Happy November! Put down that pumpkin spice latte and grab your thinking cap because it’s time to start planning out your holiday strategy. What? Too early? No no: The consumer is allowed to think it’s too early for all the joy and cheer. But while they’re hemming and hawing about all that, they’re opening up their wallets to the tune $600 billion.
Yes, you read that right. $600 billion. With a B. So when it comes to marketing, now is the time to gear up and get after some that cashola. The early bird gets the worm, you know? The squeaky wheel gets the grease, yeah? Up with the chickens, get the best omelette, OK?
Psst — we can help you get some of that dough.
And to break it down a little further: Off that hefty pot, online retailers are pulling $89 billion of those dollars.
And while Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a couple of dates that should immediately jump to mind other days that you should be loading onto the promotional tour bus include:
Free Shipping Day
Free shipping day is December 18 this year — the day after the new Star Wars flick comes out. We’re only shoehorning that little tidbit in there so it gives us an excuse to drop this on you:
Moving on. This is generally accepted as the last day to use regular shipping on orders and still receive them before Christmas. Naturally, this is the best time to target people who have been slacking on their holiday gift-giving by sweetening the pot with an offer on free shipping.
Super Saturday
And coming literally the next day (December 19) is what’s known as Super Saturday: The last Saturday before Christmas and one of the biggest spending days of the entire year. This is a great time to target those shoppers who waited until the last possible moment to get their acts together.
Every day.
Even better with this year’s line-up of retail offerings: You can put together a pretty powerful one-two punch by extending Free Shipping Day to Super Saturday or, conversely, starting Super Saturday on Friday, making it Super Friday. Or Super Weekend. Whatever. Call it what it what you want, yo.
December 26
The day after jolly ole Saint Nick flies around the globe is a great opportunity to capitalize on two things: Gift cards and let-downs. Gift cards can be a little trickier because unless you’ve been poking around other people’s present, you can’t really be sure if your subscribers received them. You can, however, offer a sweet deal to encourage them to use that plastic cash of theirs if they actually did get one.
The other campaign you can run capitalizes on the disappointment and sadness of your customers.
Not everyone gets what they want during the holidays, which is why the day after Christmas is a primo time to toss a sale or two at your subscribers.
And those are really just the tip of the iceberg. Fact is you have from now until the new year to pepper your subscribers with amazing deals to get some of the $600 billion pie consumers are baking for retailers.
And, yo, in case you missed it above, we want to help you out. Sign up to speak with one of our strategists today and get an awesome Holiday Guide calendar to boot!
Also check out The 3 Black Friday Email Campaign Must-Do’s and The 8-Step Black Friday Checklist For Email Marketers.