The holiday season is a crucial time for independent businesses to earn money (Dopson, 2022). A strong small business holiday marketing plan can have a significant impact. It is also a fantastic chance to expand your clientele and turn one-time clients into devoted ones who will continue doing business with you long after the holiday season has passed (Forbes, 2022). There will also be a discussion on why running a limited time offer and doing a partnership with influencers for making surprises. Besdies holidays is valuable for small businesses with the best examples to get motivation from (Nakagawa, 2013).
Reasons to run a limited-time offer
Limited Time Deals are promotions, discounts, or other exclusive offers that are only accessible for a certain period (Dopson, 2022). Exclusiveness and urgency can work well together. Send your VIPs a unique link to a portion of your website that is only accessible through this link. So they can take advantage of exceptional discounts or give them a unique coupon code so they can save a lot of money on particular products. Enhance the sense of urgency and increase sales by setting a 48-hour expiration. Running a limited-time for Holiday Marketing has numerous advantages, such as:
- Attracting infrequent or first-time customers: a time-limited promotion can be exactly what you need to get customers from demographics that are not already highly active in your business. (I will say more about that later) (Rainy, 2022).
- Establish a sense of urgency: the average consumer is tempted by deals and chances to purchase items and services that are not always accessible when they have a limited time window.
- Testing new services: you can access a new product or service that you want to roll out lastingly via limited-time incentives. If the promotion does not work out, you will not have invested time and money into a full-time offering. On the other hand, if it is an enormous success, you have just discovered a new source of income! (Forbes, 2022)
- Boost customer loyalty: If you come across a popular limited-time offer, you can decide to maintain it that way and use it year after year. Large corporations like Victoria’s Secret and McDonald’s are aware of how much money these well-liked promotions generate and how happy consumers are to see their favourites return. You are free to make more trips to the store and spend more money than you did during the offer’s validity (Smith, 2021).
Popular holidays to run limited-time offers
Christmas sales are accessible to all businesses and a great time to finalise a one-time transaction. Utilizing yearly events gives your holiday marketing a defined schedule and makes it simpler to take advantage of the anticipation surrounding the occasion (Nakagawa, 2013). Here are a few of the most typical times and ways to advertise time-sensitive deals:
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas
- Hanukkah–Excellent for an eight-day limited-time offer!
- Fall/Spring/Summer break
- New Year – should only occur in January
- March Madness
Co-create Holiday Surprises with Influencers
Influencers are professionals who can persuade their followers to support the brands and products they promote by introducing them. Nearly 40% of Twitter users claim to have purchased a product as a result of a tweet by an influencer they follow (Rainy, 2022). That certainly is stunning. Let us use a fashion brand as an example of how influencer holiday marketing is used successfully by everyone in the sector.
Gucci is a fitting example: Gucci has started a paid partnership with French influencer Hella Pradel, who has roughly 23.2k Instagram followers, to promote the brand’s Jackie bag (Smith, 2021).
Two strategies to incorporate into the holiday campaign:
- Provide discounts via affiliates: Many buyers may find it challenging to purchase gifts this Christmas season due to the state of the economy. You can find strategies to save costs by running influencer affiliate programmes. Give your audience of influencer partners exclusive discount codes, and you will be paid a percentage of any sales they generate. (Teo, 2019).
The devoted followers of your influencer will gladly purchase from you at a reduced price, enabling you to increase sales for your brand despite the present economic challenges. Influencer partners can also make money by assisting brands with conversion. Keep track of the sales that your promotional code led to. Affiliate pay-out system and link tracking are both automated using a sales tracking platform.
- Hosting a holiday giveaway: It is time to exchange gifts! Here is your chance to run an Instagram contest with a festival theme. Giveaways are a quick and uncomplicated way to grow your brand’s following and engagement (Smith, 2021).
To market your sponsored giveaway to your audience, team up with 10 influencers. Identify the conditions for participation. Join in on stories, comment on giveaway articles, and follow brand accounts. To entice customers to visit your physical store, you might even hold a contest. For your visitors, put together a variety of surprise food bundles and product samples. Next, request that the influencer share information about the shop-only giveawayalong with a link to the store locator with their followers (Teo, 2019).
