10 Digital Marketing Strategies To Boost Thanksgiving Sales

FFF—family, friends, and food—Thanksgiving is all about the 3F. As November approaches, Thanksgiving approaches, marking the beginning of the holiday season. While some people cherish time with loved ones, others dive into shopping for Thanksgiving gifts, sprucing up their homes with festive decorations, and tackling last-minute grocery runs. And, of course, Thanksgiving Sales are a major highlight, as shoppers hunt for the best deals and discounts.

Last year, 200.4 million customers spent throughout the 5-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, beating 2022’s record of 196.7 million — National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics.

During all this, marketers look for digital marketing strategies that can help them drive engagement, boost sales, and build a reputation during Thanksgiving—as they consider Thanksgiving as one of the jackpot holiday occasions to achieve their goals.

You may wonder what chance your business would stand in a situation as stressful as this. So there is nothing to worry about—just a few good shots of Thanksgiving-focused digital marketing strategies, and you will find your customers knocking at your door. The Thanksgiving sales target that you have set for this year will no longer only remain a stat figure. But become a reality.

Without further ado, let’s study the top 10 today.

1) Make Thanksgiving Peaceful and Relaxing for your Customers!

Well, the rule of thumb with email marketing campaigns is to play short, simple, and safe!

Let’s look at how Rover did it right with its sweet email game.

Source: Really Good Emails

The heading beautifully incorporates the theme and pet service requirements of the Thanksgiving festivity. People may have planned vacations for the 5-day long holiday week. With all things looked after, those with pets may have missed booking a sitter for their furry family member.

Rover comes in as a savior.

Cutting the clutter, it jumps straight to its services listed in one-liner rows. It also gives a brief description of why their pet-sitting services are better than others in the market. This kind of simplicity can be particularly effective during Thanksgiving Sales, when customers are already overwhelmed with offers and deals.

The goal is to compel customers into availing your services! In this case, a CTA at the bottom directs the inquirers to the company’s website. During Thanksgiving Sales, this strategy can help your business stand out by providing a seamless and stress-free experience.

What we learn,

• You must understand the pain points of your target audience at times of festivity
• How you can help them with a quick and easy-to-get solution
• Simplicity (in content) can make you win the email marketing game!
• You can always rely on short email campaign copies, keeping the balance of colors – how should we put it? Simple, yes!

2) Engage/Entertain your Audience with Fun Thanksgiving Gifting Challenges

Sephora is running an interesting community challenge that spans 9 weeks, starting from the first week of November and ending on the second day of the New Year. Long story short, the Holiday Gifting Challenge riddles the community members each week with “real/hypothetical – but all very relatable” scenarios or people and what will be the best gift option for them. Note, it has to be a product from Sephora, and the participants need to tag the products in their comments! Sephora has received considerate responses from its members, who are pouring in their views and opinions with a free mind.

Now, how will this benefit the Thanksgiving Sales? Well, Sephora has a tight-knit community. Out of curiosity, the members flock to its website and explore its product categories. This fetches organic traffic for the site. Additionally, the company gets insights into the likes and dislikes of its audience members. Thus, they can use this data to develop a proper strategy and know precisely what products they need to emphasize and promote this holiday season.

Now, look at this example:

Grocery Outlet, a locally owned small business makes an offer that its consumers simply cannot refuse—a FREE Thanksgiving dinner. The power of FREE extends beyond holiday marketing—obviously, this has been questioned by theorists as early as 450 BC.

Source: Grocery Outlet (2455 East 25th Street, Idaho Falls Id) Thanksgiving Post on Facebook

Whether your business is online or offline, just make sure the content complements your brand’s image.

Here are a few suggestions for your next Thanksgiving social media contest:

• Photo contest
• Cooking contest
• Giveaway contest
• Hashtag contest

What we learn,

• Piquing the customers’ interest and directing them to the website should be one of the main objectives of community challenges
• Getting acquainted with what the customer wants and needs may help to create sale or referral offers, promotion deals, festive coupons, etc.
• You should always stay connected with your customers/community!

3) Optimize your Website for the Thanksgiving Occasion. Work it Up!

Regarding search engine optimization strategy, it shouldn’t differ from your long-term SEO planning. The content needs to be fresh and aligned with the holiday mood, your site should offer a smooth user experience, and the technical SEO has to be in its best shape. That’s it.

Hershey leaves no stone unturned in this respect!

Source: Hershey’s Online Store

Setting the pacifying orange tone for the Fall with autumn leaves, it adapts a special Thanksgiving sales (static) web banner on its homepage with a CTA button.

Curating the products into distinct categories facilitates swift customer navigation on the site and enables them to quickly get to what they are looking for. Mobile user experience, page load speed, and site architecture – all these technical SEO elements must be monitored throughout the holiday season.

During the holiday season, you may witness an uncontrollable influx of doubts and queries from customers/visitors. To rule out the repetitive questions, you can opt for separate FAQ or Q/A pages, easily accessible from your home page (in case you don’t have one already). Hershey has put together an assorted column of pages, including “How to Order,” “Shipping Information,” “Security Guarantee,” etc., at its site’s bottom.

Sephora is another example that knocks it out of the park when we talk about developing clear and direct CTAs.

Source: Sephora

Sephora is well aware that strategically positioned CTAs lead customers to the path of direct action, and their chances of conversion multiply. Moreover, it focuses on the surrounding content that supplies lucid information about the CTA buttons.

We always suggest continuous reviewing of CTAs for improvement. You can access their effectiveness with the help of Google Analytics Integration and get viable data on what pages have higher bounce rates, conversions, or clicks.

On the homepage, the discount and gift offers with a holiday theme are top-notch. And a list of beauty offers and trending gifts with clear CTAs—Sephora is all set to welcome customers during the holiday season.

While studying the website, we couldn’t stop but admire how wonderfully Sephora administers ‘Need a Little Guidance?’ —because Sephora cares about its customers’ time and energy.

What we learn,

• CTAs can make or break the deal
• Separate Gift catalogs and landing pages help to boost conversions
• FAQ or Q/A sections reduce the burden on Customer Help

Learn 6 Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas To Stand Out And Promote Your Brand In 2024.

4) Partner with Micro-Influencers to Spread the Word about your Holiday Exclusive Products

Influencer marketing is all the rage these days! Giant-sized brands and labels, including Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, map down micro to macro-influencers with a dedicated and decent follower base on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. They then offer them product placement and promotion deals.

Fenty Beauty, for instance, collaborated with @joyjah (she/her) to recreate the magnetic “Muva’s Lewk” from “#SAVAGEFENTYSHOW Vol. 4” in an Instagram Reels post. The content creator @joyjah (she/her) specializes in social media posts and modeling, (based on her Insta Author Bio,) and has a remarkable following of 494k. While demonstrating the make-up tutorial, she employs the Fenty Beauty products and cleverly endorses them to her followers.

What’s more,

• Reaching your target audience through niche-specific influencers’ is one quick way to grab the attention of new customers
• It is quite less expensive than running social media ads

5) Thank your Customers with Giveaways!

Fracture nails the concept, “Appreciate your customers richly and endearingly! And keep doing it more often!”

Source: Really Good Emails

Back in November 2020, it launched a “12 Days of Giveaways” campaign and used emails as a digital source of advertisement. Going by the length, it sure is a long-winded email with multiple CTAs. But observe how comprehensively they have divided their offerings into neat sections.

The first, talks about their then-ongoing holiday campaign, Thanksgiving Countdown of 12 days, which comprises a daily giveaway of a surprise gift, applicable to all US residents above the age of 18 – (more details can be found at the bottom of the email). Anyone willing to enter the contest need not make a purchase but just submit their approval to receive mail from the company in the future. A great idea indeed, if we think about acquiring more email IDs for sending promotional emails. The portrayal of the winner board, with the mention of “Yesterday’s Winner,” only adds to the credibility of the Giveaway Contest.

The second section of the email switches to a brief announcement about its special “25% off Storyboard.” It is accompanied by a defined coupon and a “Shop now” CTA at the end. Since the holiday season was in full swing, the company knew that people would be looking left and right in quest of perfect gifts.

And the fact that they could provide glass prints, gift cards, and personalized storyboards – the most sought-after gifting items – it was a no-brainer that they would ensure that their services were highlighted in all their holiday emails. Lastly, they also informed the readers about their modeled Instagram hashtag and encouraged them to participate.

What we learn,

• Multiple CTAs can confuse people unless you arrange all your offerings categorically and present them to your audience with precise information
• Giveaways are great marketing campaigns to lure in new customers and also appreciate the long-standing, loyal lot
• Modeled hashtags can help segregate brand-particular user-generated content in the huge pile of pictures, reels, and videos on Instagram
• Show your customers that you care about them, and wish to thank them for their engagement
• Your email campaign copies should have a structured and comprehensible flow

6) Match up the Social Media Posts with the Melody of Each Festivity as it Approaches!

Food is the soul of all festivities, and businesses know this down pat. As the occasions arrive one after the other, they plan out a social media calendar and create a repository of posts revolving around Thanksgiving recipes, cooking guides and suggestions, easy-prep confectionary delights, etc.

Source: Walmart’s Thanksgiving Post on Instagram

This Walmart’s social media post for Thanksgiving shows how to engage with your customers in a fun way—asking easy questions like “Mashed or Sweet?”, “Green bean or corn?”, or “Pumpkin or pecan?” with Thanksgiving sides encourages followers to engage and share.

This Thanksgiving post from Walmart taps into Thanksgiving traditions and fosters engagement. Here, the intent is to keep customers thinking about you during the Thanksgiving season and prepare them for Black Friday.

Source: Instagram Post of  Tatte Bakery & Cafe

Tatte Bakery & Cafe officially announces its delectable offering for this year’s Thanksgiving feast – “Cinnamon Rolls with Buttermilk” – through an Instagram post. It also mentions that the product is available for pickup at its local outlets only.

On Thanksgiving, there’s a lot of pressure on the main chef of the house. Cooking the perfect Turkey is no child’s play! Therefore, Cooks Country (an American Television Cooking show broadcasted on the PBS public channel) produces heaps of social media content around culinary tips and recipes. In one of their recent Instagram reels, they shared why one shouldn’t baste the turkey meat before cooking.

7) Reward your Customers When they Make a Minimum-Spend Purchase!

Treasure-4-Nails features an excellent offer on its website that entices customers to increase their average purchase value.

Source: Treasure4Nails Corp Nail Supply

The “Free Gift on Order(s)” touching the price cap of 100$ to 600$ is a tried and tested digital marketing strategy. What makes it so appealing? The worth of gifts rewarded to buyers will weigh in on their minimum order values. Hence, a buyer will probably try to make a high-end purchase to gain the bigger bargain!

Treasure-4-Nails has also made a temporary Black Friday landing page, and it’s evident that its priority is to generate holiday revenue – as much as possible. It may remove this from its site later.

What we learn,

• Minimum spend rewards can be huge motivating factors for your customers
• Give your customers something that they want; hence, a little research into the preferences of your target audience is necessary
• Creating temporary pages dedicated to a particular festivity can ease a customer’s shopping journey

8) Upsell by Bundling Select Products Together

Clubbing multiple products into one bundle unit increases the average order value and opens several pathways for upselling and cross-selling. Imagine if a customer initially pulled a pair of socks in her cart. But upon seeing a deal that offers the same pair of socks along with a throw blanket at a discounted price, she would be incentivized to move to the latter high-end purchasing decision.

What does this mean for you? A chance to clear your old stocks, use your holiday inventory to the fullest, and yes, win more new customers! Therefore, design your sale offers and deals in a way that the shoppers can’t resist themselves but hit “buy.” For this to happen, you need to know exactly what products they favor this holiday season. How would you know? Conducting Insta Polls can help!

Source: Etsy’s Instagram Story

Etsy just did that last year! For its Winter Faves collection, it organized a “This or That” poll on its Instagram Story and gained insights into its customer/follower bases’ product favorites.

Etsy could then fashion and formulate bundle offers to assist its site with more inbound traffic and, most importantly, better conversions.

What’s more,

• Don’t go overboard with sale offers; keep your profit margins steady and tangible
• We all know that the holiday season is the busiest time of year; hence optimum maintenance of one’s e-commerce site is a prerequisite
• Sew up the shortcomings, if any, and prepare your site so that it can handle the increased traffic without a dreadful crash
• Carve a simple and easy checkout design for your customers to reduce cart abandonment rates

9) Give Back to the Community – It’s A Must.

Thanksgiving is all about expressing gratitude and putting the human element of brands to the forefront. Let people know that you are conscious of the society you are living in and doing your bit to introduce positive changes to it. Show them that you are actively taking little measures on your end. Don’t forget to highlight its impact and the behind story. Let it all be heard!

You may be confused as to how any of this will boost Thanksgiving sales. The truth is, it will! Eventually! Moreover, it will heighten your reputation in the eyes of your customers and further strengthen your emotional connection with them.

For example:

Leesa has donated 30,000+ mattresses to the needy in the US. Upon the eve of Thanksgiving, it humbly showers the credit onto its customer base for allowing them the opportunity to undertake this noble initiative. Without fail, it emphasizes the impact on its website’s homepage.

Everyone wishes to contribute to society in some way or the other. Leesa brings them the platform, which causes their customers to feel happy and content about their purchases. This also rewards their self-esteem, and they remain devoted to the brands for their commercial needs even beyond the festive season.

Leesa goes a step further to inform everyone about the kind initiative with its emails proudly.

Source: Really Good Emails

With subtle graphic inputs displaying the beauty of the Fall, strategically-placed CTAs, and a top buzzing “Get our Black Friday Offer,” Leesa crafts the mail with art and conviction. Especially the part where they unroll their bumper “Black Friday Mattress Sale” and a freebie “Leesa Pillow,” take note of how wonderfully they have captivated the essence of Thanksgiving in their messaging. “This Holiday Season, Get (and give) the gift of good rest” positions their services nicely too.

Look at this example too:

The popular turkey dinner may be quite visually appealing. However, what if some of your social media followers cannot afford a warm meal? In such case, you need to forget about marketing for a moment and roll up your sleeves.

Source: The Heart of JCo Thanksgiving Post on Facebook

A small business, The Heart of JCo, wants to help its followers in distributing meals to underprivileged families. Look how nicely they used pumpkin pie and autumn leaves elements in orange undertones to represent the warmth and coziness that one feels after having a nutritious meal.

The best thing is—a QR Code to make the application process easy and quick to share.

You, too, can inspire your followers to help by directing them to a charity close to your heart.

What we learn,

• Be charitable and allow your customers to be a part of all your noble undertakings
• Imbibe the elements of kindness and gratitude into your brand messaging tone
• Retain existing customers by fortifying the emotional bond with them

10) Haven’t Installed a Chatbot Yet? You May Consider Doing so Now for Better Customer Service

Besides optimizing the FAQ pages on your website, you can employ an AI-powered messaging app (i.e., a chatbot) with minimal expenditure to add convenience for your customers. This also enables you to streamline and automate your Customer Help services. The chatbot can handle the easy FAQs, and when a Customer Help representative is needed, they can step in and take over the call. Chatbots further lower the Customer Help team’s burden and give them opportunities to focus on large-scale issues.

Maintaining cohesive customer communication encourages sales hugely. Dissatisfied visitors who didn’t get their queries answered or confused browsers are all potential customers that you lose if not taken care of properly. Installing chatbots will guide them to find the intended products with the least resistance.

What’s more,

• Shopify Chatbots pull data from your store to harbor uninterrupted customer communication; this includes checking store inventory
• You can also bring in place a “purchase follow-up” or “first-purchase automation” (with a form or survey) to gather feedback on your products and the shopping experience, in general
• “Abandoned cart automation” lets you send reminder emails to customers who left your site without buying the items they saved in their cart

Summing Up…

Thanksgiving is an opportunity for retailers and e-commerce businesses to attract more customers and boost conversions—not just during the holiday season but beyond. By implementing these Thanksgiving-focused digital marketing strategies, you can start leveraging these benefits today.

Hurry before it’s too late because holiday sales in 2024 are expected to grow between 2.5% and 3.5% compared to 2023, according to the NRF. So do not miss this opportunity.

Follow us daily to get hold of amazing marketing ideas that help you convert and boost sales.

See you next time.

About The Author

Avitanshi Srivastava

A delicate balance of calm and chaos, she's a curious soul with a dramatic heart! With writing as her first love, she's a Proud parent of a Birb and can be found talking to curtains or apologizing to walls!