Thanksgiving is not only a time to be grateful for what you have with family and friends, but it’s also the unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season. It’s currently estimated that approximately 158.3 million people will shop online this Thanksgiving weekend.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, marketers are rolling their sleeves to create the best and most compelling marketing campaigns for more sales this year.
Capture this audience early and get them ready to log on to your store with these Thanksgiving marketing ideas. And speaking of campaigns, ensure you get your Thanksgiving marketing visuals ready before the holiday comes knocking on your door.
Table of Contents
- Thanksgiving and Businesses
- Holiday Marketing Ideas
- Thanksgiving Marketing Tips and Ideas
- Your Next Move...
Thanksgiving and Businesses
When you localize your content and products/services, you’re opening opportunities to attract new customers in new markets the right way, and you also have the ability to increase revenue since new customers in new markets lead to more sales and increased revenue.
Localization might also enable you to sell your products or services in a new region and allow you to discover a need for a new service or product that addresses a problem unique to that demographic.
When it comes to marketing your content globally, it is important to adapt your messages. Your message must cater to a variety of audiences, local languages, and cultural nuances. When you speak your customer’s language, you’re showing them that you truly understand their needs, and that’s why 75% of consumers prefer buying products in their native language.
Holiday Marketing Ideas
Whether it’s freshening up your landing pages, creating brand awareness with your holiday marketing campaigns, finding others ways to target new customers and everything in between, the list of tasks seems endless.
However, business owners and marketers alike understand it’s an opportunity to strike big and the final chance to boost sales before the new year. The holiday shopping season formally begins with Black Friday and Thanksgiving and leads up to the slew of December holidays, including Christmas. It’s never too early to start planning for it, either.
You don’t want to miss seasonal promotional opportunities or holiday sales, especially to your competitors who may have started preparing already. As more and more consumers shop online, the planning phase is arguably the most essential part of a successful season.
Thanksgiving Marketing Tips and Ideas
Huge holidays like Thanksgiving are a perfect time for small businesses to exhibit the human side of their brand and reach out to their customer base. We’ve put together these either Thanksgiving digital marketing tips for business owners so you can give your prospects all the holiday feels this coming Thanksgiving.
Large retail chains with robust marketing budgets offer and promote Thanksgiving discounts. And, while it may seem intimidating, you can compete with large businesses.
Running your own Thanksgiving promotion can offer a local alternative to a big box store for holiday shopping. Online marketing through email, social media, and paid ads, can help you get the word out. Use these Thanksgiving marketing ideas to bring people into your shop and onto your website.
1) Give thanks to your customers.
There is no cookie-cutter method on how to say thank you to your customers, suppliers, or business partners this season. The two most important things are sincerity and of course, high-quality graphics to show you’ve made an effort.
In addition, choosing a dominant social media channel will also have a more extensive reach. If you can create a nice pun out of your brand name, that would be amazing!
2) Give out a free trial or an online store gift card.
Another thoughtful way to thank your clients or customers is through a Thanksgiving promotion. For example, for a specific product and give a promotion when they avail it or once they visit your website, they'll get a voucher they can apply to any product or service they want to purchase. Any business can offer up this versatile gift this Thanksgiving season. Retailers can give online grocery store gift cards while service-based establishments like restaurants can offer a free Thanksgiving dinner. It’s all up to you!
3) Involve the audience in your online presence.
One smart way to engage with your fans this Thanksgiving season is a “Share What You’re Thankful For” social media campaign. Ask them to share one or more things with a photo of what they’re grateful for this year.
This kind of engagement can revolve around users sending in snapshots of their family gathered around the table, before-after pictures of how they decorate for the holiday, or even a time-lapse cooking video of their favorite turkey recipe!
Get people involved and share their real-life stories on your social media pages. Learn more about your audience for future targeted marketing.
4) Thanksgiving giveaways.
Get someone to plan and design a Thanksgiving-themed marketing campaign to suit your business. Are you in the food industry? You can give away a home-delivered Thanksgiving dinner for the whole family. Among popular picks are the Thanksgiving Basket Giveaway, Sample Giveaway, and Seasonal Giveaway (a free item of one of your signature products).
5) User-generated online games, trivia, and contests.
Fun and exciting challenges among other Thanksgiving marketing campaigns can quickly spread the word about your business. You can run a recipe contest that will attract your fans to join in or vote online. Utilize social media to spread the word about your contests and have the participants share their pieces with friends so they can get even more votes.
This gets more eyes on your brand and it’s the easiest way to collect names and email addresses from people who are interested in your business. Don’t forget to create a theme for your contest and come up with an eye-catching name.
6) Thanksgiving free downloads, guides, and resources.
Do you have a great holiday freebie to offer? Dedicate a landing page for a direct website visit. This can be a product or any service that your customers can avail of. You can also provide one special item for your best clients.
People appreciate free gifts more than discounts or value propositions. Get ideas from people who can help you curate the best marketing strategies that you can use during the said holiday. Your marketing team can craft it for you and it can be anything. By offering a complimentary gift, you are encouraging them to become your brand ambassadors.
7) Get ready to market early.
It’s always never too early to start getting ready. As early as now, identify your goals and discover the ways to differentiate your Thanksgiving marketing campaigns from the competition. Develop anticipation by letting your fans know that this year you have something special in store for them. Then, maintain the momentum and make it a week-long black Friday.
8) Be festive online with more quality visual content.
More than 300 million photos are uploaded to social media every day. Grow your email list by hosting photo sweepstakes like a Thanksgiving Photo Upload Giveaway. Each day of the week, share an image or a status update submitted by your fans to your social media pages.
One of the most effective Thanksgiving marketing campaign ideas is to temporarily redesign your website or your company logo to your idea of the holiday celebration. Visitors equate the quality of your products and services with the quality of your marketing materials. If you print a professional postcard, for example, it will transfer that aura of quality to your products and services.
Email Thanksgiving Marketing
In most cases, companies use this event as an opportunity to promote their seasonal deals and show gratitude to their loyal customers.
Answering these questions will help better define the purpose of your Thanksgiving email campaign:
- Do I want to show gratitude to loyal customers by rewarding them with special coupons?
- Would I experiment by using a Thanksgiving email marketing social as a chance to send a special welcome to the newest subscribers?
- Or do I want to boost sales by offering promotional deals?
- Do I want to re-engage with inactive customers by offering them special deals tailored to them?
Your Thanksgiving email campaign’s success is mainly determined by the email design format and email copywriting that you choose for promoting seasonal deals with your subscribers.
Brands experiment with a lot of email formats during the Thanksgiving holiday, and there is no universal winning solution. It’s all about knowing your audience, testing, and tweaking your email marketing feature. Simple emails work for some brands, while other brands get better results with complex ones.
You can easily design your perfect Thanksgiving email in a professional email template builder. It helps to design emails faster because of its flexible drag-and-drop editor.
Social Media Posts Thanksgiving Marketing
Your potential customers and social media followers are probably already looking forward to celebrating Thanksgiving. So, if you’re hungry for more revenue before the year ends, Thanksgiving is the ideal holiday to let your small business shine across marketing channels.
We got the process started for you by compiling our best Thanksgiving social media posts and marketing ideas. In fact, we’ll have all the answers you need to Thanksgiving marketing social media questions like:
- What do I post on Thanksgiving?
- What Thanksgiving marketing ideas should I cook up?
- What are some Thanksgiving slogans for small businesses?
Aside from the turkey, you’ll also be stuffed with Thanksgiving social media posts and marketing ideas for your business to try.
Your Next Move...
Adding a twist to your business marketing plan isn’t just applicable on Thanksgiving. It should be something you do often to give your audience fresh material to digest. However, Thanksgiving is an even more important time to do so since people will be ready to eat, shop, and prepare for winter using your business’s products or services.
Get those ideas flowing and start planning how you're going to spice up your Thanksgiving event!
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