Promotions are the best way for any business to tailor messaging for specific demographics. By targeting audience segments, brands and businesses are able to deliver the most relevant content to the end user, which is typically an exclusive offer on a product or service they have a perceived interest in. Additionally, the digital landscape provides a platform for real-time analytics, allowing businesses to track the performance of their promotions and make timely adjustments for optimal results. This agility and flexibility make online promotions an invaluable tool for businesses aiming to stay competitive this upcoming holiday season.
Find Your Guiding Star
Start with your target audience and determine what they value. This will serve as your promotional north star in identifying what resonates with your audience. Then utilize your business goals for that audience.
- Are you looking to get more customers?
- Increase average order value (AOV)?
- Drive recurring business?
Create Separation
When creating your holiday promo ideas, focus on your competitive advantage to draw attention from consumers. If that’s quality, consider focusing on your warranty or product endorsements. If it’s a price point, look at bulk bundles to justify steep discounts. It isn’t always the lowest price that wins, so keep the value-add of your product or service in mind. Further, your proposition needs to create a lower barrier to entry for whatever problem your product or service alleviates. Remember, the perceived value should outweigh the costs of what you charge.
Holidays Aren’t the Only Days
The holidays don’t have to be the only time to offer the best deals, but they can be the best time to test them, if you haven’t already. However, if you only offer deals during the holidays, you risk alienating your customers throughout the rest of the year or creating seasonality when you shouldn’t be affected too much by it. This is worth considering, as you forecast future online promotion ideas throughout the next calendar year.
Crafting the Perfect Message
The accompanying message in your copy and ad creative need to align to drive home impact. Eliminate redundancies by separating aspects of the sale between the headline and the image.
Next, determine the following factors before launch:
- Where are you sending it out?
- Is it clear and concise?
- Does it relate to your audience’s personality, values, and beliefs?
- How is it being delivered?
This is where your brand’s persuasion power comes from. You can use techniques such as scarcity, social proof, authority, liking, and reciprocity.
Focus On The Upsell
Your holiday sales promotions don’t have to be just price discounts. You can also offer additional products, services, free shipping, gift wrapping, bundles, contests, or giveaways. If you want to offer a price discount, then price out how much you can charge without losing money. Unless this is a recurring service or product where you’re okay making money after the customer has signed up, you can match or beat your competitors’ promotions. Can you layer the discounts based on the amount a customer buys?
Example
Promo: Free shipping on all orders over $50
Goal: Increase sales and average order value
Offer: Customers who spend $50 or more will receive free shipping on their order. This is a significant savings, especially for customers who are buying multiple items or heavy items.
Persuasion techniques used: Scarcity (the offer is only available for a limited time) and price (free shipping is a valuable incentive).
Step-by-Step Guide
- Identify your target audience’s values
- Highlight what sets you apart from your competitors
- Figure out the timeline of when you want to run the promotion
- Create a message that is clear, concise and has a persuasion technique
- Design your promotion which doesn’t always have to include a price discount, but needs an incentive
- Ensure you are tracking your promotion to measure the results to finetune your promotion for future iteration.
- Test slight variations to find
Ace the Test
Once you’ve calculated what’s right for your business, start early promotional testing. Use social media, email, your website, and partnerships to push out your online sales promotion ideas. Then, test, test, test. You won’t always get it right the first time, but you need to have a system for pushing out your promotions, tracking them, fine-tuning them, and pushing them out again.
If your business needs a promotional breeze at its back, reach out to Logical Position for a complimentary account audit and campaign consultation.
