﻿Didn't have time to start your holiday marketing preparations early? Here's what you have to do.
Hey, Nora from Printful here! Not every store owner can find the time to prepare for the
holidays months ahead of time, especially if your business is a side hustle. Even though up to 50%
of holiday shoppers plan to start shopping early—in September and October—not
everything always goes as planned. For every late-to-the-party store owner, there
are still a bunch of late-to-the-party customers who have not yet started their holiday shopping.
In this video, we'll go through the four steps you need to take to get you ready for this holiday
season in just a few days... or even hours.
First thing's first, before you do anything else, check your order deadlines for partners
and suppliers that you work with. These are the suggested dates by which your customers
should place orders to receive them in time for the holidays. The deadlines can vary,
depending on your suppliers and the holiday you are marketing for, so be sure to check
in with your production partners. You need to do this because you are
going to plan all of your marketing and promotions around these key dates. All of
your marketing activities have to take place before the order deadlines so your customers
can enjoy your products during the holidays. Incorporate deadlines in all of your marketing
copy and add them to your social media profiles or cover photos.
At Printful, we notify all our customers when we publish our shipping deadlines for Christmas,
and you can find them on our Holiday Order Deadlines page.
If the main holiday you're focusing on is Christmas, Black Friday and Cyber Monday will
probably be at the center of your campaign. Put these dates in your calendar and start
planning your content.
No need to stress over new holiday designs—that ship has sailed a while ago.
Instead, focus on what has already worked. Take your best sellers and put them at the
center of your last-minute holiday campaign. And don't forget about the visuals. People
remember up to 80% of what they see, and only about 20% of what they read. If you
have any time at all to prepare for the holiday season, create new, eye-catching imagery for your
social media posts, emails, and your website. Just because you're not adding new holiday designs
doesn't mean you can't have any holiday cheer on your store. Check out Printful’s
Mockup Generator—we add special holiday mockups to the list every holiday season,
which you can use if you’re selling with us. You can also try out services like PlaceIt or Canva to
create new product mockups, design banners, social media posts, and more. You can find a link to
all of these resources in the description below.
Most of your customers will be expecting discounts this holiday season, with Black
Friday & Cyber Monday shoppers usually looking for at least 20% off. Keeping that in mind,
getting a good deal doesn’t always mean getting a discount—you can find your own way of making
the customers feel festive, like offering customer loyalty points, a special secret
live stream with you or other cost-effective bonuses they might be interested in.
But, since you might not have a lot of time to set everything up right now, don't overpromise.
Better set the date of your live stream or other bonus content later in the year,
so that you can find time to get ready for it. Here are some marketing activities that are easy
to set up and good for last-minute sales: 1. Create a gift guide
This may take a little more time, but if you create any new, in-depth content for this season,
make it a gift guide for your store. This can be a blog post, a landing page, an email,
or a social media post. Pinterest is definitely a good place for that kind of content, so check out
our video on Pinterest marketing to learn more. You can even include other stores in your niche
on your gift guide. Reach out to them, and see if they will share your guide,
bringing in more revenue for both of you! The good side of this marketing activity is
that you don't necessarily have to offer discounts or loyalty points to create a gift guide, however,
it might help to do so. 2. Do a flash sale
A flash sale is a discount offered by an ecommerce store for a short period of time. This time limit
often causes customers to buy on the spot. You can do a flash sale for select products
or you can apply the discounts sitewide. Flash sales are perfect for last-minute
preparations because you only need to promote the sale for a limited number of days or hours,
focusing all of your energy on this one event and reaping the benefits after.
It does make the most sense to do a flash sale on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, as shoppers will be
out there looking for good deals and will be more likely to buy from your sale. However,
you can try out a flash sale a few days before or after, if you want to try out doing it on
a day with less competition everywhere. Just remember to do it before your order deadlines.
3. Offer discount codes or coupons Another way to reward your followers,
as well as draw in new customers, is to offer them discount codes via social media,
email, or even your website. Some people may be interested in buying but are just waiting for
the right push to get them to follow through. You could offer your customers two types of
discounts. First, money or percentage discounts. These are the most popular,
straightforward coupons. They work by discounting an item or total order value
by a specific dollar amount or a percentage. Second, you can consider total cart value coupon
codes. These are coupons that can only be applied when a customer has met certain
criteria like order value or number of products purchased. These types of coupons do wonders
when your goal is to get people to buy more. Setting up discount coupons may take some time,
depending on the type of ecommerce platform or marketplace you are using, so start by researching
how to set up the coupons. Don't leave that for the night before you start promoting them!
4. Promote free shipping Shipping costs are one of the
biggest pain points for customers: 44% of shopping cart abandonment occurs due
to shipping charges. So get your customers closer to a sale by offering free shipping!
You can set a minimum order amount to get free shipping. This will push your customers
to buy more from your site. Or you can offer free shipping as a coupon code just for your
loyal customers and social media followers. Just remember you’re not actually offering
shipping for free, you're adding the shipping costs to your retail price.
It may seem counterintuitive to raise your prices, but customers still feel like it's
a good deal when shipping is free. Feel free to mix and match any of these
activities, but don't overwhelm yourself with a lot of work. There's a reason you're only now
starting to prepare for the holiday season—going small this year is a lot better than overplanning
and not finishing anything.
Once you've set up your marketing activities and prepared the visuals, get ready for at
least a day of active communication. Be there for your customers to answer their questions,
build loyalty by reaching out and thanking them for their purchases, comments, and reviews.
Build a presence and don’t be afraid to make adjustments on the fly to get the best results.
Another great way to get the attention of your followers and show that you are there for them
is to go live on social media. You can show off the products on sale in your store or pick a topic
related to your niche and do a Q&A session. And finally, don't forget to go through the
checkout process yourself to make sure there are no hiccups and your customers will be able to get
their orders in time for the holidays.
If you don’t have time to create gift guides, set up discounts, and design breathtaking visuals,
just plan to be on social media when the big wave of holiday shoppers hits,
post whatever content you do have, send at least one email and remind your followers
and customers that you are there and you have something to offer them.
What matters is that your customers find your store,
and for that, any action you take is enough. You can find a checklist of all four steps
and the resources I mentioned to help you along the way in the description below.
Is it your first holiday season, or are you an experienced player in the
game? Do you have any tips for other store owners? Let us know in the comments below!
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latest content and check out other videos on our channel to help your store become more successful.