Holidays are some of the best opportunities for brands to turn visitors into long term customers — unfortunately, most brands miss out because of a lack of planning. To help, we’ve outlined some of the most important US holidays to consider when creating a marketing plan, as well as a few tactics to best leverage these days.
Why Holiday Sales Are Great For Brands
People search for things to buy during the holidays. This creates a unique opportunity for your brand to connect with new users that are more open to trying new products. Even better: you can test different offers and angles on cold traffic to see which offers prove most enticing.
What Sales Should We Offer?
The best sales are straightforward; the most popular are sitewide sales and product bundles. If you offer a sitewide sale, A/B test callouts for specific percentages off and the total potential savings — you might find that your customers respond better to one.
Example
Percentage Savings
“Save 20% site-wide through November 21st!”
Dollar Savings
“Now through November 21st, save up to $75 on your order!”
What Holidays Should Have Sales?
Below are the top US holidays in 2021 we recommend including in your marketing plan to capture more sales, develop timeless brand awareness, and keep relevant with your customers. While this list isn’t exhaustive, it provides a foundation for your annual marketing plan to ensure you’re ready for the most popular holidays.
- New Year’s Day: January 1st
- Memorial Day: May 31st
- Independence Day: July 4th
- Labor Day: September 6th
- Veterans Day: November 11th
- Thanksgiving: November 25th
- Black Friday: November 26th
- Cyber Weekend: Nov 27-28th
- Cyber Monday: November 29th
- Christmas Day: December 25th
- New Year’s Eve: December 31st
Special holidays for your product or industry
In addition to the 11 national holidays we’ve listed, there are an ever-growing number of industry-specific holidays celebrated across social media: National Ice Cream Day, World Pharmacist Day, Houseplant Appreciation Day, Pie Day (not to be confused with Pi Day) — if there’s an industry for it, there’s probably a day for it.
These “holidays” can be especially effective because brands compete on a smaller scale — against other ice cream brands prepared with an advertising strategy, for instance. It can also be easier to get people excited about your product on an otherwise ordinary day.
In many instances, there can even be an opportunity to become an organizer or leader within a community/vertical for that given holiday — especially for small businesses.
Our recommendation: prepare an ad strategy for any “holidays” celebrating your products.
How expensive are paid ads during the holidays?
Year-end holidays are some of the most expensive times to run paid ads. While this shouldn’t deter you from continuing to grow, a 20-35% cost increase from historical averages is typical during November and December.
When you’re building your annual marketing plan, you’re identifying new ways to grow. Remember to look at the holidays that best relate to your brand and add them to the schedule. It might be the next best way for you to add a new stream to your brand’s annual revenue.
