5 Christmas promotions to help you meet your year-end sales targets

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As the days go by and the end of the years approaches, it’s time to start thinking about how you can meet your year-end sales goals. Christmas promotions are a great way to do this for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies, including companies in the cannabis industry.

Email marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your Christmas promotions and when you follow the do’s and don’ts of email marketing while on vacation.

Once you are familiar with current holiday email marketing best practices, it is time to come up with some promotions to increase sales and year-end sales. Below are five popular promotions that people are looking for and want to receive over the last few months of the year.

1. Time-limited and limited quantity offers

Time-limited and limited quantities (e.g. while supplies last) are very effective in creating a sense of urgency and the fear of missing out on something (FOMO) that people feel during Christmas shopping, very effective in the season – even more so in the year 2021 with widespread delays in the supply chain.

A minimum of three email marketing messages are required for limited time and volume limited offers. First, you need to email your audience before the offer starts so they know it’s coming. That creates awareness and anticipation. Next, at the beginning of the offer, you should send an email with a reminder that the offer will end soon to reinforce the sense of urgency. Finally, send a last chance message just before the offer ends (or when supplies are almost out) reminding them that time is almost up and they must act quickly to get the offer.

2. Increase in the incentive program for the referral program

Referral marketing should be part of your marketing plan year round, but it’s definitely worth offering additional referral incentives during the holidays to help increase year-end sales. Address your existing customers and leads via email and give them an additional incentive to refer customers. That additional incentive can be a discount for the people they refer you, as well as a discount for the customer or lead who refer them.

For example, if you typically offer a 10% discount on a follow-up purchase after a referral from a customer or lead, increase that discount to 20% during the holiday season. When someone recommends a new customer, they get a 20% discount and the person they referred gets a 10% discount. Of course, both discounts should expire before the end of the year so you can meet your sales goals.

Determine when the increased incentive will start and end, then send at least three email marketing messages to let your current customers and leads know that the special offer is coming and when the offer starts and just before it ends.

Most importantly, make sure that it is easy for your audience to share the offer and that both your audience and anyone else they refer to actually receive the discount or other incentive you are offering. People are busy at the end of the year so the process needs to be simple or they probably won’t invest the time to take advantage of the offer.

3. Date-specific offers

More than three in four email marketers (77%) say investing in email advertising on Black Friday brings significant returns, according to a new study by Pathwire. In other words, despite the fact that people are inundated with Black Friday email messages, the reality is that those messages are still working.

With that in mind, plan for Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday promotions and make sure your target audiences are aware of these offers by creating dedicated email marketing campaigns before each holiday and on each holiday.

Black Friday and Cyber ​​Monday aren’t the only date-specific promotions you can create to increase annual sales. Consider the following dates from the widely celebrated US holidays in November and December for other year-end promotions:

4. Buy-One-Get-One (BOGO) offers

Buy-one-get-one promotions are perfect for the holiday season as they allow people to buy something from you and get a second to give (or keep for themselves) to a charity or someone else. The deal could be a real BOGO, or you could put one deal up to buy and get half a discount on a second (or other discount of your choice).

This type of advertising has become popular for any type of product or service. Retailers and restaurants even offer to buy a gift card and get a discount on a second. For example, it is common to see offers to buy a € 50 gift card and receive € 10 off a second gift card of the same value.

These type of promotions don’t necessarily have to be as short as limited-time offers, but they should have clear deadlines to help motivate people to take advantage of them before the end of the year. You could offer a BOGO for the month of December and send out an email campaign every week promoting it and a final message on the last day of the promotion to give people one last chance to buy.

5. Countdown Actions

Countdown actions make sense at the end of the year if you are used to counting down until Christmas or New Year’s Eve. So, consider sending a message every day during a specific countdown period. The countdown can either lead to a final large offer, or you can send a smaller offer each day.

A popular way to structure a countdown advertisement during the holidays is to send a series of “Days of Giving” email messages. For example, you could do a 12 day giving promotion (or any number of days of your choice) and send a message each day with a different discount, giveaway, or other incentive. In line with the “Days of Giving” theme, you can even include a donation from sales made directly through the campaign.

Make sure to add a calendar to visually show the countdown as it runs. This creates additional excitement and anticipation so people are looking for the next message in the campaign to see what the next special offer will be.

Key insights to help you meet your end-of-year sales targets with Christmas promotions

Christmas promotions can help you meet your year-end sales goals, but only if you follow the do’s and don’ts of vacation email marketing, plan your promotions to suit your audience, and anticipation, anticipation, and curiosity in the run-up to and during your funding period.

Ready to send your Christmas promotions to cannabis and hemp license holders? Schedule a demo of the Cannabiz media license database to see how you can engage with your target audience using effective sales approach and email marketing.