When the Christmas sales are over, many businesses and holiday shoppers heave a sigh of relief. All the presents are bought, and now it’s time to eat Christmas cookies and sing carols. But is it so?
The short answer is No. Post-Christmas sales are a wonderful chance to prolong the joy of holiday shopping. Now, after doing everything to please their family members, consumers are ready to buy something for themselves. Thanks to the prices lowered on the occasion of post-Christmas sales, they can afford their dream products without feeling guilty for extra expenditures.
In this case, the primary task of retailers and business owners is to organize tempting after-holiday sales. They need to whet consumers’ appetite with the right post-holiday marketing strategy and offers. We know that it may be challenging since all your best ideas were probably used for November and December deals. Therefore, Inkit has created a list of 10 tips on how to develop a decent post-holiday marketing strategy. Use them to launch after-holiday sales that inspire to purchase.
Holiday Season Sales Spike in Numbers – Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas
- The last Black Friday sales account for $7.4 billion with a $1.2 billion increase compared to 2018.
- 39% of e-commerce sales made on Black Friday were ordered on smartphones.
- $9.4 billion were spent by US online buyers on the last Cyber Monday. It’s 1.5 million more than holiday shoppers spent in 2018.
- On Cyber Monday, people were spending 12 million per minute.
- Around 30% ($3 billion) of Cyber Monday purchases customers made with their mobile devices.
- During the holiday season, large retailers increased their sales by 71%.
- 28.8% of Americans start buying Christmas presents in November.
- In 2019, holiday retail sales are expected to reach $729 billion.
- Since 2018, Christmas retail sales have grown by 4%.
10 Tips on How to Increase Post-Christmas Sales with an Effective Post-Holiday Marketing Strategy
Strategic planning is the core of business success. Perceive after-holiday sales as a continuation of your previous promotions and make them connected. Formulate your marketing message, know your offer, and take other steps to convince customers to buy after the crazy Christmas sales finish. Here are the key things you need to do for an effective post-holiday marketing strategy:
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #1. Analyze What Products Work Best in Post-Christmas Sales
Seasonality matters. Some clearance items are more likely to be sold during the winter holiday season than others. To understand what products should be placed in the shop window, go through your assortment and analyze market trends. Usually, on the verge of a New Year’s Eve, consumers are willing to buy something that can change their lives. These are the products that enhance productivity, such as new gadgets, stylish clothes, or health services, including diet plans and gym memberships, etc. Look at your offers and pick those that have the best potential to make New Year’s resolutions come true. Once you know what items you are going to promote, it would be easier to pick the right call-to-action and make the target audience notice you. Try to convey the idea that your products can make the next year fabulous.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #2. Stress the Customers’ Need to Buy for Themselves
The best post-holiday marketing strategy aims to soothe the pain of consumers. Starting from Black Friday, they were searching for tons of presents for each family member and close friend. An average buyer spends around $1200 on holiday gifts. After such unbelievable generosity, many consumers may feel like they should do more for themselves. Use this in your after-holiday sales. Remind customers that now it’s time to buy a dress or gadget they have always wanted. Remind your customers that you care about the well-being of gifters and want to pay off their good deeds. Great deals and the festive atmosphere will do the rest.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #3. Promote Your After-Holiday Sales through Third-Party Websites
Modern consumers are often too lazy to follow post-holiday sales offered by multiple retailers. Thus, they go to web resources with overviews of best deals, like this one. If you want to make your clearance sales stand out from the crowd, use some digital marketing. You can cooperate with popular bloggers, run a PPC campaign, or try to include your offer in a list of top post-Christmas sales. Mentions in reputable web resources will drive highly targeted traffic and bring customers that are very likely to purchase. These are the people that are looking for after-holiday sales and have some extra money to spend.
Out-of-the-box PDF generation
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #4. Be Consistent in Your Holiday Marketing Strategies
Being predictable is not always bad when it comes to discounts. If you decide to include yearly sales in your post-holiday marketing strategy, make sure they start at the same time. This way, customers will know what to expect from you and will put aside some money. Just imagine a situation. You run post-holiday sales for many years, but this time you skip them. What will your loyal customers feel? Exactly! Disappointment. Remember that holiday discounts are something cyclical. Therefore, before you start using them, don’t forget to calculate the discount you can afford. Note that usually, stores lower the prices on the clearance items they need to sell out at the end of the season.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #5. Use Some Technology for Post-Christmas Sales
The martech field offers a gazillion of opportunities. For example, if you provide a custom app for online shopping, you can place some post-holiday ads there. You can also use advanced automation tools to launch an omni-channel post-holiday marketing strategy. Marketing platforms like Klaviyo, Sailthru, or Iterable allow creating marketing workflows that incorporate several channels (e.g., emails, content marketing, social media). They can even be integrated with direct mail automation tools like Inkit to run a trigger-based direct mail campaign. It was found out that direct mail increases the efficiency of digital marketing by 62%, which is an additional boost to your marketing. Automation practices don’t only make your marketing efforts more convincing, they also cut expenses and grow profit.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #6. Analyze Data on Pre-Holiday Sales
Don’t lose a chance to use the information you already have about your customers. If they have bought from you before or even during these Christmas sales, make sure to learn their tastes. Ideally, you should use a CRM system and additional marketing tools to continuously update the information on every customer and record all their interactions. When the data is updated in real-time, you can instantly reflect all minor changes in your post-holiday marketing strategy. This will help to influence the purchase behavior of customers and make them convert.
Also, customer data analysis shows why potential buyers leave the purchase funnel. Maybe, in your after-holiday sales, you’d better offer free shipping than adds-on? Well, find that out before offering! For example, according to recent data, 47% of online shoppers don’t want to pay for shipment. Therefore, a free after-holiday delivery may be a decisive factor that will convince such customers to complete a purchase.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #7. Deliver Customized Mail with Best Deals
Direct mail helps you communicate your marketing offer to the target audience. While consumers are still checking their Christmas postcards, they are more likely to react positively to holiday mail. Unlike spam or junk mail, such mail pieces look relevant. Yet note that the key to mail marketing success is personalization. This will be easy if you have recorded the previous orders of your customers and analyzed their preferences. Just use a direct mail automation tool that supports variable data printing and integrates with a CRM to create unique mail pieces. You can adapt the content, include customers’ names, experiment with the types of mail, and more. Among others, Inkit offers an unlimited batch size for maximum flexibility of marketing campaigns. You can perform A/B testing of direct mail before delivering it to all customers. This ensures higher mailing efficiency and helps to make data-driven decisions.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #8. Incorporate Cross-Selling in Your Post-Holiday Marketing Strategy
It well may be that during Christmas sales, your customers didn’t buy everything they needed. Post-holiday discounts can inspire them to buy complementary products connected with the previous purchase. Professional marketers call this cross-selling. For example, if someone has bought a PlayStation 4, you can promote them discounted video games.
Be careful because cross-sales may look quite intrusive and pushy. To avoid the negative outcome, give customers maximum control over the final decision. Your key task is to tailor the most suitable offer and provide a convincing discount. The more you know about the order history and behavior of your customers, the better adds-on you will be able to choose.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #9. Encourage Social Media Activity to Promote Post-Christmas Sales
Modern consumers constantly stay in touch with the content published on social media. 23% of US Christmas shoppers state that social media help them to choose the right presents. They are influenced not only by famous bloggers but also by their peers and friends. Use these connections to prolong your Christmas sales and promote specific products. People like sharing pictures of their Christmas presents and bargains on social media. If you encourage buyers to add your hashtag or mention your great deals in their posts, you will look more reputable in the eyes of all their friends and subscribers. Some of them may even want to purchase the same product during your post-Christmas sales. This will increase sales and improve your brand image.
Of course, you can also use influencer marketing, but this may take quite a large part of your marketing budget. Also, average users don’t usually associate themselves and their needs with such social media celebrities. Therefore, it’s better to incentivize regular customers with various promotions, prizes, gift cards, contests, and more.
Post-Holiday Marketing Tip #10. Take Care of Website Usability
In the last few years, online sales between December 26 and 30 grew by 28% in the UK. The tendencies in other countries, including the United States, are similar. Mobile shopping is also a rapidly emerging trend. Thus, poor navigation, slow load speed, intrusive ad campaigns, unappealing photos, and a range of other flaws can significantly harm your sales. This increases the importance of quality website design and usability for business growth.
Frankly speaking, this relates both to a post-holiday marketing strategy and any other time of year. Don’t forget to make sure customers always feel comfortable in your online store and can place an order in several clicks. Offer users to save their favorites, shipping address, and credit card details. When such consumers return to your website, they will be able to view updated discounts and order in a fraction of a second.
If you decide to power digital marketing with direct mail and automate the whole process, use Inkit. It seamlessly integrates with the most popular CRMs and marketing tools to build advanced marketing campaigns for any occasion, including after-holiday sales.
