Did you know that 39% of all holiday sales fall for November, the month when Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States (according to Bing Ads research)? That’s a special time for customers. So, you should tailor the most competitive and creative marketing ideas to make Thanksgiving memorable for all your Shopify store buyers.
In case you want to attract more potential customers and scale your online business, see the marketing ideas we suggest to implement.
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Thanksgiving Day in Facts and Stats
Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States, Canada, and some other countries. It gives rise to the holiday season. And the first one after Thanksgiving Day – Black Friday – marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. It’s interesting that 2 of 5 respondents plan to buy presents immediately after Thanksgiving Day. And 47% of them are likely to do their holiday shopping during seasonal sales (IPSOS and Yahoo, 2014).
As Thanksgiving is the day when most consumers choose to spend time with family and friends, online shopping is more preferable. In 2018, shoppers spent $5.27 billion online over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend (MuchNeeded, 2019).
If you want to know what products online customers are going to buy on Thanksgiving Day, they are extremely diverse. Most buyers will purchase clothing (38%), 24% will buy small electronics and jewelry, 20% will purchase perfume (MuchNeeded, 2019).
Top Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas
Upsell and Cross-Sell Your Products
The idea to upsell and cross-sell your products is always useful, profitable and appropriate despite it’s holiday time or not. Don’t pass by this marketing idea on Thanksgiving Day as it doesn’t only help customers save their time and choose the products they need, but also increase your average order value and profit.
With Upsell app for shopify it’s much easier to create win-win offerings and to enhance customers shopping experience during the Thanksgiving holiday as a result.
Sell in Bundles
Don’t disregard the idea on Thanksgiving Day. During these busy days, your customers undoubtedly will be grateful for themed product bundles that can be used as gifts for the following holidays. Moreover, when you put 3 or more relevant items together, you can offer your customers a discount. Undoubtedly, they’ll appreciate it and more likely visit your Shopify store again. Product Bundles app by Mageworx can help you group your Thanksgiving merchandise and increase your store’s sales while meeting customer demand.
Offer Date-Certain Shipping
Thanksgiving is a day when most buyers stay at home with their family and friends. It’s important for customers not to worry about whether their orders are delivered on time. It’s a great chance for you to offer your online shoppers an opportunity to choose the date they want their purchases to be delivered. Providing your customers with such an option you’ll improve their shopping experience and increase conversion as well.
So, if you want to let the buyers choose a preferable day and time of delivery for their orders, Local Delivery Date app ‑ NearBuy by Mageworx could help introduce such functionality in your Shopify store.
Create Holiday Pop-ups
You can’t underestimate the significance of pop-ups. With their help, you can do the following:
- convert online visitors into customers and increase the number of your subscribers,
- boost sales increasing the sense of urgency,
- prevent cart abandonment,
- keep in touch with your buyers by saying them greetings or congratulations with holidays, and so on.
Shoppers are more likely to purchase from your Shopify store on Thanksgiving Day when pop-ups share the spirit of the holiday.
JP Ourse is a great example of successful pop-up usage. In one small pop-up, the retailer includes congratulations on Thanksgiving Day, creates a sense of urgency by offering a 48-hours-only deal, and also provides customers with a 20% off.
Offer Gift Wrapping
Gift wrapping is an essential part of every holiday. For every customer, this option means that they save their time and efforts. Shoppers will be ready to spend more just in order to get their orders for holidays already wrapped. For your brand, it’s a chance to earn extra thanks to this service. Or, on the contrary, you can offer gift wrapping for free in case shoppers buy goods for a certain sum of money. It’s a great deal!
Use Theme Decoration
This Thanksgiving marketing idea can help push up sales on your website by creating a holiday spirit. Customers are more likely to buy from your store if you maintain their holiday mood. The best way to do it is to use a certain theme decoration.
Apply Holiday-Theme Based Packaging
One of the aims of every merchant is to attract more visitors, convert them into customers, build long-lasting relationships and win their loyalty. During holidays, you can enhance the connection with buyers by using holiday-themed based packaging. It gives a sense of a limited edition or uniqueness and makes products different from the competition. This amazing Thanksgiving marketing idea will make the holidays more memorable for your customers and their loyalty to the brand will increase.
Create a Sense of Urgency
If you want to make your customers buy more on Thanksgiving, give them a sense of urgency by creating time-limited offers. For a better effect, you can set a timer to your thanksgiving holiday deals which will encourage shoppers to hit the button before time is over.
Start Month-Long Deals
November is a very busy month for shoppers, as they have a lot of things and choices to do in advance of seasonal holidays. So, you can be ahead of other online stores by running Thanksgiving marketing deals earlier in November and holding them till the end of the month. In this case, you’ll get gratitude from your buyers as they don’t have to be in a rush and have more time to decide on what to buy for the holidays.
Implement Email Marketing
Thanksgiving email marketing idea could become a good assistant in boosting your sales and expanding customer base. Thanks to it you can congratulate your shoppers on Thanksgiving and remind to buy gifts, or offer a pleasant bonus if buyers do purchases on this day.
For example, Nordstrom in its email congratulates customers on Thanksgiving and offers a 20% discount for selected sale items.
Favor Customers with Free Shipping
Free shipping is a sure Thanksgiving marketing idea. It can be proved by the fact that 90% of online shoppers spend more if free shipping is offered (Netpeak, 2019). It doesn’t matter what kind of products customers purchase, they prefer buying goods with free shipping.
You can increase the average order value by suggesting free shipping for orders over a certain cost. For example, in 2018 on Thanksgiving day Silvert’s offered free shipping on orders over $50.
Create Landing Pages
In order to save customers’ time and improve their shopping experience, it’s a good idea to create holiday-focused landing pages. You can pick all the products that are relevant to a certain holiday and list them there. With the help of such pages, you speed up customers’ way to purchases and as a result, increase their satisfaction from shopping on your website.
Develop a Social-Media Marketing Campaign
We are living in a world of social networking. Thanks to this powerful Thanksgiving marketing campaign idea, you can grab the attention of a wide range of potential customers.
The most vivid example of successful social media marketing campaigns is Coca-Cola. Their ‘Share a Coke” campaign not only enhanced the brand’s image but also increased consumption of soft drinks by 7%. To continue the momentum and build further buzz, the brand relaunched the idea with a spin that placed its personalized drinks cans or bottles as consumable placemats at the Thanksgiving dinner table.
Give Gifts to Loyal Customers
One more wonderful idea which will help you during this Thanksgiving holiday. Providing loyal customers with free gifts on this day you show your recognition for choosing your brand. As a result, you get their respect and loyalty.
Another example could be giving your buyers free gifts in case they bring followers to your store. In this case, you’ll be able to increase the number of your potential buyers and sales.
Run a Contest
If you still haven’t chosen an idea to use, this one can be exactly what you need. Running a contest on Thanksgiving day is the best way to collect emails and data from your online shoppers. This fun Thanksgiving marketing idea is a great opportunity to reward your customers and enhance your brand image.
You can hold several funny contests during the holidays. For example, a contest for the best family recipe on Thanksgiving day, or a little quiz to entertain your shoppers, as well as a contest for a new Thanksgiving logo for your Shopify store.
Wrap Up
Any holiday is a busy period for every merchant. We strongly believe that thanks to our marketing ideas you’ll easily cope with this Thanksgiving holiday and achieve the best results in attracting customers, boosting your sales and increasing your profit.