Elevate Holiday Sales with Digital Promotions: A Guide for the Holiday Season

The holiday season is a significant sales opportunity, with consumer spending increasing during this period. As businesses plan for the holiday season, they often use digital promotions as a powerful tool to increase sales, engage customers, and boost brand visibility.

At Realtime Media, we understand how to make digital promotions effective, and how they can maximize sales during a critical consumer spending season.

Why Holiday Digital Promotions are so Impactful

There are several reasons why digital promotions have emerged as an essential marketing tool, particularly during the holiday season.

1. Increased Customer Engagement

Digital promotions, like sweepstakes, contests, and instant win games, encourage customer interaction and engagement, leading to more time spent top of mind for your customer or prospect.

2. Brand Differentiation

During the crowded holiday season, targeted digital promotions with interactive content and unique prizes help your brand to stand out from competitors.

3. Data Collection and Insights

Digital promotions provide valuable customer data, such as purchase behavior and preferences, which can personalize future campaigns and improve marketing effectiveness.

4. Cost-Effective Marketing

Digital promotions offer precise targeting and real-time analytics, making them a cost-effective way to reach your audience and maximize return on investment compared to traditional marketing methods.

How to Plan Successful Holiday Digital Promotions

The two essential actions to guarantee successful holiday digital promotions are defining your goals and objectives and selecting the right type of promotion.

Step 1: Define your Goals and Objectives

Before launching any digital promotion, clearly define your goals and objectives. Determine what you want to achieve tactically with your holiday campaign and within your larger marketing initiatives. Are you looking to increase sales, boost brand awareness, or grow your email list?

Setting specific, measurable goals will help you to shape your promotional strategy and provide metrics to measure success. Ensure your promotion goals align with your overall business objectives and establish key performance indicators to track your campaign’s effectiveness.

Step 2: Choose the Right Type of Promotion

To capitalize on the benefits of digital promotions, it’s crucial to select a promotional strategy that will help your brand succeed and stand out during the crowded holiday season. Types of promotions that are particularly impactful for holiday shopping are: purchase-driven sweepstakes, “buy-get” promotions, tiered purchases with rewards, and holiday-themed instant win games.

1. Purchase-Driven Sweepstakes
A purchase-driven sweepstakes, such as a lifestyle clothing brand offering customers the opportunity to win a luxurious holiday getaway for every purchase made during the festive season, is a highly impactful digital promotion for several reasons.

By tying sweepstakes entries to the number of purchases, this type of promotion incentivizes customers to buy more items to increase their chances of winning. This can increase the average order value and lead to a significant boost in sales during the peak holiday shopping season.

The prospect of winning a luxurious holiday getaway generates excitement and anticipation among consumers, enhancing customer engagement. This excitement often leads customers to visit the brand’s website multiple times throughout the promotion period, resulting in increased website traffic.

2. “Buy-Get” Promotions:
A “buy-get” promotion, such as a chocolate retailer’s “Holiday Cheer Exchange,” is another effective promotional tool. In this example, shoppers who purchase any chocolate assortment during the holiday season can upload a copy of their receipt to a microsite and receive a digital gift card from a partnered premium coffee brand. Participants can also share the joy by sending a coffee gift card and a holiday message to a friend or family member.

Offering a free digital gift enhances the shopping experience and adds immediate value to the customer’s purchase. The prospect of receiving a gift card encourages customers to purchase more frequently or consider trying or gifting a brand they had not considered before.

The compelling pairing of chocolate and premium coffee products is a partnership that allows both brands to benefit from each other’s customer bases, with this cross-promotion expanding the reach of both brands. Giving participants the opportunity to spread holiday cheer through sharing a holiday coffee gift card also fosters a sense of goodwill for customers and enhances brand loyalty.

3. Tiered Purchases with Rewards:
A tiered purchase with rewards promotion, for example a health and wellness brand gearing up for the New Year by running a promotion centered on tiered purchases with rewards, is another impactful option. This type of promotion encourages customers to purchase more items to access higher tiers that offer enticing incentives.

This promotion aligns perfectly with the common New Year’s resolution of getting healthier, making it both relevant and timely. The tiered structure encourages customers to buy more products. Additionally, customers perceive greater value in their purchases when they receive rewards, which can drive higher spending.

By acquiring customer purchasing data, the brand can provide personalized recommendations for fitness and nutrition, tailored to individual goals. This strategy not only drives sales of health-related items but also nurtures customer loyalty as users return for products that help them stick to their resolutions, setting a healthy tone for the New Year.

4. Holiday-Themed Instant Win Games:
A holiday-themed instant win game is a compelling way to capture consumers’ attention during the holiday shopping season. OnStar, a provider of in-vehicle safety, security, and connectivity services, wanted to create a fun and engaging instant win game that complemented their OnStar Santa Tracker initiative. Their primary goal was to drive awareness of OnStar’s brand and their 6-month and 12-month subscription plans.

To achieve this, we partnered with OnStar to create “A Very Merry Special Delivery”. This engaging game featured a surprise gift from Santa, where winners clicked on a wrapped present displayed in a snowy scene with Santa’s sleigh to reveal their prize. The audience for this retargeting campaign was current or lapsed trial customers who had not yet signed up for a subscription plan. The prizes included free access for a fixed period to select OnStar Plans, along with gift cards and other special items.

<img src="undefined" alt="" />

Instant win games offer several key benefits as a promotional tactic during the holiday season. They provide excitement and instant gratification, leading to high levels of repeat consumer participation. As part of a remarketing campaign targeted at existing customers, instant win games can encourage future purchases of your products. By offering attractive offers and prizes, brands can also enhance their reputation and foster customer loyalty.

Conclusion

By incorporating digital promotions into your marketing mix, you can set the stage for a successful holiday season. Well-planned digital promotions will help your brand stand apart, fully engage customers, and boost sales during the festive season.

As you plan your holiday promotions, remember that Realtime Media is here to help you achieve your holiday marketing goals, and can even help you with planning your marketing tactics that extend into a new calendar year. Get in touch with us today!