas, and know that our team at Tradecraft is ready to support you in implementing these strategies effectively, and not just during the holidays.
Cheers to a joyful and successful holiday season for your business.
Social Media Countdowns
Create a sense of urgency and excitement by running daily or weekly countdowns on your social media platforms. Highlight special deals, promotions, or exclusive offers that customers can take advantage of before the holidays.
Flash Sales
Host flash sales with limited-time offers or discounts. Promote these sales through email newsletters, social media, and your website to encourage quick purchases. It is easy to create one piece of marketing material to share across all of the aforementioned channels. Tweak the copy length and style, and just like that you've told everyone you know with a cohesive style and message, across multiple platforms, all by creating one image with one caption. Canva is your friend.
Gift Guides
Create holiday gift guides showcasing your products or services (or other local businesses!). Categorize items by price range, recipient, or theme to make it easier for customers to find the perfect gift. You don't even need to be a retailer who sells products to create a gift guide to share with your sphere. Again it is as easy as creating one collage-style graphic with an annotated list with links, and sending out a blast.
BONUS: This is also a great way to partner with friends and families who are small business owners. Feature their products and services in your gift guide!
Email Marketing Campaigns
Leverage your email list for targeted marketing campaigns. Send out personalized emails with exclusive discounts, holiday greetings, and product recommendations to engage with your audience. We personally use Mailchimp for our email marketing, but there are probably better options out there.
Collaborate with Other Local Businesses
Partner with other small businesses in your area for cross-promotions. You can share each other's promotions or even create joint packages to offer customers a variety of options. This is especially useful for business owners who don't have brick-and-mortar locations. Who doesn't like a little holiday pop-up this time of year?
DIY Gift Wrapping Stations
Offer a free or low-cost gift wrapping service in-store. This adds value to the customer experience and encourages people to choose your business for their last-minute shopping needs. This has the added benefit of allowing you, again, to partnew with other local businesses AND is pretty cost effective.
Holiday-Themed Content
Create festive and engaging content for your website and social media. This could include holiday-themed blog posts, videos, or infographics that showcase your products in a seasonal context. This could also include vignettes of you, your daily life, your family, and your business during the holiday season.
Easiest and most karmically rewarding holiday content-marketing idea: Just check in at local businesses while you do your shopping, take selfies with the owners, talk about what you purchased. SPREAD JOY.
Customer Appreciation Events
It may be a little late for you to whip up a holiday event from scratch, but hey, crazier things have happened. Show your gratitude to loyal customers by hosting special events, either in-store or virtually. Offer exclusive discounts, giveaways, or sneak peeks at upcoming products. We have a LOT of ideas on this topic, if you ever need any help.
Loyalty Programs and Rewards
Implement a holiday-specific loyalty program to encourage repeat business. Offer rewards or discounts for customers who make multiple purchases during the season. I like this idea because I just like a sale.
Limited Edition Products or Bundles
Create a sense of exclusivity by introducing limited edition holiday products or bundled packages that refresh and re-introduce existing products or services. Highlight these offerings on your website and social media to attract customers looking for unique gifts.
If you're anything like us, the period between Halloween and Mid-January can often be a blur of activities that go above and beyond the day-to-day necessities of being a human and running a business. We hope these easy and affortable last minute holiday marketing ideas come in handy, and can take a little guess work out of your holiday marketing efforts. If you ever need any help with the marketing described above or any other web, digital, print work, or anything really as relates to running a small business, we would be honored to help.
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