Innovating Holiday Marketing

It’s beginning to look a lot like...Christmas? Wait, a minute. It’s August. But while consumers are thinking about back-to-school, many retailers already have their holiday plans locked and loaded.

It’s not too late to leverage innovative promotional techniques to boost the effectiveness of the campaigns you already have planned for Q4. Whatever you've got planned, whether it's holiday marketing messages via email/social/mobile channels or special holiday promotions, rewards, pre-sales, or exclusive access events, you can add gamification elements to make those tactics more effective. And it's not too late to do it, even though it's almost September. 

Here are a few ways to breathe new life your current strategy:

Promotions: Are you planning traditional email campaigns, a holiday-oriented social media push, text communications, or advertising? Use a promotion as new content for these existing communications channels and enjoy better conversion and ROI.

Rewards: If you’re already planning to offer coupons, rewards, or discounts during Q4 to attract people to your website or store for holiday shopping, think about gamifying it. Take the promotion you were already planning and turn it into a game that leverages customer excitement, anticipation, and fear of missing out. It will drive engagement through the roof. Gamifying your promotions increases their perceived value and doesn’t depreciate your brand like standard coupons, meaning you can get away with a smaller marginal discount. You also need less marginal discount.

Exclusive Access: Offering exclusive access is a simple way to increase scarcity and anticipation without discounting. A pre-sale, VIP program, lottery, or sampling effort to push out exclusive access to holiday discounts and sales is interesting but the Quikly mechanic can help you build buzz around that exclusive access event, which will increase participation, engagement, and activation.

Loyalty Points: Loyalty programs become key during Q4 because you want to encourage customers to choose your store or website over a competitor’s. Boost activation in your loyalty program by offering free points or a points multiplier using a gamified promotional mechanic like Quikly. 

What new, innovative things are you trying in Q4 to rise above the clutter?