10 Ways to Nail Your Christmas Promotions in Advance This Year
Prasad Vemulapalli | December 18, 2022
The arrival of November heralds the beginning of the holiday season and the ensuing shopping frenzy. Santa Claus and Christmas trees will decorate storefront windows this year. The e-commerce websites on the Internet will soon begin pressuring us into believing that the best gifts are now available and that we must not procrastinate any longer if we want to avoid missing out on them.
However, restaurant owners and marketers are probably scratching their heads over how to differentiate themselves from the deluge of deals and promotions already out there. If your product is not one of the few that sells itself, you will need to put some thought into your marketing campaigns to ensure success.
It could appear that way in light of the season's coziness, gifts, cute decorations, and upbeat advertising. In contrast, the business climate in 2022 can be more dangerous than you might expect.
What Are the Best Christmas Promotion Concepts?
The three most effective strategies for holiday promotion are discounts, coupons, and deals on your best-selling food items.
If you charge for food delivery, offering free shipping as part of your Christmas promotion will go a long way toward boosting your turnover and sales revenue. It is probably the first thing you should change for your business.
Now let's get down to the next. We will be showcasing a couple of Christmas promotion and marketing ideas based on actual strategies used by companies across industries. The information in this post will be helpful to you in developing an effective Christmas promotion and marketing strategy for your restaurant business in 2022.
1. Free Shipping Plus Discounts
The first is the tried-and-true strategy of offering free shipping alongside a promotional code for product or service discounts. Even at Christmas, free shipping could be more remarkable these days. Coupled with a discount, it can ramp up your sales figures, as most customers view free shipping with discounts as a win-win opportunity. You must ensure you deliver on your promise and satisfy your customers. If you say you can provide goods and services within 24 hours, make sure you live up to this commitment, or you may face the backlash of a significant drop in sales after the holidays.
2. 50% Off and Deals that are too Good to Ignore
What about a promotion that packs a punch, like a steep discount on top of special pricing on an already-low price for a popular food item? The idea is to present your customers with a deal they must pay attention to. It has to be so tempting that even the most adamant, conservative, old-school customer would be more than happy to join the bandwagon of eager customers rushing at the deal.
A massive cut in selling price is one way to attract the right number of customers, especially when your price is way below that of similar products and services offered by your competitors. If the quality of your products is at par or better than that of your competitors, then a big price slash this holiday season can see you experience a surge in sales. Ensure that the price you decide to sell your commodities is at least a break-even price.
3. Offer Christmas Gift cards
One of the most widely-appreciated presents across age groups is a gift card. This holiday season, many people worldwide will be giving their loved ones a gift card as a holiday treat; why not encourage your customers to buy one to offer a free meal to their friends and family? Gift cards are great if you are still determining what to get someone for Christmas.
Survey results from the National Retail Federation (NRF) indicate that gift certificates and cards are the second most frequently given present after cash. Also, the NRF forecasts that gift card sales will hit $27.5 billion this holiday season.
As an online merchant, you should also sell gift cards of varying denominations, giving your customers more flexibility in their purchases. Digital gift cards and e-vouchers can be issued and sent immediately, at a future date, or in a random order to the recipient's email or mobile phone.
Gift cards are a great way to discount customers while showing them extra love. For example, a $10 gift card may make $30 worth of purchases. Another option is to give your customers a coupon code that can be redeemed or used for purchases on specific days during the Christmas and New Year holidays.
4. Focus On Providing Products and Services With A Christmas-theme
People are eager to spend money on items that make them more joyful this holiday season. While you may be limited in terms of what you can or cannot sell in your restaurant, you can still try to package your products in ways that reflect the season. It is a surefire way to increase your sales and revenue this holiday.
You can showcase your outlet’s desire to bring festive cheer to your customers by providing theme-related primary or secondary products to make eating more enjoyable for your clients. Design your email promotions or brochures with some festive graphics during the holiday season. It is one of the best Christmas promotion strategies for the forthcoming Christmas holiday.
5. Boost Your Christmas Sales With Discounts and Coupons
Nearly all consumers (approximately 93%) use a discount card or coupon at least once per year. In the eyes of the buyer, a discount is an immediate gain. But some restaurants offer discounts on increased purchases.
For example, an eatery may state that their customers will get a 50% discount if they increase their order quantity by 100%. While this sounds like a great deal on the surface, most consumers are notorious for spending less rather than buying more products than they need to save money.
Invariably, discounts are more effective when customers are kept from increasing their order quantity as a precondition for the discount. You can boost your Christmas sales with a discount promotion, and sales coupons are great for such promotions.
6. Email Marketing Is Great For Generating Leads
Use this time-honored method to rev up your online food business. If you haven’t moved your business online yet, you can take help from OrderEm’s services to set one up. The catch, however, is that your rivals will simultaneously send identical messages to your client's inbox. You need to differentiate yourself and persuade the receivers to take positive action.
Make your customers feel like Santa by sending them Christmas-themed emails. Similarly, the subject line of an email is a great place to demonstrate originality.
Users can be informed of upcoming sales, discounts, gift cards, and special offers through email communication. Additionally, it may be a fantastic choice for generating a sense of urgency that attracts more customers to your store.
Organizing your database by category will allow you to send more targeted emails to your customers. A greater open rate and improved conversion are guaranteed.
7. Promotional and Marketing Games With A Christmas-theme
It is essential to take it easy, spend time with loved ones, and have a good time during the holiday season. Games and other forms of entertainment are great ways to show genuine gratitude for your customers.
The benefits of providing customers with game-like interactions will be greatly appreciated. For one thing, it makes people care more about your brand. Any classic game you can think of can be recreated digitally. Or you could make your interactive holiday games from scratch.
Customers will be entertained if you offer them access to online games. Make sure to include your logo and traditional colors. As a result, people will associate the game with your brand and positive emotions.
Games of chance, games of knowledge, platform games, tapping games, puzzles, hidden object games, and strategy games are just a few of the many types of entertaining marketing and promotion games available. These can be repurposed into exciting Christmas-themed games to get your target audience involved with your brand.
Promotion and marketing games with a Christmas theme are great for:
- Increasing customer engagement
- Raising brand awareness and recognition
- Drawing traffic consisting of new customers to your eCommerce store or website
Customers are more relaxed at this time of year, and they are more likely to purchase items they may not necessarily need. But to tap into this advantage, you need to set the mood by making your website or eCommerce store more interactive and engaging. Promotional and marketing games are one way to go about this.
8. Give Christmas Gifts (like a Christmas Tree) and Vouchers
The holidays are meant for activities like making gingerbread, putting up Christmas decorations, wrapping gifts, and decorating a Christmas tree. Give your customers a real tree as a freebie when they buy a particular product from your store, for example.
You can also throw in a time-sensitive voucher, which they can redeem in the new year when most people are short on cash following the Christmas celebrations. The voucher can come in handy during this time, as your customers would be able to save money while still being able to get what they need.
9. Share Videos that are Helpful to your Customers this Holiday Season
Short, helpful videos that are not overly promotional are perfect for sharing with customers during the holiday season. You can make recipes and record how-to videos to help customers.
Instead of attempting to demonstrate multiple items in one video, shoot separate videos for each demonstration to keep the videos short. For example, if you intend to share them on a social media platform like Twitter, they should be no longer than 140 seconds, while Instagram's limit is 60 seconds. In a similar vein, if you have a large volume of flat-pack items for sale, you could promote them by sharing videos that show how simple it is to have them assembled.
10. BOGO Rewards are Great for your Customers on Social Media Platforms
Sometimes the people who follow you on social media end up being your most loyal customers and best advocates. As a gesture of gratitude, why not provide special deals available only on their favorite social media platform?
A BOGO (Buy One Get One) deal, in which they can buy one of your desserts and get a second one at no additional cost, can be helpful. Print-at-home coupons promoted solely on social media can be a useful tool for offline businesses, even though digital coupons and coupon codes are more effective for online retailers.
Another option for online businesses is to use social media to promote a landing page with special deals and direct customers to their online store.
In Conclusion
It is no secret that food lovers will spend more during the holiday season. It is up to you to tap the revenue potential with your creative promotional ideas. The best Christmas promotion campaigns recognize customers' needs to save money while also having fun shopping, whether online or offline.
The ten ways to nail your Christmas promotions in advance this year show that customer-centric promotional campaigns with a Christmas theme are guaranteed to boost your end-of-year sales figures. However, the results of previous campaigns should inform your strategy going forward.
Nowadays, restaurant owners typically offer standard coupon campaigns with little room for customization. While customers are used to receiving the exact offers repeatedly, it would be a pleasant surprise if you deviate from the norm and begin using personalization techniques such as providing them with unique coupons and other forms of promotion.
As Christmas draws near, now is the time to finalize your holiday marketing and advertising plans, launch any remaining promotional campaigns, and bolster your sales.