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When the holiday season arrives, it’s crucial to have a marketing strategy that gets your store in front of shoppers and turns site visitors into paying customers. There are plenty of tools to help you and your customers get the most out of the holiday shopping season.
Looking for more help this season? Check out our complete Holiday Selling Guide.
Set your holiday marketing strategy
A marketing strategy will help you organize your goals and plans, so you can make informed and thoughtful choices about how you connect with shoppers. For your holiday marketing strategy, keep a record of:
How you’ll measure success: Specify what you want to accomplish this holiday season, like a goal number of sales or an ideal revenue number.
Your goals: Set clear, measurable goals like, “Sell $1,000 in product in the period between October 1 and January 1.”
Your target customer: Knowing who you want to reach and how they shop will help you figure out where you market your products and what’s most important to them when shopping.
Where you’ll reach customers: Where is your target customer most likely to spend their time online? Don’t forget niche spaces where your customer might spend their time, like forums or community groups.
Holiday marketing you admire: Think about what makes a piece of marketing land with you. Can you apply the same version of that to something you’re doing?
Your past successes: The holidays are a perfect time to lean in on your most popular products and messaging. Look at what’s worked for you—or hasn’t—in the past, and use that to guide what you prioritize for the holidays.
Reach out early and regularly to build familiarity with customers before the thick of the holiday season starts. Business owners on Squarespace recommend emailing no more than twice per month, but posting more often on social media—without pressuring yourself to put out perfect posts.
Get more tips for creating a marketing strategy
1. Focus on email marketing
Your email list is a huge asset to your business, because it allows you to connect directly with customers who’ve chosen to hear from you. These people are more likely to engage with what you share, and it allows you to reach them personally.
For the holidays, consider promoting popular products, gift bundles and gift cards, and promotions and discounts. With Squarespace Email Campaigns, you can pull in product details and links to your store using a pre-designed template design.
Plan out when it makes sense to schedule emails. The holiday sales season starts as early as October, but consider your target audience and where your promotions and products fit.
If you’re still unsure when to start, focus on Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend. Squarespace has a set of email templates created exclusively to help you build anticipation for this major weekend’s sales.
2. Promote often and everywhere
Competition for attention is fierce, especially during the holidays. With so much online noise, it’ll help you to get in front of potential customers frequently and in as many places as possible. Remember that people are unlikely to see everything you post.
Customer emails: If you don’t have a mailing list yet, there’s no bad time to start. Collect email addresses and encourage sign-ups by offering discounts or other rewards.
On your website: Add an announcement bar or a pop-up to highlight new products, holiday discounts, or any other promotions, like free shipping or a gift with purchase.
Search engines: Try syncing your store with Google Merchant Center so that your products get more visibility in search results.
Social media: Sell and promote your products and sale on your social accounts, like Instagram and TikTok. Make your products shoppable or link your store in a link in bio.
If you’re struggling to create images or videos for your marketing, Squarespace users can use the Squarespace iOS app and its Marketing Kit to get pre-generated options. Or quickly plan and customize posts for social media with the templates in Unfold.
Once you’ve launched your holiday marketing campaign, you also have the connections and tools you need to start building year-round customer loyalty.
3. Use limited availability labels
Clear communication about stock levels is key at the holidays—you don’t want to disappoint shoppers who had something of yours on their list. A positive is that if you add a limited availability label to a product, someone will feel more urgency to buy it right away.
The fear of missing out on the right holiday gift can help turn a “maybe” into a sale.
You can apply the same idea to seasonal items or offers. If time is running short for customers to take advantage, let them know in a newsletter or email blast, in your site’s announcement bar, and on social media.
4. Turn on abandoned cart recovery
Exiting a full shopping cart is very common in ecommerce: Shoppers abandon 84% of carts on mobile devices and 72% on their computers.. Abandoned cart recovery can help you recapture those customers and close a sale. Create an automated abandoned cart email to go to customers within 24 hours of leaving their cart, while your store is still top of mind.
To create a successful abandoned cart reminder:
Choose an engaging subject line that encourages opens.
Be warm but persuasive, highlighting product features or positive reviews.
Consider adding incentives, like a discount.
Feature other popular products to encourage cross-selling.
If someone’s planning to buy for a specific holiday, they're likely to appreciate the reminder to act soon to get their gifts on time.
Read our guide to creating abandoned cart emails
5. Give your website a seasonal refresh
While not necessary, consider updating your online store or website landing page for the season. Seeing updates or can keep visitors on your site for longer and get them excited about shopping your store.
The refresh doesn’t have to be a heavy overhaul, try:
Updating featured products to include popular items
Adding a gift card option to your products
Promoting seasonal perks, like discounts, bundles, or gift wrapping
Noting holiday shipping deadlines on your homepage
Adding holiday imagery or copy
There’s not a bad time of year to start testing out your holiday marketing strategy. If your products are a good gift for many holidays, make seasonal updates as early as October or November and continue through to the new year.
This post was updated on August 2, 2024.