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12 Great Christmas Promotion Ideas for Small Businesses

Online shoppers worldwide are expected to spend more than $200 billion in the last two months of the year [1]. Therefore, it goes without saying that there’s huge sales potential as customers gear up for the holidays. As a small business, you may be looking for some effective Christmas promotion ideas. 🎄

Fortunately, there are plenty of tried and tested strategies you can implement into your online store. From gift guides to Christmas-themed landing pages, almost any ecommerce business can benefit from the festive season.

Christmas promotion ideas

In this post, we’ll go over 12 Christmas promotion ideas 🎅. Then, we’ll provide some tips for a successful Christmas marketing campaign. Let’s begin!

📚 Table of contents:

  1. Offer time-sensitive discounts
  2. Promote seasonal gift cards
  3. Create a gift guide
  4. Offer gift bundles
  5. Have an upsell strategy and/or cross-sell strategy
  6. Organize a Christmas giveaway
  7. Give free gifts with large orders
  8. Promote free shipping and expanded returns
  9. Run a Christmas email campaign
  10. Create Christmas landing pages
  11. Give your website a makeover
  12. Encourage user-generated content

1. Offer time-sensitive discounts

One of the best ways to encourage customers to buy is to create limited-time offers. These types of discounts create a sense of urgency. Before Christmas, you could offer a high-stakes “gift grab” as seen below:

A 48-hour gift grab in an ecommerce store - a good example of Christmas promotion ideas.

You might run this flash sale on a single day or over a few days. If you want the discounts to have an impact on your profits, it’s best to be generous.

Also, you’ll need to advertise your Christmas promotions prominently, especially on your website. You can create a countdown timer using a plugin like HurryTimer.

If you have a WooCommerce store, you can use a tool such as Advanced Coupons to create limited-time coupons.

2. Promote seasonal gift cards

The global gift card market is expected to be valued at over $500 billion by 2025 [2]. Therefore, seasonal gift cards are another excellent Christmas promotion idea.

Shoppers will have the option to purchase a gift card if they don’t know what to get their loved ones. You can create branded gift cards for added holiday flair:

Seasonal gift card offerings at Target.com.

It’s also a good idea to provide digital versions, as some shoppers might have friends or relatives who live abroad:

A digital gift card for The Ordinary.

Additionally, you might want to create a “Gift Card FAQ” to reduce confusion over their usage. If you’re looking for a tool to create gift cards, you might try PW WooCommerce Gift Cards or Advanced WooCommerce Gift Cards.

3. Create a gift guide

Shopping for the holidays can be overwhelming. Gift guides help shoppers narrow down their search by providing recommendations. Typically, a gift guide separates products into categories, like “For the Guys” or “Under $50:”

A gift guide is a popular Christmas promotion idea.

This can be useful for shoppers on a budget or those looking for particular gifts. You can also get a bit more creative with your gift guides. For example, ASOS has fun categories like “fancy stuff” and “techy bits:”

A gift guide featuring creative categories like "fancy stuff" and "stocking fillers".

If you opt for this Christmas promotion idea, make sure you have a sufficient stock of the featured items. If you don’t have enough products for a gift guide but your site has a blog, you can use it to promote your affiliate products in a post while mixing in your own items.

4. Offer gift bundles

Gift bundles are another great way to drive conversions. Any ecommerce store can create a bundle, but they work better when you have small items that pair with others, like skincare products:

Gift sets in an online store - another one of effective Christmas promotion ideas.

Alternatively, you can partner up with other brands to create gift sets:

Gift bundles for astrological signs.

For instance, if you sell candles, you could collaborate with an essential oil brand. You might even create bundles around an idea, such as an astrological sign!

5. Have an upsell strategy and/or cross-sell strategy

While gift bundles can be highly effective, they might not be suitable for everyone. As a small business, you may be looking for something simpler that you can benefit from year-round.

If that’s the case, you might consider launching an upsell strategy, or a cross-sell strategy. This involves promoting pricier alternatives or complementary items on your product pages.

These products are often featured on a side panel or at the bottom of a page. They’re usually included under a heading like “Complete The Look:”

Cross-selling using a "Complete The Look" section in an online store.

For non-clothing stores, you could use different categories. For example: “Frequently bought together” or “People also like.”

WooCommerce has a Product Recommendations add-on, but there are other tools you could use. For example, Sparks for WooCommerce is a popular plugin that lets you cross-sell items while also applying discounts based on your custom configurations.

6. Organize a Christmas giveaway

Everyone loves free stuff! You can use Christmas giveaways to prompt users to complete an action, leading them through your sales funnel.

For example, if you want to grow your following, you could host a giveaway on social media:

A Christmas giveaway on Instagram - always good among your Christmas promotion ideas.

It’s common to ask users to “like” your post or “tag a friend” to enter a giveaway. This type of engagement can give your social profiles a boost and create hype around your brand.

Alternatively, you could use a giveaway to persuade visitors to sign up for your newsletter or loyalty program:

A member giveaway on an ecommerce website - great for Christmas promotion ideas.

This strategy is good for small businesses because you can limit the winners. Plus, you can offer one of your products or smaller items from your brand partners – or both!

7. Give free gifts with large orders

Encouraging larger orders with free gifts is another one of our excellent Christmas promotion ideas. You can further maximize your profits by only offering these gifts for a limited time:

A free, limited-time gift on an ecommerce website.

You might think this is an expensive strategy for small businesses, but that’s not always the case. By offering free gifts, you can get rid of excess stock or any products you plan to discontinue:

A limited-time free gift promotion on a website - never fails as Christmas promotion ideas.

This way, you can clear out your inventory while building brand loyalty.

8. Promote free shipping and expanded returns

When you’re doing all your holiday shopping online, shipping costs can add up. Plus, it’s also a bit risky to buy Christmas presents on the internet, as recipients may be unable to exchange or return a gift.

You can help customers make purchases more confidently by offering free shipping on orders over a certain price:

Free shipping on larger orders is another popular Christmas promotion idea.

However, you’ll want to calculate your free shipping threshold carefully to make sure you’re maximizing profits.

It’s fairly common for stores to expand return policies during the holidays. For example, if you usually give customers 30 days to return an item, you may give them 45 or even 60:

A holiday return policy.

Also, make sure to outline specific dates and details on your return policy page.

9. Run a Christmas email campaign

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to reach customers. If you don’t already have an email marketing strategy in place, the holidays are a good time to start one.

You could start by promoting any of your Christmas content, such as gift bundles, limited-time deals, and more. You can also use an email campaign for your gift guides:

Christmas promotion email.

While you’ll want to avoid annoying users with excessive emails over the holidays, they’ll likely be expecting a fuller inbox. So, don’t be afraid to reach out!

In order to create a robust campaign, it’s a good idea to use an email marketing service, such as Mailchimp or Brevo:

Brevo email marketing software will help you run Christmas promotion ideas.

Using either of these tools, you can streamline your workflow and automate your marketing emails.

10. Create Christmas landing pages

A landing page is a standalone web page designed to lead users to carry out a specific action:

Door Dash doing Christmas promotion ideas

The action can be anything that contributes to a conversion or your long-term goals. Encouraging signups for free trials or newsletters are common calls-to-action (CTA).

Landing pages are usually rather minimalist. They may feature a form, a CTA button, and an eye-catching graphic or heading.

Some page builders come with customizable landing page templates. Alternatively, you can use a dedicated plugin like Otter Blocks.

11. Give your website a makeover

If you have the time and the resources, you may want to give your site a Christmas makeover. You can use the holidays as an excuse to complete any upgrades you’ve been putting off. This way, your site is ready for the extra traffic.

Additionally, you could make slight changes to your site to get into the holiday spirit. This can be as simple as a festive banner on your homepage:

Gamestop's Christmas promotions.

You could even add green and red elements to highlight Christmas promotions:

A limited time only sale on the Pottery Barn website. This is an excellent Christmas promotion idea.

A little makeover can go a long way. The point is to get your visitors excited about Christmas. While you’re at it, make sure that whatever Christmas promotion images you add aren’t slowing down your online store. You can do this very easily by installing a free image optimization plugin like Optimole.

12. Encourage user-generated content

If you want your holiday sales to keep on giving, try to encourage user-generated content (UGC) after Christmas. When you prompt users to post about the gifts they’ve received (and which were purchased from your store), you can help increase brand awareness:

Instagram promotional post.

If you’re on a strict marketing budget, this can replace influencer content. While it may not improve your bottom line for the current year, it can help you gain new customers over time.

To support this type of user engagement, you might launch an Instagram or Twitter campaign with unique hashtags for gifts received during the holidays. You could even turn it into a contest!

Tips for a successful Christmas marketing campaign

Now that you have an extensive toolkit of Christmas promotion ideas, here are some tips for executing them effectively:

  • Establish your goals. 💡 Before you launch a Christmas marketing plan, you’ll want to establish clear, measurable goals. For instance, you may want to increase conversions for a particular product line or boost engagement on social media.
  • Promote your promotions. 📢 Even if you’re using all 12 of the Christmas promotion ideas on this list, your efforts may fall flat if you don’t properly advertise your deals. Make your customers aware of promotions using banners and eye-catching graphics. Advertise on your website, via email, and on social channels.
  • Create a seasonal content calendar. 📅 Chances are you’re going to invest a lot of time and effort into your holiday campaigns. Therefore, it’s important that you plan ahead with a content calendar that organizes and optimizes your blog articles and social media posts.
  • Audit your tools. 🧰 The right ecommerce tools can make your job a lot easier. Consider upgrading software for email marketing, coupon creation, and more. This might help your Christmas promotions run smoothly.

Put simply, the more organized you are, the more successful your Christmas marketing strategies will be.

Conclusion 🧐

A Christmas marketing campaign can make or break your last quarter, especially if you run a small online business. However, you might be struggling to make your ecommerce store stand out amid the holiday noise.

Luckily, you can implement some of our Christmas promotion ideas. You could give limited-time offers, gift bundles, and extended returns. Additionally, you can run a Christmas giveaway, give your site a seasonal makeover, or design a holiday email campaign.

Do you have any questions about our Christmas promotion ideas? 🧑‍🎄 Let us know in the comments section below!

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John Hughes
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