Introduction
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, you have one last chance to carve out a delectable slice of success in 2023 as an eCommerce seller.
We've compiled a list of the top 15 Thanksgiving marketing ideas to help make your Thanksgiving campaign as successful as a perfectly roasted turkey. From creative campaigns to customer engagement tips, we'll help you seize the season's opportunity and leave your competition in the dust.
Let's dig into these marketing gems and make Thanksgiving one to remember!"
Table of Content
Top 15 ideas to spice up your Thanksgiving marketing in 2023
Below are the fifteen best tactics to drive more traffic to your eCommerce store and ramp up your holiday season sales.
1. Bundle up your products
Who doesn't love a pack of goodies?
Just like upselling your product, selling your products in bundles increases the average order value. However, this strategy usually requires you to bring down the overall cost of your product - Unlike cross-selling and upselling where products are mostly sold at their MRP (maximum retail price).
Selling in bundles encourages customers to purchase more.
If your offer is appealing enough to your customers, they may decide to purchase a few extra gifts for their friends and family as well. Ensure the value of your bundle and the price is clear to your customers. An excellent bundle can help increase sales, and give your audience a seamless shopping experience.
2. Upsell and cross-sell your products
It is always a good practice to upsell or cross-sell your product to increase the average order value. This in turn increases your overall profit.
Shopify’s Related Products Manager App makes it easier to club products together to create a winning offer. Thus enhancing your customer’s purchase experience. This strategy involves giving personalized product recommendations based on the product your customer is purchasing.
Note that through upselling and cross-selling your products, you add value to your customer’s purchase experience by suggesting products that complement the primary product.
Here is an example of the landing page of Russel Brunson’s book, the Dotcom Secrets.
Notice how at the checkout step, there is an option to add a Special One Time Offer and an Upgrade. In case you’ve spent on paid advertising, upselling is an excellent way to make up for your ad spent.
Another famous example of upselling and cross-selling products is Amazon. Unlike the landing page above, Amazon suggests visitors' products before the checkout process. Below is an example of how Amazon shows (mostly) similar products on its page.
3. Harness the power of email marketing
Email marketing is an excellent way to keep in touch with your customers, remind them about your ongoing offers and even simply mention how you like your hot chocolate (analogy for personalization).
Adding email marketing to your Thanksgiving marketing strategy will help you boost your conversion rate. Create a schedule beforehand about the emails you're going to send. Subject lines play a key role in driving up email open rates. For this, you need to come up with catchy subject lines.
You can also A/B test your subject lines to see which one works better for your audience.
Furthermore, segment your audience for highly targeted messaging and personalize your message based on their purchase history.
Most successful brands use email marketing as a key retention tool today. So, if you think email marketing is not worth the effort, think again.
4. Give your customers the advantage of date-certain shipping.
The last thing you’d want your customers to worry about is whether their gifts will reach their loved ones on time.
But, if you’ve got a Shopify store, you have nothing to worry about. With the help of Nearbuy Local Delivery Date, Shopify allows you to integrate and set up a local pick-up and delivery date to allow your buyers to choose a delivery date as per their choice. This service ensures customers receive their orders on or before the date mentioned.
Source: Shopify Store
This gives your customers the peace of mind that their gifts will be delivered to their loved ones on time.
5. Create Thanksgiving themes website pop-ups
Pop-ups are an excellent way to get more subscribers to your email list, and in turn, get more customers.
Website pop-ups appear on your website when a website visitor comes onto that particular page. You can also time when a pop-up appears on the visitor's screen. Holiday-themed website pop-ups work best for Thanksgiving sales.
6. Offer gift-wrapping
It's the holiday season! And if you can ease any burden off your customers, you should do it.
Gift wrapping is needed and your customers most likely won't mind you taking care of wrapping the product for a couple of bucks.
In case your customers purchase in bulk from you, don't hesitate to offer gift-wrapping services for free to them at the time of checkout!
7. Create separate landing pages
The purpose of having a landing page is to give your audience just one call to action - purchase your product.
Creating landing pages that are specific to holiday season sales makes it easier to convert visitors to customers during this season. There is so much an eCommerce brand can do with a landing page. You can add videos to it, talk about your product, answer the most asked FAQs, and more.
Furthermore, with the help of Idukki.io, you can easily embed pictures or video content on your landing page without the hassle of writing any code!
8. Create a sense of urgency
Limited-time deals instill in your audience the fear of missing out (FOMO).
Thus making them want to make the purchase as soon as they can. One way to leverage these limited-time deals would be by having a countdown timer for deals on your social platforms and in your emails. Another way to leverage this strategy would be to have flash sales, time-limited free shipping, early bird discounts, etc.
This strategy boosts sales by capitalizing on the holiday shopping rush.
9. Have a month-long sale
The purpose behind having month-long deals is to get the attention of more customers throughout the month and keep them engaged.
These deals usually start from Thanksgiving or early November and go up to Christmas or New Year (really, you are the boss here. Start and end when you feel comfortable).
Leverage countdown timers for these deals on your social media platforms, your website, and even your email.
This strategy helps keep the holiday spirit going and it encourages customers to come back and buy from you again.
However, it is also important to note that once you've set a date and time for the month-long deals, stick to your deadline. It can be tempting to extend the deadline unnecessarily, however, if done too often, your customers won't take your deadlines too seriously the next time.
10. Carry out a social media contest
The key to running a Thanksgiving contest as an eCommerce brand is to design a holiday-themed contest, promote it widely, and offer appealing prizes. During the holiday season, themed contests such as recipe or photo contests can generate user-generated content, foster community engagement, and increase your brand visibility.
11. Let the Thanksgiving theme be your social media aesthetic
Encourage your customers to purchase from you by hopping in on the excitement of the holiday season yourself!
Make your Shopify store Christmassy!
Here is what Kylie Cosmetics by Kylie Jenner’s website looked like for the Holiday Season.
Source: Kylie Cosmetics
12. Offer your customers free shipping
Customers are more likely to purchase products that have no shipping charges.
The best way to leverage this would be by setting minimum purchase thresholds. You can offer free shipping for orders over $50, $70, or even $100 depending on your product type. Thus giving your brand a competitive edge.
13. Make an effective social media marketing campaign
Running a social media campaign around the holiday season or even any other mega launches is the most powerful marketing strategy to get more attention to your product.
The success of this campaign relies on how well you plan your marketing campaign. While the campaign probably will run for about 15 days to one month max, it really takes about 2.5 to 3 months to plan it out.
Planning involves:
Understanding exactly who you are targeting
Their pain points
Their motivations
The final outcome you want from your campaign.
This involves creating bulk content for your social media and email marketing campaigns. The purpose of this is that regardless of which platform your customer is on, they are met with the same messaging.
Use holiday-themed designs, and user-generated content to spark excitement among your audience.
14. Pack your product as per theme
Many brands have limited edition packaging they do for special occasions.
If you have the bandwidth, carry out holiday-themed packaging for the orders you receive from Thanksgiving to Christmas. This strategy will help people feel happy and give them a sense of being a part of something that is available only for a limited period.
15. Reward your loyal customers
One of the best ways to retain your existing customers is by rewarding them. This shows that you appreciate your customers and that you’d love to serve them again.
Consider giving your customers freebies, discounts, and personalized thank-you notes. Rewarding your customers deepens your customer loyalty and encourages repeat business.
Above we learned about 15 different strategies you can use as a part of your Thanksgiving marketing strategy. Now, Go forth and gather your troops (marketing team) to make the most out of Thanksgiving this year!