Seven holiday marketing mistakes you need to avoid
Ho-ho-ho, it’s the “hap-happiest season of all”! Imagine those holiday greetings, much mistletoeing, kids jingle-belling, and everyone telling you, “Be of good cheer.”
But you… you are staring hollowly at your scanty order list and desperately trying to sell at least something. A customer or two comes by, but that’s all. Unfortunately, your holiday marketing efforts are futile.
Why so?
You have probably made one of the worst holiday marketing mistakes. Which one? Read below. We’ve collected seven typical cases when businesses fail in holiday marketing.
Seven holiday marketing mistakes you need to avoid
You wouldn’t want to fall into these traps on holidays and lose customers ever again.
Note: During the 2022 holiday season, people globally spent $1.14 trillion on online shopping. In 2024, 65% of consumers plan to maintain the same holiday budget, whereas 15% will allocate even more this year.
Let’s see what might go wrong and how you can avoid that.
Mistake #1. Limiting your holiday calendar
Halloween, Black Friday, Christmas… What else?
These are most likely the only significant days you pinpoint on your content calendar for holiday marketing. In fact, this trio ranks among the top holidays for marketers.
However, these may not be enough. When sticking with only a few holidays, you miss out on exceptional chances to widen your audience circle, increase brand awareness, boost engagement rates, and close more sales.
How to avoid this holiday marketing mistake
Leigh McKenzie, Community Advocate at Traffic Think Tank, claims the best way to achieve more gains from holidays is to “Load your marketing calendar with unconventional holidays and industry-specific events, such as World Nutella Day for food businesses or National Pet Day for pet-related brands. They will generate more targeted audiences for your brand and, consequently, more targeted traffic to your website.”
For example: The SEMrush marketers added holidays like Emoji Day to their social media calendar on LinkedIn.
Or how do you feel about creating a unique holiday in your niche? SEMrush did it with a one-of-a-kind, annual online event, Global Marketing Day.
Mistake #2. Being too late with your holiday promos
Did you know that 19% of consumers start shopping for winter holiday gifts already in October, and 29% do it in November?
“It’s never too early to warm your customers with lucrative holiday deals and promotions. Missing even a day or two may be one of the biggest holiday marketing mistakes that can seriously damage your sales rates,” notes Grant Aldrich, Founder of Preppy. So, “Take the plunge before the water’s cold—launch holiday campaigns earlier.”
How to be on time with holiday marketing
The best times to fire up your holiday campaigns in advance are:
- Valentine’s Day: one-three weeks
- Easter: two-three weeks
- Mother’s Day and Father’s Day: three-four weeks
- Independence Day: one week
- Thanksgiving: three-four weeks
- Black Friday: one-two weeks
- Christmas and New Year: six-eight weeks
For example: Sender meets website visitors with an early Black Friday deal (20% off) one week in advance, which makes it a successful SaaS marketing strategy.
The following pre-sale email from FITUEYES arrived in the customer’s inbox two weeks before Black Friday.
Mistake #3. Getting into a PR crisis amid holidays
When public relations (PR) scandals happen in the middle of festivities, they become terrible holiday marketing flops. You may even have to put your sales process on pause (and lose customers). Instead, you’ll have to deal with a pile of negative reactions, and your mind will be busy with reputation management.
Years ago, on one of Halloweens, Walmart wanted to make a treat for customers. However, it turned into an evil trick. The brand created the “Fat Girl” section with Halloween costumes and evoked the audience’s rage.
Walmart handled this PR crisis by apologizing and pulling the category down from the online shop.
How to ward off a PR holiday marketing crisis
“The first thing you should do as a business leader is to discuss all possible holiday marketing mistakes and risks with your employees and train them to handle PR catastrophes and communications,” recommends Chris Aubeeluck, Head of Sales and Marketing at Osbornes Law.
Grab more holiday marketing precautions against a PR scandal from Chris Aubeeluck:
- Get familiar with advertising laws and regulations
- Avoid joking about sensitive themes
- Craft thoughtful and inclusive messages
- Implement social listening and monitor your brand mentions continuously
Pro tip: Track hashtags like #boycott or #boycott[Your_Brand_Name], which commonly appear during PR crises.
Mistake #4. Screwing up with hashtags
What if we told you that a single hashtag can slam the brakes on your holiday campaign?
For example: Hypothetically: Consumers search for #christmaslights or #christmasnails but dig out a set of chef knives instead in this post.
Will they buy it? Unlikely. The brand chose the wrong hashtags and targeted the wrong customers.
How to pick the right hashtags for holidays
Brandy Hastings, SEO Strategist at SmartSites, warns business leaders and marketers: “Hashtags can either sink your holiday campaign’s ship or make it sail without a hitch. Being extra careful with holiday hashtags should always be at the forefront of your holiday marketing agenda. Hashtags must perfectly align with the content they are attached to.”
For example: Let’s review this post by SmartSites on Mother’s Day.
The team picked two holiday-related hashtags, #MothersDay and #CelebrateMom, and a branded hashtag, #SmartSites, to enhance brand recognition on Instagram.
Mistake #5. Failing to create the holiday mood
Whenever a holiday approaches, open your website, social media accounts, and email newsletter and ask yourself: Hey, where’s the snowstorm of cheer and festivities? The holiday is around the corner, and you haven’t prepared anything yet? Tut-tut-tut… Let’s fix this holiday marketing mistake, shall we?
How to unwrap the holiday joy
Use the following Christmas marketing ideas from brands turning Christmassy inside emails, websites, and social networks.
Via email
“Email is, inarguably, the primary source for generating new leads and customers during holidays,” claims Alex Rhodes, Founder at AutoNoMail.com. “And the holiday mood is the jam you can use to sweeten your emails for your audience on these festive days.”
For example: BARK sends daily Christmas reminders and offers to celebrate the holiday all month long with the exclusive treat-filled Advent Calendar.
Via website
Get your web pages into the festive mood for Christmas like Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola’s digital marketing campaign won the audience again last Christmas. The company encouraged customers to feel the seasonal spirit with the Santa quiz and holiday prizes when playing the Christmas mini-game on the website.
Via social channels
Here comes another great holiday marketing strategy: engage your customers on social media platforms, sprinkle merriment like confetti, and evoke positive emotions and associations with your brand.
How about creating magic moments for your customers with cozy and cute Christmas greetings? Check out this Christmas greeting from AMEA Healthcare, which warms healthcare leads and customers.
Mistake #6. Sending holiday greetings and offers in bulk
Honestly speaking, it’s one of the most unpleasant marketing mistakes during holidays. Here’s why.
Suppose you send an Easter email like this: “Easter Brunch Bakes” (from King Arthur Baking) to a Muslim customer who doesn’t celebrate Easter. Obviously, this customer won’t convert.
What’s wrong here?
The brand should have thought about inclusion (the customer may feel excluded in this case), segmented the audience, and personalized the message.
Mind: 80% of consumers want to shop from brands that understand their needs and send individual holiday offers.
How to create inclusive holiday content and personalize
Celebrate customer diversity with diverse and inclusive holidays that relate to people of different nationalities, genders, religions, races, etc. Remember to promote inclusion in your community.
You can segment your customers by:
- Age
- Location
- Religion
- Gender
- Ethnicity
- Likes/dislikes
- Social apps, etc.
After that, personalize your marketing messages and tailor holiday deals to the right customers.
Mistake #7. Using old content and not following trends
Do you still wish your customers a “spooktacular Halloween”? Stop copy-pasting the same outdated content on holidays. It has already fulfilled its purpose and engaged your audiences once. And the stakes are low that it will strike as hard again.
It’s time to phase out old or overused messages that have long passed their expiration dates and create a new content marketing strategy for successful holiday sales.
How to go trendy and unleash the extraordinary
Find fresher ideas and follow pop culture trends to prevent holiday marketing from failure.
See how the Barbie movie spurred Halloween marketing in 2023. Surfing on Barbie’s trendiness, numerous companies started wishing happy Halloween in the Barbie style.
Here’s a greeting from Julia McGuigan, owner of the Julia M Illustrates e-shop.
You should also experiment with your brand identity. It can be a logo redesign for holidays. Take Google’s doodle for every special occasion or event. Google is not a lone wolf in this case. Adidas, Tesco, Facebook, Vimeo, and others redesigned their corporate logos for the previous winter holiday seasons.
Similarly, you can design a unique brand logo for holidays. What’s your take on this?
Don’t flop – turn your next holiday campaign into a marketing win
As you’ve seen above, your holiday marketing strategy can become a nightmare in a glimpse of an eye or bore your customers to death.
But, phew, you don’t need to worry anymore. You’ll be safe and sound this holiday season and all the future ones because you already know what holiday marketing mistakes to avoid.
