5 Last-Minute Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Sales
Are you looking to increase your traffic during Thanksgiving? Did you search – “Top 10 Last minute Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas”, “What to do if you haven’t started any Thanksgiving marketing campaigns yet?”, or “Any advice for beginners on how to market during thanksgiving” on the internet?
If your answer to the above questions were yes, then this blog will resonate with you. Most new (as well as some of the veteran) business owners ask these questions when Thanksgiving is just around the corner.
But will the magic list make your last-minute marketing successful? The answer is Yes! Now hold tight and let us take you on a short journey.
Before we go ahead with marketing ideas, let’s take a step back and look at why it’s important to really put yourself out there during Thanksgiving.
An Introduction to Seasonal Marketing
Seasonal marketing is the phenomenon of marketing products or services at certain points of the year. This could be Halloween, Christmas, Easter, or Thanksgiving, but seasonal marketing doesn’t really have to always coincide with an ‘official event’.
You’ll also observe that many businesses will flourish at certain points of the year and struggle at others. For example, swimwear businesses will flourish during the summer while florists would during Valentine’s.
A lot of business owners make the mistake of overlooking the power of seasonal marketing, but it should be considered a cardinal sin for direct-to-consumer (D2C) as well as e-commerce brands. This is because seasonal marketing gives your consumers an excuse to spend their money. They might consciously think about it or not, but the anticipation of seasonal marketing is always at the forefront of their minds.
“Get to the point please, we aren’t here for a lecture. Customers are about to walk in 🙄” – if this is what you were thinking right now, then we aren’t going to hold you hostage any longer.
Let’s get right into it then, shall we?
In this blog, we will be talking about,
- Using a countdown timer to build up anticipation for your Thanksgiving sale
- Creating engaging content on your website/social media
- Influencer Marketing
- Partnering with local businesses
- Volunteering your services for charity
1. Using a countdown timer to build up anticipation for your Thanksgiving sale
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a phenomenon that most business owners fail to utilize properly. Customers have an implicit tendency to be the first ones to buy something and also the last ones to miss out on something.
Creating a countdown timer on your social media (Instagram has dedicated timers for this purpose) as well as on your website (Pop-ups and banners do a good job) will make your customer wait for the day that your products/ services go on sale and would be hustling and bustling to grab the offer before it expires.
This will not only drive traffic to your social media/ website but will also enable you to attract customers to a space with further promotional real estate. They might visit for the offer but stay for your pictures, videos or testimonials, etc. You can use that to turn your visitors into potential customers.
For example, a person who came to check out your deal on a fancy top might stay because they saw a better offer for a skirt and may buy it too! Here you leveraged their FOMO to turn a visitor into a customer.
It’s a powerful concept provided you apply it properly.
2. Creating engaging content on your website/ social media
Let us explain this with an example of social media,
You can create polls on Instagram and promote them amongst your followers. The polls could range anywhere from what they are doing for Thanksgiving to what products look best. The list of questions to ask as well as potential Thanksgiving promotion ideas are limited just by your creativity.
Are you a salon or spa owner looking for Thanksgiving marketing strategies? We’ve got you covered there as well. Check it out here.
If you can stretch your budget, you can even pay Instagram to promote your story to a wider audience. The concept works along the lines of Thanksgiving advertising if you think about it. This gives you a dual advantage:
- Provides awareness to your existing audience regarding your new promotions.
- Lets new people (decided based on your preferences while promoting) view your content and become potential customers.
Similar strategies can be applied to various platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. You can also create giveaways for people who tag their friends on your Thanksgiving social media posts by choosing a winner at random.
Another fun marketing idea would be to use this method on your website by planting Easter eggs at certain spots for your loyal customers to find out and tell you (maybe offer them a small reward). By using various plugins, you can even run contests on your website.
Sky’s the limit when it comes to creating and maintaining engagement for your Thanksgiving social media campaigns as well as your website.
3. Influencer Marketing
One of the fastest ways of letting people know about your deals and offers on Thanksgiving is to let an influencer do the job. Now their fame can range from regional to international and you can decide whom to choose with respect to your budget as well as the scope of your product/ service.
For example, if you have an e-commerce business, a social media influencer who might not reside in your region can provide you with local as well as international thanksgiving sales while if you run a beauty business, having a local influencer serves you better as it can make regional customers walk in.
Do note that collaborating with the right influencer (in terms of age, demographics, geographics, and content that they put out) is very important, as a wrong association can lead to a long-term effect on your brand image.
4. Partnering with local businesses
You can also use the concept of influencer marketing and apply it to local businesses as well. These businesses could either be in the same domain or even in a domain that is not entirely related to your business.
Make arrangements to have combo deals with nearby businesses. These could range from “Spend X amount of money at your place to get Y amount of discount at the business you are collaborating with” to “Spend X amount of money at the collaborating business to win a chance at getting a Thanksgiving to hamper at your place”.
Use this method to figure out how both the businesses (or even a group of businesses) can flourish without eating too much into your/ their profits.
This method will also make collaborating businesses your well-wishers, and encourage customers to go and check out your business as well.
5. Volunteering your services for charity
Everyone loves when businesses do their part in supporting the community. How can you do your bit for your society while also engaging in a bit of Thanksgiving marketing? Let us take two examples here.
If you have a beauty business (salon, spa, barbershop, etc.), find nearby orphanages, old age homes, etc., and provide your services to them for free. This can be done in the week prior to Thanksgiving. Pop up your banners and have a fun time with the folks.
Similarly, if you have a clothing business – let these people do their own designs and you can help them materialize that into actual wearable clothes.
People are bound to notice your efforts and will be ever ready to come and support a business that actively contributes to society. You can also give part of the proceeds from your Thanksgiving sale to go towards these places. Providing add-ons for your customers in your online booking portal to contribute towards charity can also be added.
Conclusion
Thanksgiving provides businesses with the perfect opportunity to put themselves out there on the map (even if you are just about to begin your campaign).
As a business owner, your primary objective must be to utilize the potential of your Thanksgiving campaign to propel your Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Christmas, New Year promotions and let momentum (and your newly acquired loyal customer base) do the rest.
We hope this short blog helped you with a bunch of creative Thanksgiving marketing ideas or at least the motivation to start with your marketing campaign.
Do you have any more last-minute Thanksgiving marketing strategies? Do let us know in the comments below!
Hope you achieve the goals you have set for your business this season.
Best of luck! 😄
About Appointy
We at Appointy, help business owners grow and run their businesses with our online scheduling software. This blog was a part of our ‘Manage your Business’ category, where we provide expert tips, and resources, or simply talk about the challenges that small and medium businesses face every day.
If you have any thoughts on this blog or would like to chat about your business struggles and achievements, let us know in the comments below.
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