As a business owner, you’re probably well aware that those special times of the year are much more than fun holidays, meaningful celebrations, and changes in weather. For you, these occasions are the perfect opportunity to increase your sales through special seasonal promotions.
For many people, the holiday season is a time of joy and giving. And with that comes a lot of extra stress about hosting parties, shopping for gifts, and other seasonal preparations. That’s where you come in. As a retail business owner, your goal is to make sure you have the answer to all your customers’ seasonal shopping needs.
To tackle seasonal sales in style and get the most out of the holiday season, follow these 5 effective promotional strategies.
1. Add a seasonal twist to your products
Introducing holiday-inspired products is a great strategy to attract customers. People love to dress up for the holiday season and purchase products that have a festive vibe to them. So put your holiday cap on and start coming up with fun products to increase those seasonal sales.
If you’re a retail business, try adding some seasonal elements to your clothing lines. A red and green line of Christmas sweaters or a bunch of Halloween-themed T-shirts are sure to catch the attention of any excited customer shopping for themselves or for a fun holiday gift for a loved one.
If you’re a small business owner, you can also customize promotional items with seasonal features, such as custom pins. Design holiday elements and your logo on the pins. And use them as limited items on holiday days. It can be given as a gift to consumers as they shop, or sold as a limited-edition item exclusive to the festival. Use these fun and personalized items to get more sales in a festive mood.
If you’re a cafe, adding some holiday staples to your menu will help you bring in a ton of Halloween, Christmas, and Fall enthusiasts. Starbucks is famous for its annual seasonal menu and its wide range of pumpkin and apple flavoured drinks for the fall season.
2. Offer fun promotional bundles
The only thing that excites customers more than a fun seasonal product is getting a great deal on that product. Everyone loves a promotional offer that allows you to save up on time, money, and effort. So why not make seasonal shopping easier by offering some great product bundles?
Set up a promotional product bundle section in your store and allow customers to think of you as a one-stop shop for all of their seasonal needs. Here are some great promotions you can offer:
- Holiday gift baskets containing all of your best-selling seasonal items.
- Buy one get one free offer on your most popular holiday product.
- Pre-wrapped gift sets.
- Subscription (if any) discount coupons on certain purchases.
- Free gift certificates with a particular seasonal purchase.
With these bundles, you can market yourself as the most convenient stop for all your customers’ seasonal shopping needs.
3. Use geofencing to target those closest to you
Geo-fencing marketing allows you to advertise to people within a specific geographical location. You choose a radius that you want to market within, and then you send out SMS alerts or notifications so that people can engage with your business immediately. The blasts go out automatically to all the people with smartphones within that radius.
Similarly, you can schedule SMS alerts to go out to people who frequent the area around your store during a certain time period. For instance, if you’re looking to increase Halloween sales, make sure you’re sending out alerts to your specified audience in the last two weeks of October.
Odds are, many of the people in your vicinity are looking for the perfect Halloween costume or party decor, and your timely alert could direct them straight toward your store.
4. Put up vibrant flyers
The best way to announce to your neighbourhood that you’re having a seasonal sale is through vibrant visual content. Put up bright, colourful flyers advertising your sales in your neighbourhood. Post these flyers in all public spaces – parks, bus stops, roadside benches, you name it.
You should also put your flyers up in other places where foot traffic is high, for instance, near office buildings, community centres, government buildings, restaurants, bars, etc. Just make sure to check local laws and regulations and get permission from building owners before putting up your flyers to avoid any inconvenience.
Designing a professional poster might look challenging, but it’s a lot easier than it seems. Use an online design tool like PosterMyWall to gain access to a wide range of retail flyer templates to use and customize according to your needs.
Make sure your posters are bright and attractive before you go posting them around town. Add your brand logo right on top and make sure the words “Sale” and your promotional offer are the main focus of the design. The seasonal Fall sale ad below makes clever use of autumn imagery and festive colours to bring attention to their seasonal sale offer.
5. Use remarketing to target seasonal shoppers
Remarketing is the practice of targeting those customers who have visited your website in the past. If you want to be more widely recognized, remarketing is a great tactic to use.
If someone is interested in buying seasonal products from you, odds are they’re frequent seasonal shoppers. You can confirm this by tracking which customers visit your website’s seasonal products or sales page before leaving, and then targeting them directly through personalized Google ads.
For instance, if someone looked at several Christmas-themed products on your website before leaving, send out a 30% off coupon or a 25% limited offer for Christmas items their way to remind them to purchase from you.
They’ll either end up buying from you there and then, or will keep you in mind the next time they think of making another seasonal purchase.
Final thoughts
For a business owner, special occasions make for the perfect opportunity to rake in a few extra sales and attract some more customers. But the thing is, to be seen as the seasonal stop for your potential audience, you need to compete with every store in the area with an ongoing seasonal offer.
Use these effective seasonal sales strategies to let your customers know you’re here to solve their holiday preparation problems and remind them to stop by for the best seasonal offers of the year.
Holly brings a wealth of experience in both print and digital publishing. As Modern Retail’s Content Editor, Holly is passionate about helping independent retailers to thrive in today’s ever-changing market.
