15 Original Ways to Include the Holiday Season in Your Marketing

With ecommerce making up the majority of the way that shoppers buy during the holiday season, having a marketing strategy that incorporates holiday benefits for buying online can be a great way to entice and persuade shoppers to buy from you. That’s why we asked 15 members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:

“What is one original way to incorporate the holiday season into your marketing outreach approach?”

Holiday Season Marketing Ideas

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

Reward Your Loyal Customers

“One way to do this is by sending gifts to your loyal customers. We also encourage them to send gifts to their friends (our products, of course) by giving discounts so they can give to more people. And to attract new customers, hosting parties and giving gifts to institutions that would find our products useful, would be a good marketing approach.” ~ Daisy Jing, Banish

Offer Holiday Themed Exit-Intent Coupons

“Exit-intent popups are a non-intrusive way of capturing your customer’s attention before they leave the site. Make the offer a holiday coupon in exchange for their email to send them relevant offers throughout the season. Email marketing is important because many visitors won’t purchase the first time they come to your site, but chances increase the more they frequent.” ~ Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster

Host Your Customers at Your Office Holiday Party

“As a small business, passionate customers are as critical to your success as your team. We have always enjoyed opening our office party to our fans, as a way to celebrate together. Benefits include a personal connection and, if you have fun props, some great Instagram content. Your fans will feel even more connected to the brand!” ~ Aaron Schwartz, Passport

Send Holiday-Themed Emails

“Since most companies particularly focus on promoting products or services during the holiday season, create a holiday-themed announcement email. The announcement email can be used to set up your holiday campaign with success and inform your target audience about a holiday sale, event, reminder, or more, for a new product or service.” ~ Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

Launch a New Product and Create Urgency

“Focus on a new product launch before the holidays. What makes a gift stand out is if it’s brand spanking new and no one has it yet. Use this to your advantage. Promote your new product as “the perfect gift.” You can also create a sense of urgency by saying that you only have a limited quantity available (since it’s new). In reality, you should have plenty of these items in stock to fill orders.” ~ Ian Blair, BuildFire

Offer to Match Charitable Gifts

“Most customers don’t really want another box of fruit or chocolate. Instead, send a card with an offer to match any donations made to a charity prevalent or recognizable in your industry. This type of initiative will demonstrate your commitment to your community and the spirit of the season, while also keeping your business top of mind.” ~ Alexandra Levit, PeopleResults

Promote the Benefits of Remote Work

“The holiday season is the perfect time for us to promote the benefits of remote work (a major marketing strategy of ours). Most people wish they weren’t stuck at the office during the holiday season or at the very least, they’d like to customize their own hours. Our holiday marketing campaign speaks to those people who want more freedom, and gives them insight to the world of working remotely.” ~ Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

Embrace Things Like Outliers

“Go outside of the box. Embrace things like outliers, such as the zombie approach or even ghouls regarding Halloween in particular. It might seem like a stretch, but tying in holidays to your marketing approach can be effective.” ~Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

Host an Office Happy Hour

“The holiday season is for coming together with friends and family, and can be a great time to do the same with your business network! Invite a group of your biggest fans or potential clients to happy hour. By encouraging attendees to share pictures to social media and talk to their friends about their experience with your company, you could get some word-of-mouth marketing, plus a nice night out!” ~ Suneera Madhani, Fattmerchant

Tell Your Team’s Holiday Stories

“Social media is a great way to make the holidays personalized by sharing fun holidays stories from each of your team members. Allowing each team member to get creative and come up with an anecdote or story about the holidays and what they mean to them, will personalize your company and make you more relatable to your customers.” ~ Colbey Pfund, LFNT Distribution

Send Positive and Emotional Messages

“The message of the holiday season is often about family, giving, helping others and celebrating what we have, and reflecting on the year that has just gone by. These messages should be woven into your marketing outreach, especially through stories of positive situations and families that are spending the season together. This year, with so much tragedy, it will be powerful.” ~ Andrew O’Connor, American Addiction Centers

Make Resolutions

“We like to do a New Year’s Resolution campaign and offer a new search engine marketing tip of the week associated with a downloadable resource. We find people are very receptive to tips to improve their marketing at the beginning of the year, when everyone is looking to start again and make improvements in all areas of their life.” ~ Magnus Simonarson, Consultwebs

Publish Holiday-Themed Blog Posts

“When it comes to SEO, content marketing is the name of the game. Plan your blog posts around the holidays and advertise them to your target audience on Facebook. Making the articles holiday themed will help them get shared more, reaching a larger audience.” ~ Jared Atchison, WPForms

Get Featured in Gift Guides

“One tactic we use to incorporate the holiday season into our marketing outreach is by reaching out to specific publications to include our company in their gift guides. Many shoppers can be clueless as to what gifts to give and do a lot of research before big holidays. By working with outlets to appear on their gift guides, we have the opportunity to drive a lot of customers to our business.” ~ Stefan Lewinger, Sock Fancy

Market Yourself, Not Your Products

“It’s well known that nothing gets done at the end of December. So give your clients what they want: joy and cheer! Market networking and holiday mingling events to potential clients. Host parties and make them memorable. Once they see you as someone they can have fun with, they will see you as a personal contact rather than a business one. That increases conversion.” ~ Artem Maskov, DEVTRIBE INC

Nutcracker Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "15 Original Ways to Include the Holiday Season in Your Marketing" was first published on Small Business Trends