Holiday season is around the corner, and businesses are gearing up to reach their peak sales in the coming couple of months. From Thanksgiving, Black Friday to Christmas and New Year’s Eve, you can make the most of this time to engage with your target audience and increase your brand awareness. And with autumn in full swing, it’s high time to prepare for the year’s biggest sales!
With over 4.6 billion active users, social media websites and apps are the biggest platforms to start seasonal campaigns and achieve your target goals. Seasonal campaigns keep your content fresh and create a sense of connection and excitement among your followers and potential buyers.
If your business has a social media presence, you need a powerful seasonal campaign strategy for social media to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing plans with limited-time promotions. To help you achieve your goals, here are some influential seasonal campaign ideas that may help:
1. Create Holiday-Themed Content for Social Media
Content marketing is one of social media platforms’ most effective marketing strategies. Your followers and potential buyers keep looking for scroll-stopping content on social media platforms, and you can provide just what they need!
Create a complete content calendar for your promotional campaign and chart your social media posts for this period. Use appropriate pictures for the most awaited holiday events like Christmas or Thanksgiving and add personalized content in these pictures to create holiday-themed content. For example, you can download high-quality Christmas stock photos from popular websites like Dreamstime.com and create customized graphics using Canva or Photoshop.
These seasonal posts infuse your feed with a festive spirit that touches your audience’s hearts and spreads the season’s joy. Such images make rounds on the Internet and can become viral within minutes. The content included in these posts will help you spread awareness to potential customers and go a long way in increasing social media followers and organic web traffic.
2. Offer Discounts & Special Deals
While all your potential customers carefully plan their budgets, they’ll set their sights on seasonal discounts your business will offer for the holiday season. After all, what’s a holiday without crazy sales and huge discounts? Discounts are a great way to skyrocket your sales and grab significant profits.
Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc., are all great times to give discounts and special deals. Many people want to buy gifts for their loved ones at this time of the year. A discounted price or deal package can entice them to buy more things and return for more purchases.
Offer exclusive seasonal discount coupons and package deals to your customers for your products and services. Use paid ad services and boost social media posts to spread the news to a broader audience. You can either plan a sale on your online store on all products or choose products related to the festive season only. Offering product deals in bundles usually multiplies your sales and allows you to clear out the entire inventory, including items with a slow turnover.
For instance, if your business deals with kids’ apparel, you can offer exclusive package deals for festive jackets, dresses, or sweaters with low-turnover items like matching tights, pairs of trousers, belts, brooches, Christmas necklaces, bows, ties, or socks.
Moreover, you can use special discount coupons for your existing customers to encourage them to purchase more. For example, you can offer a 5-10% further discount for an existing customer to refer the website to their friends. This way, you not only succeed in boosting your monthly sales but also make your customers loyal brand ambassadors and increase your customer base.
3. Countdown Timers Can Increase the Customer Count Too!
Time always benefits those who use it well, and the same holds true for countdown timers. Your customers will have countless choices on social media platforms to purchase the exact product you’re offering. But you can help your customers make a quick purchase decision by adding a countdown timer during specific seasons.
Countdown timers have a tremendous psychological impact on potential buyers. When you create a sense of urgency and fear of missing out (FOMO) in your potential customers, they’ll most likely give due diligence and attention to your product, availing the limited-time offer and eventually making a purchase.
For this purpose, create a 24-hour, 2-day, or 5-day countdown timer for selected products or services. You can mention that the item is either in low stock or at a discounted price for a limited time. Remember to use the power of influential and persuasive words to get your visitors’ attention and attract them to purchase the product. Don’t forget to strategically use hashtags and keywords in your content and optimize it according to SEO best practices to make the content visible in search results and feeds.
4. Make Seasonal Campaigns a Fun Activity for Customers
Use gamification elements like video challenges, short games or apps to win discounts. These elements can add fun and drive engagement to your seasonal campaigns. Customers will be drawn to this interactive session and invite their family and friends to engage in these challenges and games, which will help your business increase its consumer base.
5. Encourage Customers to Create User-Generated Content (UGC)
User-generated content has become the new word-of-mouth marketing over social media platforms. It increases your business’s credibility and brand awareness and multiplies followers’ engagement on social media.
Encourage your customers to create more user-generated content related to the holiday season. You can do this by holding a holiday photo contest where your customers will share their pictures with your products using proper hashtags and keywords. Understandably, these contests will offer different prizes that may include discounts, special deals, or gift hampers.
You can also inspire your customers to share their stories, showcasing their experience with your products or services. You can feature this content on your social media profiles while giving due credit to the creators.
Moreover, you can post polls, questions, and quizzes related to the holiday season to engage your followers and encourage them to create content. Provide incentives to all customers who create UGC. This could be anything from exclusive access to holiday sales to heavy discounts, buy-one-get-one-free deals, and more.
Final Thoughts
Holiday seasons and special occasions are excellent opportunities for businesses to engage with a broader audience and increase social media followers organically, share festive joy, and increase their visibility.
The ideas outlined here are only the tip of the iceberg. If you’re a creative marketer who can turn heads, you can utilize the above ideas to develop powerful seasonal campaigns for your social media platforms and drive engagement.
However, keep in mind that each social media avenue is unique and requires a distinct set of strategies to ensure the success of your campaign. Customize these ideas for each social media platform to create distinctive and meaningful holiday campaigns that will attract potential customers and clients.
