Sell More Food This Holiday Season in 5 Simple Steps

The holiday season is just around the corner, and for businesses, it’s the most wonderful (and busiest) time of the year. With customers ready to spend, it’s crucial to have a marketing strategy in place to make the most of this lucrative period.

Here, we provide five essential marketing tips that will help you prepare your business for the holiday season and maximize your success.

Make sure your website design supports your holiday message.

Your website is often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers. To make a lasting impression during the holiday season, ensure that your website design aligns with your holiday message. Consider incorporating festive elements like holiday-themed banners, images, or color schemes that evoke the spirit of the season.

Your website should also be user-friendly and optimized for holiday shoppers. Streamline the purchasing process, make sure it’s mobile-responsive, and prominently display your holiday promotions and products. A well-designed website will engage visitors and encourage them to explore what your business has to offer.

Figure out what your promotions will be.

Holiday shoppers are always on the lookout for the best deals and promotions. Determine what discounts or special offers you’ll provide during the holiday season. Whether it’s “Buy One, Get One Free” deals, percentage discounts, or holiday bundles, be clear and consistent in your messaging.

There are a few key ways to narrow in on the best promotions for your website:

First, look at historical website and sales data you have. Do you have certain products that tend to be most commonly bought as gifts? Promoting those with a special deal might help take advantage of this gift-specific holiday traffic. Whatever data you have, look for trends or major successes and see if you can turn them into holiday promotions.

Next, consider running a range of promotions. To make the most of the traffic, you could even run a different promotion on high-spend days like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.

If you run multiple specials, consider creating a dedicated “Holiday Specials” section on your website where customers can easily find and browse your promotions. Don’t forget to highlight the value of your offers and emphasize how they can enhance the holiday experience for your customers.

Or, you could run different promotions for different customers. There are several ways to segment your customers: bonus gifts or free shipping for customers spending $100+, additional discounts for new customers, or an in-store deal for local customers to redeem after the holiday season.

Whether you have one discount a range of deals, the next step is to map out your marketing plan.

Set up an email campaign.

Email marketing remains a powerful tool for engaging with your audience during the holidays. Create a well-thought-out email campaign that includes:

• A festive email template that reflects your holiday branding, if any.
• Compelling subject lines to capture attention.
• Personalized product recommendations based on customer preferences and past purchases.
• Clear calls to action (CTAs) that drive recipients to your website.
• Information about upcoming promotions, sales, and events.
• Segment your email list to send targeted messages to different customer groups. For example, loyal customers might receive exclusive early-access deals, while first-time buyers could get a warm welcome and an incentive to shop again.

Make sure you also include important information on shipping time and logistics for transporting perishable foods. If you need one week to process an order, for example, your customers will want to know when they need to get orders in to have everything arriving at their door when they need it. On the other side, food products that need to be consumed relatively soon after delivery should be ordered to arrive fresh. You will need to allow customers to indicate an “arrive by” date to ensure that freshness, and avoid opening any stale items on a holiday. Whatever the relevant details are for your products, make them known, clear, and easy to understand.

When your emails are designed and ready to go, be sure to build a plan for measuring success. With online promotions, look at the number of audience members that journeyed from the email to the checkout page. It’s also helpful to look at overall percentage of people who opened the emails, people who clicked on links to your website, and sales made outside of your deals.

Schedule emails and social media posts to support your campaign.

Consistency and timing are key during the holiday season. Use a content calendar to schedule your email campaigns and social media posts strategically. Plan ahead to ensure your messaging aligns with your promotions, and schedule reminders for important dates such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and holiday shipping deadlines. The goal is to keep your customers up to date, make sure they do not miss any key deadlines or limited deals, and keep them engaged with strong content every step of the way. If you don’t have any email automations set up yet, click here to learn more about this time-saving, money-making strategy and get our welcome series template.

Social media can be a great tool for bringing out festive designs, without having to re-design your website. Red and green color schemes on posts, candy cane graphics — get creative! If holiday designs aren’t your thing, regular posts about your promotions or exclusive deals for followers will help reinforce your messaging and help expand the reach of your deals. Share engaging content like gift guides, behind-the-scenes glimpses of holiday preparations, and user-generated content that showcases your products in action. Encourage customers to share their holiday experiences with your products or services using a unique holiday-themed hashtag.

Related: Check out our blog post on how to schedule 30 days of social media content at once.

Add a countdown clock.

This last step is definitely optional, but posting a countdown of deal time remaining can be a great way to close sales. The countdown adds a sense of urgency, which can lead customers to purchase quickly or remind them to return to the site before they miss out on great deals.

Plus, you can customize the look of the countdown clock to match your branding, highlight seasonal colors or designs, and really capture your customers’ attention.

And that’s it! You are on the road to an amazing holiday season.

If you need help getting ready for the holidays, or with your marketing planning in general, contact us to set up a time to discuss your business needs.

As a final note for preparing your promotions, make sure that your website can handle the increased traffic! Work with your website developer to ensure that your site can run smoothly, and prevent any loading frustrations for customers who are ready to buy. We can help! Our team offers a variety of website support services.