Nine Holiday Promotions and Initiatives That Can Help Your Business Stand Out

One of the most effective ways to draw customers to your online or brick-and-mortar retail store is to create promotions they will engage with. Tying those promotions into the holiday season can help you bring in even more customers and finish out the year on a high note.

But with so many competing ad campaigns and discounts throughout the last few months of the year, you’ll need to find a holiday initiative that will set your business apart from its competitors. Below, nine Rolling Stone Culture Council members share some holiday promotions that have worked for their teams and why your business might want to replicate them this season. 

Charitable Giving

We like to reward our customers by focusing on our charitable giving. With each purchase, we double our contribution to charities that are doing good in the world. Rather than being just another discount code, it motivates and engages our community. – Michael Klein, cannabisMD

Celebrating Diverse Holidays

For remote teams especially, it’s important for employees to feel you recognize and care about religious and national holidays. Respecting at least two of their local national or religious holidays works; it shows that you respect each member’s culture and background, no matter where they’re from. – Jacob Mathison, Mathison Projects Inc.

Promotions With a Personal Touch

Adding a personal touch that helps push your company values is always a good idea. As the CEO of a woman- and Latina-owned business, teaming up with other woman-owned and Latina-owned companies feels like an obvious move that’s organic on both ends of the partnership but also one that lets customers and clients know who we’re championing and why. – Kathy Schenfelt, MISSMANAGED

Promotions That Complement Your Brand’s Niche

The most important holiday to run a promotion on depends on your type of business. For example, if you have a flower shop, then Valentine’s Day will be more impactful than Memorial Day. But if you own a beverage brand, Memorial Day will be more impactful. Think about your products and how your audience uses them in a real-world setting. This will determine what holiday is best. – King Holder, PROCUSSION

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Holiday-Inspired Events or Competitions

In the Web3 ecosystem, Christmas and the other December holidays play a large part; it’s when loved ones come together and discuss what has happened over the past year. You need to strategize accordingly to be the main topic of discussion on such occasions. Therefore, we sometimes create Christmas-inspired events or competitions to bring the Web3 community together. – Tim Haldorsson, Lunar Strategy

Tailored Packages

Our PR firm offers tailored packages for clients to carry them through the holiday promotional season. These offerings include helping product clients land spots in gift guides and ensuring up-to-date directory listings. For service and product clients, increased coverage via op-eds, podcasts and written interviews, and specialized holiday communications are all on the table to up their game. – Evan Nison, NisonCo

Multiple Giveaways

A “12 Days of Giving”-style promotion is often a great hit for e-commerce businesses. Having an abundance of giveaways creates a flurry of engagement, and multiple winners means your brand becomes memorable to many. Spot prizes, brand partnerships and the involvement of influencers all go toward an explosion of quality content that reaches a wider (and more receptive) audience than normal. – Josh (JetSet) King Madrid, NFTMagazine.com | NFT Magazine

End-Of-Year Holiday Gifts

At SPICE, we don’t really do holiday promotions, but we do offer discounts or incentives for repeat clients. We also send out gift cards throughout the year and customized end-of-year token gifts. – Antwanette McLaughlin, The Spice Group, LLC

Recipient-Specific Discounts

For the holidays, we focus on gifts for students and promote our products to those people who give gifts to students — not necessarily students themselves. We also offer 50 percent off for a limited time just in time for gift giving. – Susan Johnston, New Media Film Festival®