You can’t ignore it: there’s a certain buzz in the air. The holiday season is upon us.

As store owners, you survived the biggest shopping weekend of the year. But even with Black Friday Cyber Monday behind us, shoppers are still scrambling to buy last minute gifts, pushing the limits of your shipping deadlines. And if you have a retail presence, that chaos can last until closing time on Christmas Eve.

If your customers are celebrating Ramadan or Hanukkah or just looking forward to popping the New Year’s cork, they’re in a buying spirit. With a few last-minute tweaks to your store design, festive product collections, and creative holiday marketing ideas, you can make the most of the next few weeks. 

Even if you don’t sell seasonal products or gifts, consider the massive opportunity the holiday season brings. Holiday ecommerce sales are projected to top $209.7 billion in the US alone. Although spending will be down overall, online holiday sales will see a 2.5% bump over 2021.

Ahead, you’ll find a huge list of holiday marketing campaign ideas, including gift guides, email marketing campaign examples, and festive apps to get your store ready for the holiday shopping season. 

Getting your store holiday ready

Now that you know why it’s worthwhile to get in the holiday spirit, let’s talk about how to do it. Holiday preparation for commerce stores usually happens much earlier in the year, as you consider and get ready for:

• Increased inventory needs 
• Seasonal staff hiring
• Shipping deadlines and policies
• Holiday marketing campaigns
• Packing and shipping supplies
• Holiday-themed product development
• Festive store design and assets
• Holiday returns and exchanges policy
• Gift-giving product collections

If you’ve already checked all the boxes, congrats! You’re in for a smooth ride through the festive season. If not, don’t fret. With weeks to go, there’s still time to implement a last-minute holiday marketing strategy and give your store a festive facelift as you brace for holiday shoppers.

22 holiday marketing campaign ideas for ecommerce stores

Many of these holiday marketing strategies are designed to be easy to implement, even if you’re short on time and budget. The list of holiday marketing campaigns and ideas also includes apps and tools you can use to implement them, plus real examples to inspire you.

Holiday products and themed collections

1. Develop holiday-specific products or variants

For many brands, it’s too late to develop new seasonal products, unless you’re a dropshipper or use a print-on-demand model. Handmade brands may also be nimble enough to create new products. 

For everyone else, with a few tweaks to packaging or variants (say a rebranded festive sock color or holiday label for a pine-scented candle), stores can give the impression of having new offerings, even if they’re reimagined classics.

2. “Gift-ify” your existing product catalog 

Bundle products into gift packs for the holiday season, update packaging with festive add-ons like To/From tags or ribbons, and add gift wrapping as an option right on the product page or checkout. Everyday products from your core collection can generate new interest when bundled as a holiday combo and sold as gifts.

3. Offer digital gift cards 

Digital gift cards can be added to any store at any time of year. You can easily update the design to reflect the season and promote these as last-minute gift ideas to your customers. Consider featuring them prominently on your site and at the top of gift-giving collections. Promote them on social media after your shipping deadline has passed to keep holiday sales flowing until Christmas Eve.

4. Create holiday collections

Create new collections around holiday themes, categories, or gift recipients. This will help website visitors easily navigate your site for holiday shopping. Curate core products into collections like “Holiday Party Dresses,” “Gifts for Dad,” or “Toys for Toddlers.” This is an easy and free marketing strategy for a small business that is tight on time or budget.

5. Consider timed holiday “drops”

Build anticipation around new products or product variants by teasing “drops” to your social media audience or email subscribers. Example: run a “12 days of Christmas” campaign that introduces a new featured product each day leading up to your shipping deadline. Or delight your customers with a virtual advent calendar that reveals a new holiday promotion each day.

6. Add gift-wrapping as a product

Selling gift wrapping service as a separate product means it will show up prominently in search and collections. You can choose to offer this as a free add-on or to charge for premium wrap as a unique personalized shopping experience. Customers purchasing gifts will appreciate this convenience during the busy festive season.

Holiday content and social marketing

7. Develop a holiday gift guide

Help your customers navigate your store from a gift-buying perspective. Consider creating gift guides on your blog, in email marketing, or via social media. As an easy alternative, link from social media or your homepage to holiday-specific collections renamed as gift guides.

8. Promote your holiday promotions and products on social 

Reward your loyal fans with discounts and deals shared exclusively to your social followers. Use a discount app like to offer a gift with purchase, BOGO deals, or tiered discounts that drive higher cart totals. Try timed or limited daily deals that create a sense of anticipation and urgency.

9. Use content marketing to drive traffic 

A great holiday SEO strategy can help drive more prospective customers to your site. Consider what value you can offer to your customers this time of year. Whether your target audience is looking for festive recipes, unique gift ideas, or DIY content, find relevant ways to attract them through this content and drive them to your products. Consider multiple formats like gated ebooks or how-to videos.

10. Host a giveaway

 

11. Update social media headers or avatars

You may want to update social media assets like your Facebook cover image or Twitter avatar for the holiday season to remind customers that you’re a destination for gifts. Try a tool like Hatchful or Canva to create a custom logo and social media assets for the season. Also update your bio to include holiday messaging.

Holiday marketing campaigns for email

12. Send a holiday discount code to your email list

Reward existing subscribers with an email marketing campaign to drive them to your site for their shopping needs. Get creative with your subject lines—you’re competing with a ton of noise in your customers’ inboxes ahead of the holiday season. 

13. Incentivize new subscribers with a discount

You can also incentivize signups by offering a discount to new subscribers. Set up a welcome email that generates a unique coupon code for new subscribers, or use a pop-up on your site and reveal the code upon sign up.

14. Launch a timed email campaign with daily or weekly features

Kick off a multi-email campaign and help increase your open rates and click-through rates by teasing new holiday promotions and surprises each day or week. Think: daily deals, discount codes, gift with purchase, and new products. 

Holiday marketing campaign ideas for online stores

15. Swap out standard lifestyle images with festive versions

If you have the time and budget to reshoot some of your bestsellers as holiday-themed lifestyle photos, it encourages your site visitors to consider your products as gift ideas. Otherwise, browse free stock photos on sites like Burst to find images to use for collection headers and more.

16. Dress up your homepage

Add festive touches to your homepage to let buyers know you’re a destination for gifts or holiday products.

• Create a snow-falling effect on your homepage with Christmas & Snowfall Effect 
• Festive Decorations adds animated holiday icons to you store
• Greet customers with a seasonal soundtrack using Custom Background Music: Xmas

17. Add an announcement bar

An announcement bar at the top of your website can be used to announce specials or shipping deadlines to new visitors. An app like Hextom works with your Shopify store to add custom banners in seconds. Use this space to promote free shipping and other holiday campaigns. 

18. Create a gift registry or add a wish list feature

Wishlist Plus and Gift Reggie are gift registry apps that let customers save favorites and enable you to send custom marketing messages and reengage them. This is a great marketing tactic to help build your customer list—customers create an account to save favorites, helping you reengage them in future marketing campaigns.

19. Enable gift-wrapping with an app

Rather than set up wrapping as a separate product, try an app that integrates with your store. Wrapped adds a gift wrapping option directly to product pages and checkout. Customers can select from multiple options and add a gift message before adding to cart.

Promoting holiday shipping options

20. Add a countdown bar

Apps like Countdown Timer by POWr and Order Deadline remind customers of your order deadlines, with countdowns embedded in product pages. Communicating cut-off shipping dates clearly on your website can create a sense of urgency—a successful holiday marketing strategy you can use to drive sales. 

21. Create a shareable shipping calendar

Customers appreciate clear guidelines around shipping to ensure their gifts will arrive under the tree in time. Don’t make them search for it. A calendar graphic or chart with important dates is a useful asset that you can share across FAQ pages and even email and social media. 

22. Promote last-minute delivery and pick up options

If you sell to local customers, offer ordering beyond the shipping cut off, and allow customers to use curbside pick up for last minute orders from your physical store, studio, or office. You may even offer a one-time local delivery option just for the holidays.

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements. Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses.

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Article reference: https://www.shopify.com/blog/holiday-ecommerce-tools-apps