Christmas marketing ideas: sales promotion strategies

December is the gift-giving month of the year, so it’s never too early to plan your upcoming holiday campaigns.

For business owners, Christmas is an opportunity to increase sales and gain new customers by promoting the best deals and offers.

Considering this is the year’s most profitable period for retailers, you need to find a way to stand out from the crowd so that your deals are seen. You need to ensure that the ads will help you drive traffic to your website, so you can then convert a good portion of your visitors.

In that sense, we’ve put together some ideas you can use for your Christmas marketing strategy, so you can craft an outstanding sales campaign.

Moreover, we’re offering a comprehensive collection of ready-made, customizable marketing templates, available and free of charge and in our ad design platform.

Christmas marketing ideas

1. Christmas discounts

This sales tactic goes without saying.

You don’t want to be the Scrooge of online retailers at Christmas time. Calculate your spendings and try to determine what attractive discount you can give during the Christmas sales season.

Offer your customers a great experience all-year-round. Give them reasons to love buying from you and to come back.

2. Free gifts

Christmas is all about gift-giving. And your business is not exempt from offering free gifts this winter season.

Celebrate the holidays by giving away free gifts when customers place an order and strengthen your bond with them. Loyalty is the result of successive positive experiences with a brand.

Nordstrom offers featured gifts upon certain purchases.

3. Gift cards

We all have that special someone that we never know what to get.

Help your customers surprise their family and friends with a generous gift card. You can either create printed gift cards or digital cards that can quickly be sent to a person’s email address.

4. Gift packs & gift ideas

Most of the time, people are browsing the internet looking for inspiring gifts. So, when the Christmas shopping time arrives, be ready to welcome your visitors with some ready-made gift bundles or at least with a batch of fantastic gift ideas.

Help your visitors find presents for their family and friends and increase your sales.

  • Nordstrom has the Make Merry option on their website with daily drops of gift inspiration.
  • Sephora also has this gift inspiration feature on their website. The gifts are sorted into different categories to make the search easier.

5. Free shipping

Whatever sales technique you pick this Christmas, add free shipping on top of it.

A study by Baymard Institute shows that 69.57% is the average shopping cart abandonment rate if there are extra costs involved at checkout, including shipping.

This means while you think shipping costs may help your profit margin, they can sometimes cause more damage.

The Christmas holiday is a perfect time to test the free shipping method.

Offer your customers a Merry Christmas and a few savings left in their pockets. They might tell their friends about you. And come back next year as well.

Sales are significantly impacted by the lack of free shipping, so try to provide this option, especially when an order exceeds a certain amount.

6. Christmas contest

Engage your customers with a Christmas contest. Offer a prize for the ugliest Christmas jumper or for the most beautiful Christmas tree. Or you could ask people to craft some Christmas decorations and send you a photo of them.

If you sell children’s products, you could invite your audience to send Santa a letter (to your address) and ask for a present. Ask people to enroll in the contest by submitting a photo or a video to your Facebook page.

Integrate one or several of these marketing tactics to make your campaign even more appealing to potential customers.

7. Set up a PPC campaign

If you own an online retail store, you probably know about PPC ads’ importance by now. During the winter holiday season, online campaigns are mandatory.

You can set up a search PPC campaign, a display campaign, or you can advertise your sales promotion through videos. Ideally, you want to use all three media types to make your voice heard.

The best time to start a PPC campaign is one month before Christmas, which is the end of November. This will give you plenty of time to prepare your materials before launching your campaign.

Speaking about promotional materials, try to avoid ad fatigue by creating several versions of your search ads, images, and videos. Rotate them throughout December to keep people interested in your brand and increase your chances to sell.

8. Create stand-alone landing pages

When running a PPC campaign, it is better to have independent landing pages to walk the visitor through your product’s story.

Create a series of landing pages for your deals and build each page as a journey through the sales funnel until the moment of the purchase.

9. Send Christmas sales emails

Craft some jolly emails and send them out to your customers to let them know about your December deals and discounts. Make sure you find a catchy subject line and include festive product pictures.

Subject line inspiration:

‘Tis the season to give and receive (suited for general online stores, clothing stores)
Make magic happen with 50% OFF (suited for general online stores, clothing stores)
Joyful presents for family & friends (clothing stores)
Get home for Christmas with 50% OFF (suited for travel agencies, airplane companies)
Spread the love with these bundle gifts (suited for general online stores, clothing stores)

10. Send a print/digital catalog

Entice people to buy your products with a beautifully crafted Christmas sales catalog. You can either create a print catalog or a digital version. Insert discount vouchers or free gift codes.

11. Offer free gift wrapping as an option

Christmas shopping is all about the wrapping. Make it easier for your customers to deal with gift-giving by offering complimentary gift wrapping as an option.

When shopping online on Lands’ End, you have the option to select the Gift Box option at the checkout. Ribbons are included.

12. Hide cost details for presents

When people order a gift for someone, they’ll want to hide the cost details. Make this an option at checkout so that people can tick the box if they don’t want to include the invoice in the gift box.

This option is available when you order something from Amazon, provided they’re fulfilled by Amazon or selected Amazon Merchants.

13. Send a printed Christmas card

Start from this
In a world of digital cards, surprise your customers by sending them some good old printed Christmas cards to their mailbox. Include a small gift, like a discount code, to make the experience even more delightful.

14. Update your social media profiles

Decorate all your social media profiles with Christmas branded images. Make sure you get your profile picture and cover photo Christmas-ready.

15. Include donations

Christmas is a time for giving. Team up with a charity and organize a fundraising campaign. Inform your customers that you’re supporting a local/global social cause and that you will donate a percentage of all holiday season sales to this organization.

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