Holiday marketing 101: 6 easy ways to keep your customers loyal throughout these holidays

The Holiday season is the perfect opportunity to maximise your attraction’s sales by creating fun and engaging campaigns that your customers will love. That's why we wanted to make this holiday season a little bit easier for you by sharing 6 holiday marketing ideas that will help you inject a bit more life into the rest of your 2022 holiday campaigns.

If you're in a rush but still want to get the compact version of these Holiday Marketing tips and tricks, feel free to jump ahead to our infographic!

So, draw strength, and let’s give it one last push! It’s time to make the most of these last weeks of the year and maximise your venue’s sales!

As you probably noticed, when the holiday season is approaching, an increasing number of consumers are searching online for gifts and ideas, and buyers are motivated to give presents. Hence ready to buy. Keep in mind that every attraction will take the holiday season as an opportunity to reach potential customers.

As a result, your customer's attention is pulled in many different directions, and therefore, a great deal of time and creativity will be demanded from you to come up with something original that will encourage their action. This is exactly why it’s the perfect time to power up your marketing efforts!

1. Build customer loyalty with personalized gifts

Did you know that according to a research carried out by Emarsys, loyal customers spend 67% more on products and services than new customers? Even though your most loyal customers only make up 20% of your audience, they provide up to 80% of your revenue! Therefore, make sure you take care of your most loyal customers because it is critical to your business's long-term success.

Christmas holidays are an awesome opportunity to remind your customers that you appreciate their support while encouraging them to continue visiting your venue. Surprising them with a personalized gift is a great way to show them your appreciation, and in addition, the fact that you already know which are their preferences and interests will leave them flabbergasted!

Why don’t you give your most loyal visitors a coupon for the restaurants at your venue that’s valid for the rest of the year? They will for sure enjoy the free meal once they come back to your venue! It’s details like that what makes them choose you over any other venue. Remember, people might forget what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel. 

2. Get seasonal in your email marketing too

Email marketing is one of the most important tools for marketers; you can actually reach a large number of consumers for a cheap price, and besides, it allows you to send targeted messages, increase brand awareness, and stay in touch with your audience. That’s why you should not underestimate this channel, particularly during this time of the year!

Adapt both the design of the emails and the content to the forthcoming holiday season. Adding a holiday snowman, stars, or a tree to your subject line will grab their attention more easily. In fact, did you know that brands using emoji in their subject lines have seen a 45% increase in their unique open rates? You might as well give it a try!

You can also use email marketing to provide some inspiration to your customers. More than any other holiday, Christmas is about family reunions and meetings with friends, and gift-giving is typically a key element of any of these events. So, why don’t you send them a couple of gift guides that they can craft at home? Show them how to create a funny zebra mask or whatever their children’s favourite animal at your venue is so that they can “zoo it themselves”, they will love this kind of creative idea for some last-minute surprises or gifts!

3. Adapt your SEO and SEM strategies

As you probably are already aware there has been an accelerated growth of  eCommerce during these lastfew years. We all have gone online now, which means that you need to make sure that you are performing as best as possible in the online world.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) are obviously crucial all year round, but during the holiday season, it’s especially important to use both techniques to reach customers searching for gifts. You want to make sure that your content shows up in search engine results for gifts or presents- related searches by including the right keywords on your website.

Update product descriptions, copy of the different landing pages, and headings on key sales pages. At this time of year, people are mostly searching online for “Halloween gifts,” “gift ideas,” and other related search terms; make sure you include as many keywords as possible so that you stand out on different search results.

4. Bundle items

You might be wondering what exactly is the benefit of offering bundles, well, the main benefit is that your customer sees it as a “bargain”. Products bundled together increase the perceived value of the products, and this increases your average cart spend as well as your conversion rate. Take a good look at your top-selling products in order to make a good selection of the products or services you will be bundling.

For example, a good idea for spas would be to sell a bundle that includes two tickets and a cool bathrobe that is needed to wear for the day that your customers visit your spa. Doesn’t it look like a good present for this holiday?

5. Run a holiday giveaway on social media

According to Statista, over 3.6 billion people are using social media worldwide. That’s an insanely huge amount of people that you can easily have access to. Make sure your venue takes advantage of this! Especially, now that there has been a huge growth of eCommerce and the online world, you should take the chance to engage with your customers by using these broad networks. Social media helps you extend your reach, drive engagement, and bring in more sales indeed.

Organising a giveaway for those who share a picture taken at your venue this year could be a great idea to increase your venue’s visibility on the different social media channels! It is also a nice way of increasing engagement because if you offer any kind of gift for the giveaway (something such as a free golden ticket), many users will be willing to share their favourite moments at your venue!

6. Don't forget after Christmas

There is a blurry period between Christmas and when people go back to work in the new year, and there are different ways to push your sales during this “after Christmas'' period. If you have not been offering discounts during the holidays, maybe you should consider boosting some sales right after Christmas, so that the ones who did not get their wanted presents from Santa have another chance now.

But you don’t necessarily need to offer discounts, there are many different ways to stimulate your venue’s sales during this period. You can also take the chance and release a new product together with the new year. From a psychological standpoint, customers are in the “new” mindset, so this is also a good option to follow.

A good way of awakening interest in your prospects is using push notifications, which are in fact the best tool for staying in contact with your customers on the different stages of their journey. Check out the related read “Why your venue needs to be sending Push-Notifications” and find out how you can grow your conversion rates after Christmas. But, the key is to not give up on finding the best way for your venue to keep attracting customers after the spike in holiday sales.

Do you feel ready and well-equipped to surprise your customers during this holiday? Remember that this is nothing but another great opportunity for your venue to surprise both loyal customers and prospects. This pandemic has made 2020 a tough one, but it surely won’t stop us from ending the year with successful holiday sales and satisfied customers!