The holidays are big business, so do not let your small business miss out.
Deloitte forecasts that ecommerce sales will grow by more than ten percent year over year during the 2023 to 2024 holiday season. This could result in holiday ecommerce sales reaching well over 270 billion dollars.
This means there is plenty of profit to go around. The major holidays that can boost your sales include Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, and more.
Before you dive in: grab your free Holiday Marketing Planner to organize your offers, plan your promotions, and boost your holiday sales with ease.
Download Your Free Holiday Marketing Planner
How do I make more sales during the holiday marketing season
You will make more sales and earn more money if you are intentional with your promotions. That means creating a plan ahead of time so you are not flying blind.
Here are a few tips to help you get started with your holiday promotions.
You will see bigger profits and enjoy your own holiday season more when you have a holiday marketing plan in place.
After years of helping thousands of small businesses see success, we have narrowed down holiday marketing success to four easy steps that any business owner can do.
4 simple steps to better holiday promotions
- Plan your holiday promotion.
- Create the promotion graphics and copy.
- Prepare your audience for sales and warm them up first.
- Promote your holiday sale.
That is it. Four simple steps to creating a great promotion.
We go into great detail on how to do all four of these steps below, so keep reading.
We want you to be focused and ready to reach new heights this holiday season. Even if you have never run a promotion before and this is your first Small Business Saturday promotion, or you have waited until the last minute to create an effective Black Friday sale, you can start planning now and still have your best season yet without the stress.
How to plan a successful holiday offer for your small business
Do you have your holiday marketing plan in place yet? It may feel last-minute, but the holiday season is an opportunity you simply cannot miss.
So we created this Ultimate Holiday Marketing Guide so that even if you have waited until the week of Thanksgiving to come up with your holiday offers, you can still pull off a successful holiday sale.
So, without further ado, let us start with Step 1: planning.
Planning your holiday promotions and sales
Set your goal for the holiday season (November, December, January)
Be specific and choose something that is measurable and meaningful for your business. Set one main goal, then two or three smaller supporting goals, and determine what it will take to achieve each one.
Main goal example: 10,000 dollars in revenue or 40 special promo sales in November and December.
Examples of supporting holiday marketing goals:
- Grow your email list by 100 new subscribers.
- Create three new blog posts that promote your email list incentives and help your subscribers know, like, and trust you. For December content specifically, you can use post ideas from our guide on what to post on social media in December.
- Tease an “email VIP only” sale and promote it a few days before on social media to earn new subscribers. For example, if you are having a Cyber Monday offer, send a teaser email on Black Friday.
Determine what holidays you would like to create a sale for
Take a look at the calendar and check out the dates and holidays you would like to participate in.
These can be traditional events such as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Super Saturday, or events you create for your own shop, such as a 12 Days of Christmas sale or a themed giveaway.
Work backwards to decide when you will begin to share messaging. Will you share only the day of, with a preview day, or with more advanced notice
Take note of all this, because the more you clarify, the easier it will be to take the next steps, which are designing and executing your offer.
2025 key holiday marketing dates
Here is a list of key dates you can run a promotion or special during this holiday season.
- Thanksgiving Day - Thursday, Nov 27
- Black Friday - Friday, Nov 28
- Small Business Saturday - Saturday, Nov 29
- Cyber Monday - Monday, Dec 1
- Hanukkah - Dec 14 to Jan 22
- 12 Days of Christmas
- Free Shipping Day - Friday, Dec 15
- Super Saturday - Saturday before Christmas
- Christmas Day - Dec 25
- Day After Christmas - Dec 26
- New Year’s Eve
- New Year’s Day
- Other holiday of your choice.
If you are new to promotions, we suggest picking just one or two of these days and creating your promotion using the holiday promotion planner pages.
Use the four steps listed above for each holiday you choose to run a promotion, and be sure to watch our live marketing training replay for specific tips, tools, and tricks that will make your life easier.
Define what your holiday offer will be
Give this a little thought.
- Do any of your products or services make the perfect gift
- Does something you offer provide inspiration and ideas for holiday outfits, home decor, or seasonal resets
- Do you have a special holiday line or themed collection
These answers will determine your focus for your marketing plans in Step 1, such as what you will give away, write about in your blog posts, and include in product round-ups.
Pick an item or service to be the center of your holiday offer, one per holiday you choose to participate in, and decide what will be special about this offer.
- A percentage off discount.
- Free shipping.
- Buy one, get one free.
- A free goodie to go along with qualifying purchases.
Organize your holiday promo ideas for easy execution
Use the Holiday Marketing Planner by Socially Inclined to stay organized during this part of the process.
Use the planner pages or your own notebook to
- Brainstorm your offers.
- Create messaging ideas.
- Record imaging and design ideas.
- Plan where to schedule and advertise.
- Plan supporting content like blogs and emails.
- Mark tasks complete as you work through the process.
- Record your progress.
Create your holiday offers and promotions
Once you finish planning your holiday offer, it is time to determine what promotional materials you need and create the elements that will help you get the word out about your holiday offer.
Here is how you do this step by step.
Determine what content you will need to pull off a great holiday promotion
First, decide how many times you are going to post about your offer.
Example: You may want to tease a Small Business Saturday promotion the day before Thanksgiving and the day after, as well as the day of.
That means you will want three promotional pieces for your event, two for the days you tease and one for the day of. So if you participate in two holidays this season and post three times for each, you will need six promotional pieces total.
How to create amazing holiday promotional graphics
Create specific event graphics for each social media platform you plan to use.
Do not overcomplicate this. Find one image you want to use for each piece, and if you need multiple platforms, use the same image and text, then simply change the size to match each platform.
This is not only easier on you, it is also good for brand consistency.
5 simple steps for creating beautiful holiday promotional graphics
- Find good images. If you have original photos from your shop or services, great. If you need images, you can find free-to-use imagery on sites such as Pixabay. Choose three images that fit your offer and messaging.
- Use Canva for your design needs. It is free and easy to use and comes loaded with premade templates. Select the type of graphic you are making, such as Social Media or Pinterest Graphic, then browse templates until you find one that fits your style.
- Make it your own. Select your template, upload your images, and customize the template with your own brand fonts, colors, and text.
- Finalize. Once you are happy with the design, download your images.
- Repurpose and resize (optional). If you are creating for multiple platforms, resize the images for each platform. This is a useful feature that requires only small adjustments once you have the main design.
Write your holiday promotional content (posts, emails, and more)
Create the text that will convey your offer and your message. Think about what your audience wants, and write as if you are speaking to one person.
Do not write your holiday marketing posts from scratch. Instead, download a free fill-in-the-blank holiday marketing social media post template and teaser template as part of our Holiday Marketing Planner. Download it here.
How to prepare for your holiday promotion
Prepare for your holiday marketing by getting active on social media
Prepare for your holiday marketing and promotions by getting active on social media, posting regularly, and starting authentic conversations with your followers.
Before you start promoting, make sure you have been active in emailing and posting on social media. If not, you should warm your audience up before becoming highly promotional out of the blue.
Preparing your audience to hear from you by posting regularly and engaging with them before you start your holiday promotions is crucial to the success of your holiday marketing season.
Remember, your relationship with your audience and followers cannot be only promo, promo, promo. If it is, you will receive less engagement and people will keep scrolling.
If you have not been consistent, now is the time to start posting consistent, engaging content. If you need ready to go content that is done for you, start your Your Social Plan content membership and have three daily posts and two daily reels at your fingertips in minutes.
There is no better way to get people talking than to start posting regularly, so make it a priority now and into the new year. If you need ideas for December specifically, use our 50 creative December social media ideas and pair them with the best December hashtags to boost reach.
Post an engaging question every day from now until the end of the year and watch your engagement soar. You can pull conversation starters from our December engagement questions or grab 30 engagement-grabbing posts inside the Holiday Hustle Bundle.
The same logic applies to your email list. Send a re-engagement email to get people used to hearing from you before you send a series of sales emails.
Other places to prepare for your holiday marketing content
- Your website. Is it responsive and easy to use
- Your sales pages. Do they have the right messaging
- Your checkout pages. Is the pricing correct and clear
- Your product listings. Do they need a refresh
- Your discount codes. Are they working
- Your social profiles. Do they still represent your brand well
How to promote your holiday offers and execute them well
You have done the hard creative work. Now you need to deliver your message in a way that lets the most people see it while you still enjoy your holidays.
Schedule your holiday promotions, messaging, emails, and posts
Scheduling your posts is a great way to finish your business-building tasks ahead of time and free yourself up to enjoy the holidays with friends and family.
There are many different options for scheduling your offers to post automatically. If you have not tried the Socially Inclined Dashboard, you should test it and see how automation can work for you.
You simply add your graphic and text, then schedule your post for the time and date of your choice.
Consider boosting your offers
Do not forget that you will have a lot of competition in your audience’s newsfeeds this time of year. You might consider boosting or sponsoring your posts. You can schedule an ad or boost for only a few dollars a day and see an excellent return.
Social media algorithms have become more intuitive, so expert targeting techniques are not as critical to an ad’s success as they once were. Post your offer, choose to boost it for a small budget, tell Meta what your goal is, and the platform will do most of the heavy lifting.
Encourage engagement with your offers
When you crafted your posts, you should have included a clear call to action that asks people to share your offer or engage in some way.
This helps your offers be seen by more people. Every post should have a CTA that encourages the viewer to take the next step.
It is also important to respond to any engagement you receive on these posts to help gain exposure. Watch for comments and questions and answer in a timely manner. These techniques will help you get the most out of your efforts.
Done. Does that not feel great
To wrap this all up like a pretty present under the holiday marketing tree
Doing a little planning for your holiday promotions ahead of time can have a huge impact on how well your offers perform. Whether you have three hours, three days, or three months, you can start and complete an effective holiday offer quickly with this four step marketing plan.
We hope you feel better prepared to take on this holiday season. It feels great to work ahead and automate part of your marketing.
Want this year’s holiday marketing to be effortless
Grab this huge holiday marketing promo bundle for effortless holiday marketing success. It includes a step-by-step guide, checklists, graphic templates, planners, engagement tools, and more to help you plan, create, prep, and promote your holiday offers.
