Between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, I’m already starting to get email sale fatigue. Bad sign huh?
All these sales are a blur, or are they? Photo by Flickr user Chris22090.
How can you make your holiday promotions stand out among the masses? I’ve been trying to figure out which emails I open and why. Here’s what I found:
Offer free shipping. Walmart is offering free shipping this holiday season and successful online retailers like Zappos have been doing this for years.
Be a part of what’s going on locally, in terms of events and search. If 73% of all online activity is related to local search, try to optimize for your products or services locally. You can even add a coupon go your Google Places listing for free (the listing is also free). So why wouldn’t you?
Try out a group buying site, or offer group buying on your site. Websites like Groupon (coming to Portland Maine soon!) are a way to get your business in front of a lot of local eyeballs. The idea isn’t limited to local businesses; if you sell things online, you could offer a deal like this.
Create a gift list, with photos. Like everyone, I’m stuck on a few people. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent browsing the ‘Treasury’ section of Etsy this weekend looking for nice gifts for a few people on my list. If you put a nice list with photos on your website for ‘pseudo in-laws who have everything you can think of getting them’ and ‘cool girlfriends who you don’t want to accidentally impose your decorating or fashion taste on’, I will buy something from you.
What’s your favorite way a company has stood apart from the bazillion sales happening in the next week?