Holiday Campaigns: Maximizing Sales & Engagement – the Ultimate Guide

Did you know that in 2021 overall holiday spending reached $889 billion? 

It’s not a secret that people are eager to spend during the holiday season. Businesses can use that eagerness to increase their revenue, but it’s important to do it in a creative, non-intrusive way. 

In this article, we will discuss how you can maximize sales using customer engagement strategies in holiday campaigns, and give you tips, ideas and insights. Let’s dive in. 

Types of holiday campaigns

Holiday marketing campaigns are a great way to boost sales during the busy season. Companies of all sizes can use holiday campaigns to increase their reach, build brand recognition and drive sales. There are a variety of holiday marketing campaigns available to businesses, including seasonal promotions and sales, gamification campaigns, gift guides and charity campaigns. 

Seasonal promotions and sales

Seasonal promotions and sales are the most common type of holiday campaigns. 

They encourage customer loyalty and reward customers for their purchases. These can include:

• BOGO (buy one, get one) sale
• Discounts
• Gifts for bigger purchases
• Free shipping

Related: Gamification in sales

Gamification marketing campaigns

Gamification marketing uses game elements to drive customers to perform an action. Gamifying your marketing campaign allows you to attract new and retain old customers by increasing customer engagement as a result of creating a fun customer experience.

All kinds of brands fight for attention, especially during holidays. Games give you an edge because of their competition and reward elements, making your brand memorable.

When people see pop-ups and advertisements, their immediate reaction is to click away and ignore them. However, when you present them with a fun game after which they can win a prize, they will be much more likely to pay attention. Airbaltic, a travel agency, launched a trivia game about Dubai to attract customers’ attention, with 85% of customers finishing the game from start to finish!

Another eCommerce gamification example is Myntra, an Indian fashion site that gamified its platform to maximize sales and increase brand awareness. As a result, over 650,000 users played the games on the platform during the campaign.

You don’t have to know how to make an interactive website from scratch – Adact allows you to add interactive elements to your existing website. You can create branded games, trivia, lotteries and more without knowing a single line of code. Sign up to start creating your own game-based marketing campaigns.

See also: Out-of-the-box marketing strategies

Gift guides and gift ideas

One way to make your marketing campaign stand out is to provide customers with helpful holiday gift guides. You can tailor this type of holiday marketing to appeal to any budget or target audience. 

For example, you can offer a gift guide for luxury items or a guide to budget-friendly gifts. You can also create guides that provide ideas based on interests and hobbies. Additionally, you can offer on-trend gift ideas with current fashion and technology.

Charity and giving back campaigns

The festive season is a great time to consider charity and giving back campaigns. Many companies use the holiday spirit and generosity of the season to create campaigns that will benefit those in need. Such campaigns often focus on raising money, collecting goods or volunteering to help a community or cause.

For example, Kellogg asked participants to share information about their #ShareBreakfast campaign on social media using the hashtag. Each share resulted in Kellogg donating one breakfast to Action for Healthy Kids. As the result, the number of donated breakfasts crossed 1.5 million. 

Holiday-themed content and social media promotions

The holiday spirit can enlighten your marketing campaigns not only during the Christmas season. You can use a holiday theme to promote your product and services throughout the year. Let’s discuss exactly how you can do it.

Valentine’s day

Valentine’s day is the perfect opportunity to promote your business through holiday-themed content and social media promotions. You can create engaging content about the ideal gift for your loved one, post inspiring quotes about love, share romantic stories or post a video of people expressing their love for one another. 

You could also create a special Valentine’s day coupon code for your customers on your website. It will help draw customers to your website as they look for the perfect gift.

If you want to engage your audience in an original way, create a personality test, “What kind of lover are you” using Adact Software and place it on your website or social media channels. It will evoke curiosity in visitors, and they will learn more about your products while they take the test.

International women’s day

Apart from offering a tangible gift, you can use International Women’s Day to create content that celebrates women, such as interviews with inspiring women, stories of how women have made a difference in the world or even just a celebration of the success of women in the company. 

You can also use this day to showcase the contributions of female employees to your organization or create interactive quizzes to educate your customers about important topics.

Easter

Easter is a great opportunity to promote your business and increase sales. You can make use of popular Easter hashtags and colors to create content that resonates with your target audience. Create holiday-themed images and videos that celebrate Easter and its traditions. 

Creating a special Easter gift set or bundle and offering it on your website or through a social media promotion is also a great Easter marketing idea.

You can also create Easter-themes memory games, puzzles or egg battles to further engage your audience and promote your Easter products.

Related: Spring Marketing Ideas

Mother’s day

When planning your holiday marketing campaigns for Mother’s day, create content tailored to the needs and interests of moms. It should evoke emotion, inspire action and be relevant to your target audience.

For example, in 2017 Nivea launched a campaign in the Netherlands where they released 40,000 silk mousses in unique do-it-yourself bottles that kids could spruce up and afterward give to their moms. The advertisement conveyed the idea of “make your own special Mother’s Day present”.

You can also use Mother’s day to gather valuable data about your customers by asking your customers what their mothers prefer and giving them a chance to win one of your products or services.

Related: May marketing ideas

Father’s day

Use Father’s day to launch promotions and discounts for your customers. Consider offering special discounts for fathers or for customers who purchase items for their fathers. 

You can also create unique Father’s day gift sets or packages that include multiple items. Promote them on your website or through your social media channels to increase engagement with your customers.

Fun dad quizzes such as the one below are also a great idea for engaging with your customers and showing your human side.

Related: Father’s Day Campaigns

Halloween

Craft social media posts with the Halloween theme, for example, Halloween-themed recipes, DIY decorations and costumes. 

It’s a great idea to highlight the benefits of your products and services and how they can help create the perfect Halloween experience.

Or you can create a Halloween advent calendar and motivate people to come to your site to discover Halloween special deals and surprises!

Christmas

Creating content around the Christmas season can be both fun and effective. From creating festive images to sharing inspiring stories and holiday recipes, there are many ways to capture the holiday spirit. 

Additionally, you can create a video showcasing different holiday traditions worldwide or a ’12 Days of Christmas’ campaign that highlights a different product or service every day. 

A fun, interactive advent calendar is also a great method for engaging your audience. Check this guide for different advent calendar ideas.

Related: Christmas Campaign Ideas

New Year’s eve

Ideas for creating holiday-themed content around New Year’s eve could include:

• Crafting posts that showcase the best holiday moments from the year
• Offering holiday discounts
• Creating social media contests to engage customers

You can post about New Year’s eve history, give tips on how to celebrate safely or even share your own New Year’s resolutions.   

Or you can gamify your campaign, for example if you’re a fashion brand you can ask your customers which outfit they would rather choose and present your products in this way.

See also our ideas for:

• Summer campaigns
• September campaigns
• Back-to-school campaigns

Email marketing campaigns

You can also use email marketing campaigns to spread holiday cheer. 

Create personalized messages, including holiday greetings, special offers and seasonal images. This type of holiday-themed content can help you build relationships with customers and create an emotional connection between the customer and the business. 

See also: Email marketing campaign ideas and Email lead generation

Planning and executing a successful holiday campaign

Setting campaign goals and objectives

A successful holiday marketing campaign begins with setting the right goals and objectives. 

Knowing the desired outcome and setting measurable targets is crucial to a profitable and cost-effective holiday shopping season. Remember that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable and realistic.

As part of the holiday campaign planning process, you should review the previous year’s campaigns and metrics to determine what worked and what areas need improvement.

Conducting market research and identifying the target audience

To start, you should conduct market research to understand your target audience and what they are looking for during the holidays. 

This research should include surveys, interviews and focus groups that gather information on the demographics of the target audience. You should also analyze the current trends in the market, such as the types of products or services customers are looking for during the holiday season.

Choosing the right channels and platforms

Every successful holiday campaign begins with careful research and planning. This includes researching the target audience to determine which channels and platforms they are most likely to use. You should also consider the type of product or service you are trying to promote, as different channels and platforms are more suitable for different types of content.

• Social media are great for creating holiday-specific campaigns and contests that help to engage customers and spread the message about the company’s products and services.
• Email marketing is useful for sending promotional offers, discounts and other special deals to customers. It is also a great way to remind customers about upcoming holiday sales and events. Email allows you to build relationships with your customers by sending personalized messages with holiday greetings and special offers.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) is another important component of holiday campaigns. You can use SEO to create content that is optimized for local searches and ensure that your holiday campaigns are visible to local customers.

Creating a content calendar

Creating a content calendar aims to provide your customers with a consistent, quality experience throughout the holiday season. It means that you should plan all of your content in advance to create a cohesive experience that customers can look forward to. 

Your content calendar should include the types of content you will produce, the channels through which you will be delivering this content, the dates of each content launch, and the desired outcome of each campaign. Additionally, you should consider the types of promotions or discounts you will offer your customers during the festive season.

Measuring and analyzing campaign success

You can use several methods to measure and analyze the success of holiday campaigns.

First, assessing the sales figures will indicate how successful your campaign has been. If you want to learn about your campaigns’ reach, use social media analytics, which can provide information on the number of people who have interacted with the campaign.

It’s also a good idea to analyze customer feedback to get an insight into how they received your holiday campaigns. 

Finally, you can analyze your return on investment (ROI). It will indicate how much money you have made from your campaign versus how much you spent to create it.

Best practices for holiday campaigns

The key to holiday campaign success is focusing on the customer experience. Here are some best practices to help you get the most out of your holiday campaigns.

Personalization and relevance

Personalization is essential for any holiday campaign. Segmenting customers based on buying behavior, interests and demographics can help retailers determine the right messaging to deliver. For example, a clothing store can target teenage shoppers with different messaging than it would use to address older shoppers. 

You should also focus on creating valuable offers based on customers’ interests. For example, if you have identified that a customer likes to buy books, you should create a discount for book purchases during the festive period. Ensuring that the offers are relevant increases the likelihood of customers engaging with the campaigns.

Timing and consistency

The best holiday marketing campaigns should begin at least two weeks before the holiday season. It ensures the campaign has enough time to create a buzz and generate interest among potential customers. 

Also, remember that the best holiday marketing campaigns should be consistent in their messaging, visuals and design. The campaign should have a consistent look and feel that resonates with the target audience. It will help to create a sense of recognition and familiarity among customers. 

Creating a sense of urgency

With the right approach, you can create a sense of urgency to increase your holiday sales. Here are some of the best practices on how to achieve that:

• Use a countdown timer. You can use it on sales pages, emails and social media posts to highlight the limited time customers have to take advantage of the holiday offer.
• Leverage the holiday spirit. Customers often have a heightened sense of goodwill during the holiday season. Take advantage of this by creating campaigns that focus on giving back, such as donating a portion of sales to a charity or offering discounts to those in need.
• Create a sense of exclusivity. Make customers feel like they are part of an exclusive group. For example, offer exclusive discounts to loyal customers or special coupons to the members of your loyalty program.

Utilizing customer data and segmentation

You should take the time to analyze your customer data and develop customer segments you can target with tailored messaging. It can include using demographic data, purchase history or data from surveys or loyalty programs. 

For example, you can use customer data to identify who is most likely to purchase holiday gifts, what types of gifts they prefer and the best channels to reach them.

Testing and optimization

When your holiday marketing campaign is already running, you shouldn’t think about reaping the fruit yet. It’s better to test how it is performing and see how you can optimize it.

You can run an A/B test – compare two different versions of the same campaign to see which one performs better. You can also test the timing of your campaigns to see which time of day or days of the week are most effective for reaching your target audience. Then you will know how to optimize your holiday marketing efforts.

Optimization can involve making small changes to the campaign’s content, such as changing the wording or the images used. Or making changes to the timing of the campaign, such as sending emails on different days or at different times. You can also try using different channels for the campaign, such as social media, email or others.

Case studies and examples of successful holiday campaigns

Heathrow Airport

In this endearing festive ad from Heathrow Airport, viewers observe the voyage of two teddy bear grandparents as they select to take off, leave their bright house and visit their teddy bear grandchildren for Christmas. At the finish, the cuddly toys reunite with their clan at London’s Heathrow Airport. 

The bears are both nostalgic and familiar to many people. They are reminiscent of the teddies that one might have played with in childhood and the typical grandparent. 

When you observe the teddy bears rejoining their family, it may also make you recall the joy you felt when your grandparents came and brought you gifts during the holiday season.

Google’s Santa Tracker

Google’s Santa Tracker has been in existence for a few years. It has been upgraded with interactive mini-games like “Santa Selfie,” “Wrap Battle” and “Build & Bolt.” You can also watch charming short movies such as “A Day at the Museum” to get a glimpse of Santa’s daily life. 

It is difficult to pinpoint what exactly makes the Santa Tracker so enjoyable, but in short, it combines the holiday magic of believing in Santa with actual technology. This is an amazing way to show youngsters the web, while still letting them experience the childhood joy of the holidays. Even adults can appreciate this clever combination.

Conclusion

Holiday campaigns are bound to bring you benefits if you do it right. With proper amount of planning and a dash of creativity you’ll manage to entertain your customers and strengthen their relationship with your brand. 

Using branded games, trivia and lotteries as elements of your marketing campaigns will help you create memorable experiences for your customers and increase your brand awareness. Create an Adact account to marvel your customers with your approach to holiday marketing campaigns. 

Holiday campaigns: FAQs