Summer is coming to a close and many Staten Island shops are already planning for the holiday season. But before getting lost in all that tinsel, there’s one more big sales opportunity this summer—Labor Day weekend!
The average American will spend $150 on Labor Day weekend shopping. Make sure you’re not missing out on great opportunities to clear the shelves of last season’s items and get ready to bring in new fall inventory. Use these tips to leverage social media and boost your Labor Day sales.
1. Run Flash Sales and Limited-Time Offers
Labor Day holiday weekend and sales are synonymous in consumers’ minds. Use social media marketing tools to promote any sales you have going on with images, photos and/or videos. Pull together quality content to help promote the sales and the specific items you’re featuring. Social media is all about imagery, sharing and engagement, which is why sharing lots of content in this space will help drive sales.
Some great types of sales include deals of the day, coupons, doorbusters and enter to wins. When posting these offers on social media, make sure to ENGAGE your audience.
What do we mean by that?
Don’t just post a picture of your ad.
Ask questions
Share content
Build excitement
Run a countdown
Getting viewers to interact with you on social media will increase the likelihood their friends will also see your posts, ultimately extending your reach.
2. Promote Hashtags
The hashtag symbol is a strong social media marketing tool you simply cannot overlook.
What is a hashtag?
It’s a word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) used to identify messages on a specific topic. You’ll also notice there are no spaces within a hashtag. It helps with categorizing posts around a topic. While the hashtag rose to fame on Twitter, it is now widely used on Facebook and Instagram as well.
For example, Travel Channel includes a small #LiveTravelChannel in the bottom corner of all its TV shows to encourage viewers to start conversations about its shows on social media. If someone goes to one of these social media sites and searches #LiveTravelChannel, all posts including that hashtag will show up. Powerful stuff!
It’s simple to get your business involved in the fun and interactive life of hashtags; all you need to do is create one that makes sense. If you’re looking to specifically boost sales over the Labor Day holiday, think about how your customers could use your product or service that weekend. To increase the likelihood of your hashtag being used, leave your company or brand name out of it. Some of the most popular hashtags don’t include brand names. Take KITKAT’s #HaveABreak, a play on its tagline, “Give me a break,” or T-Mobile’s campaign, #HatsOff4Heroes.
Once you’ve created your hashtag, start promoting it. Consumers are always looking for the “what’s in it for me,” so give them a reason to use your hashtag. If you’re a grill company, promote incentives on social media like “use hashtag #BBQWeekend to enter to win a grilling prize pack” or “show us your #BBQWeekend to receive 15% off your purchase.”
3. Use Word-of-Mouth Marketing
There’s nothing wrong with getting some extra promotion from your best marketing tool—your happy customers! Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing. When real people get behind your brand, it makes a world of difference in brand awareness and reputation.
Customer advocates can become your brand’s secret weapon. They are often willing to share your brand’s story, especially if you make it easy and rewarding for them. To nurture that relationship, give them incentives to keep coming back. Promote your Labor Day sales with a “tweet us a picture” or “tag us in your photos to enter to win.” Another great way to expose your brand and big sale is to ask your customers to share your post with their social media followers. “Share with three friends and get yours free” can be a win-win situation for the customer and brand. The customer can easily share the post, in turn getting a free item, and you’re getting three times as much exposure!
90 percent of people trust recommendations from family and friends, more than any other form of marketing. Let’s say your customer shares a photo of grilling with your product on Instagram and one of their friends is looking to purchase a grill for Labor Day weekend. By seeing that picture, the friend may reach out for feedback on the grill. Now, your customer can promote your brand (for free!) and their friend will consider the recommendation more because it’s from a trusted source.
How to Start Your Labor Day Social Media Marketing
Build content around this end-of-summer event to help carry customers with you into the fall. Get started now to take advantage of this opportunity:
Research offers that may be beneficial for your business
Try flash sales and limited-time offers for the holiday weekend
Create a hashtag if it’s applicable to your goals and strategy
Consider leaving out your brand or business name and make it something fun and relevant
Harness the word-of-mouth marketing by involving your customers on social media
Look at historical information from previous year’s sales to create a baseline for tracking this year and beyond
This will help you determine what realistic goals should be, so you can make a plan
Lastly, plan out what social media marketing services you need to get these tactics accomplished
What social media sites are best for finding your customers and implementing the plan you have in place?
