5 Practical Holiday Season Selling Strategies for Your Retail or eCommerce Store

November 9, 2022 - 11 minutes read

Boost your holiday sales performance with these essential tips.

 

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The holiday season (also known as the Golden Quarter) is a prime time for any retail or eCommerce business owner.

It’s a time when people are most willing to spend and fill their shopping baskets (both physical and virtual) to the brim. If you connect with your audience in the right way and in the right places during the holiday season, you’re likely to enjoy a sackload of extra sales.

Did you know? The average American spends around $998 over the holiday season.

But while the digital age offers ambitious eCommerce or retail business owners like you key opportunities to connect with more customers, as new players enter the arena, standing out can prove tricky.

With the right approach and a few festive tricks up your sleeve, you can improve your brand awareness, boost customer loyalty, and raise your profits.

To help you on the path to seasonal success, we look at five essential holiday season selling strategies for your store.

1. Create an infectious festive campaign hook

One of the most effective ways to close more sales over the holidays is with a cross- or omnichannel marketing campaign.

But at a time when every retail or eCommerce business is trying to sell, sell, sell, the best way to stand out is with an infectious festive campaign hook.

You can land on a solid festive marketing campaign idea with a deal (discount code, free shipping, or money off certain items ) or by focusing on a specific product category. 

Once you’ve decided what you’re going to promote or which incentive you’re going to offer, choosing a solid campaign title or tagline will help give your campaign shape and bring your marketing efforts to life.

If you’re selling sustainable winter hats, for example, you could offer 15% off your entire seasonal range and commit to donating 20% of your profits to a local eco charity. In this case, your campaign tagline could be something like “Save your head and the planet this season.”

To inspire your creative holiday marketing campaign efforts, check out these handy guides:

2. Offer seasonal gifting packages and bundles

When it comes to maximizing those seasonal sales and inspiring festive shoppers to bulk up their baskets, gift packages and bundles are incredibly effective.

One of the best things about seasonal gifting packages or bundles is that you try a mix of tactics.

Pure bundle: Create gift packages based around one of your most popular products with 2-3 extras that you can’t buy separately online or in-store.

Mixed bundle: The opposite of pure bundling, mixed bundles include a mix of relevant items that your customers can buy from you separately. To give your customers some control over their selections, you can make your bundles “mix and match,” offering a handful of product options.

Personalized bundling: This effective form of bundling is where you serve specific segments of your audience gifting bundles based on their personal preferences or past shopping behaviors. Because personalization is a powerful form of gaining a customer’s attention in the digital age, this is definitely an option worth exploring.

Read: The Art of Upselling: How to Maximize Your Profit for more tips on how to maximize your seasonal sales. 

“Amazing things will happen when you listen to the consumer.” – Jonathan Midenhall, Airbnb

 

3. Run engaging contests and competitions

Everyone loves a festive competition or contest. Not only do competitions offer the ultimate engagement incentive, but if you promote yours across channels, you’re likely to grow your audience just in time for the Christmas rush, earning even more sales in the process.

Your holiday contests or competitions can be as simple as a “like and share this post to enter” format to a more creative “take a funny snap with your local Santa” accompanied by a specific hashtag.

However you decide to run your competition, you will build buzz and boost your brand’s reach, scoring more seasonal sales.

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Clothing colossus Old Navy once ran a seasonal contest where the first 100 people in line at every store across North America had a shot at winning $1 million. The brand promoted the competition across social media with the catchy hashtag #onemillthrill, building impressive levels of engagement both in-store and online.

Of course, you don’t have to offer a $1 million prize, but with a creative hook and a solid engagement incentive, you can create a healthy amount of festive brand noise, just like Old Navy.

Read: Our guide to working with social media influencers for practical tips on how to promote your holiday competition or contest even further.

4. Optimize your store’s landing pages

This is an often overlooked holiday selling strategy,  but optimizing your store’s various landing pages and key product pages will help you close more conversions over the festive shopping season.

In addition to adding a little festive imagery to your store’s landing pages and showcasing your best products or deals, there are several ways you can squeeze more sales juice from your store’s landing pages:

  • Review your shipping costs, and if you can offer free shipping options, make sure the option is displayed clearly on each relevant landing page.
  • Produce or improve your existing UX or microcopy to make your festive landing pages more exciting, engaging, and easier to navigate.
  • Work on your product copy and designs to add a little festive flair and help your landing pages rank better for the right keywords in search engines like Google.
  • Use A/B testing to compare two different versions of the same landing page and discover which messaging, layouts, designs, call to action (CTA) buttons, and images perform better. This will give you the insight you need to create the most sales-worthy landing pages for your customers.

5. Level up your paid advertising efforts

Last but certainly not least, investing in paid marketing is a great way to sell more over the holiday season.

A well-produced, well-placed paid ad offers a healthy return on investment (ROI). These days, most paid marketing platforms are easy to navigate (you don’t have to be a tech whizz to set up an ad), and there are plenty of options to choose from.

From Google Ads to Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, you can set up a mix of compelling ads aimed at specific groups of customers. Some paid ad platforms work on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis (you pay a particular amount every time someone clicks on your ad), while others work on a pre-set budget.

With paid advertising, you can add images or videos to grab more attention. You can set up ads that target brand-new customers or retarget people that have interacted with your store before. You can even use paid advertising to promote competitions, deals, or in-store events. They are versatile and effective when it comes to earning more seasonal sales.

Read: Our definitive guide to paid advertising strategies that will help you grow your business to create sponsored content that inspires your customers to take notice.

Bonus: Seasonal selling quick tips

Here are some extra tips to help you get as many sales as you can this holiday season:

  • Create a festive hashtag to use throughout the holidays to boost your brand reach.
  • Try a little social listening and spark up conversations with customers on social media to create a little buzz and build better connections.
  • Set up early bird sale events or virtual product previews for your most loyal customers or email subscribers.
  • Create fun and inspiring seasonal content like festive gift guides, seasonal travel tips, fun infographics, or top gifting tips. This will boost your brand authority, build trust, and get you noticed more in search engines.
  • If in doubt, offer everyone free egg nog and mince pies.

Final thoughts

“Marketing goes wrong when it is perceived by companies as a bolt-on activity.”—Michael Perry

 

When you’re trying to sell extra products over the holidays, it’s always important to remember that without following marketing principles, you’re unlikely to see any real results.

With a consistent and creative approach to your selling efforts, you will stand out from the competition, enjoy more revenue, and grow your customer base.

We wish you the best of luck with your seasonal selling efforts. For more promotional pearls of wisdom, check out our 10 tips for improving your customer service content.