Beyond Black Friday: Post Holiday Season Planning

If you’re a consumer-facing brand, no doubt you’re hard at work on your holiday planning for the season. Last year, consumers spent $8.9 billion on Black Friday alone. It’s a big deal. 

But what happens after the holiday season is over? Your brand has likely spent a lot of time, money, and effort acquiring customers all year long who spend during the holiday season, but things aren’t over once the lights come down. 

We like to focus a lot of time thinking about what is best for your customers post-holiday. What products did they buy? How much money did they spend? Did they buy a gift, or did they treat themselves? What’s next? 

There are a few things you can plan for today that will set your lifecycle program apart from other brands in the new year. 

Slow down: Many consumers will be cleaning their inboxes post holiday. Think carefully about what you send after the holiday season, and consider a slight drop in frequency after the holiday season, as users may be feeling fatigue from brand pushes during the season. Giving consumers some space after holiday might be the ticket to retaining users after the season. 

Consider your customers: Discounts are commonplace during the holiday season, and if you offered your best deal ever, the customers you acquired might be more price conscious than usual. Consider setting up some lifecycle marketing to these users that takes this into account. This doesn’t necessarily mean offering a deep discount – offering a high value bundle that drives a high average order value can be beneficial for both you and the customer. 

Upsell: Think about what your customers bought most during the holiday season, and try to sell complementary items to these customers post holiday. These items will help drive up Lifetime Value for customers, and can drive users’ affinity for your brand so that when it’s time to buy the item they originally came to buy in the first place, they’ll come back and get it again.

Product Reviews: Brands often drive for product reviews soon after purchase while the item is fresh. While generally this works, over holiday since every brand is sending more email, these kinds of messages may get lost in the mix. Consider following up with a longer-tail review process for holiday purchasers so you can cut through the noise and focus on your message. 

Self Reflection: A holiday can be a stressful time as a marketer, and once it’s over, closing the book on it and moving onto the next thing is tempting. Consider taking some time with your team to have a discussion about what worked, what didn’t, and what you might do differently next year. Document it and save that information so that when you’re planning for next season, you have those fresh outtakes at hand. It may not be just about the numbers – think about pain points you might have had with shipping, product availability, customer service, and other points through the process, and make plans that can address those items ahead of holiday season next year. 

Here at Bamboo, we are focused on total profit growth – just because the busy season might be over, doesn’t mean we don’t want to get busy planning for your next push. Get in touch today and let us help you get smarter about your lifecycle program.