7 Ways to Promote a Thanksgiving Sale Online

Thanksgiving is a time for family, delicious roast turkey…and of course, sales!

According to Adobe, Thanksgiving online sales reached a massive $5.1 billion in 2021. That’s a whole lotta dough that you definitely don’t want to miss out on if you’re planning a Thanksgiving sale.

To grab a slice of this pie for yourself, however, you’ll need to promote your sale far and wide to draw in as many shoppers as possible.

Not sure how to do so? Then read on to learn seven ways of promoting a Thanksgiving sale online. Pick your favorite method, or a combination of them, then start crafting your promotional campaigns for maximum impact!

1. Offer attractive discounts

What’s a sale without discounts? Be as generous with your discounts as you can to incentivize people to patronize your store.

For example, nature-inspired clothing and goods store Hello Daisy decided to slash its prices by 20% during its Thanksgiving sale:

That said, the steeper your discounts, the less revenue you will earn on a per-product basis. So you’ll want to plan your discounts in a way that will encourage shoppers to spend more with you as a whole. This can include:

• Reducing the prices of only some products instead of discounting your entire store
• Requiring shoppers to spend a certain minimum amount with you before qualifying for a discount
• Offering different discount tiers—in other words, the more people spend with you, the higher the discount percentage becomes

Also Read: The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: Carrie Underwood, Kelly Rowland, and more

2. Create stunning social media flyers

You can’t just talk about your Thanksgiving sale on your website and expect shoppers to show up. Because if a potential customer doesn’t visit your website, then they might have no clue that you’re having a sale in the first place.

Instead, you’ll have to promote your Thanksgiving sale on social media. After all, that’s where most people hang out nowadays when they’re bored.

Create a Thanksgiving flyer or two, then post it on your socials before the start of your sale. Then, as your followers are scrolling their feeds, they might just spot your flyer and make a mental note to check your sale out.

You don’t have to be a graphic design expert to make beautiful flyers, either. Use a flyer maker like PosterMyWall to select your favorite Thanksgiving sale flyer template, then customize it to fit your brand.

Add eye-catching images to help your flyer stand out too. Just look at this Thanksgiving flyer by Zenscreationshop, which sells products inspired by the BTS mega-hit boy band. The flyer features a huge image of—who else?—BTS:

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Zen Sarza-Nguyen (@zens.creation)

3. Do a product demo

Have you heard of Joe Ades?

He’s a guy who made a killing selling $5 potato peelers on the streets of New York. He’d set up a makeshift stall and then show off to passers-by his potato peelers. In particular, he’d use his peelers to slice potatoes and carrots on the spot, to demonstrate the peelers’ effectiveness.

Check out Joe in action for yourself:

After Joe had finished his spiel, awestruck watchers would readily hand over their money to buy his peelers—even though they probably hadn’t left the house planning to buy a potato peeler that day. Amazing!

So here’s the takeaway from this:

When promoting your Thanksgiving sale, do a product demo to inspire shoppers on how they can use your products, so they’d be more likely to buy them.

If you can’t do a live demo like Joe, then record a video demo and put it up on social media for all your followers to see, like what artisan wax seal shop Artisaire has done:

4. Collaborate with influencers

The more people who are aware of your Thanksgiving sale, the more shoppers you may have when you officially launch it. So if you can, try to collaborate with influencers to spread the word about your sale.

Influencers can help introduce your brand to a wider audience, netting you not just more orders for your upcoming sale, but also more fans of your business. Talk about reaping long-term benefits!

For instance, clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch previously collaborated with influencer Katy Roach of Living My Best Style to promote its Thanksgiving sale:

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Living My Best Style (@livingmybeststyle)

Be picky about the influencers you work with, though. You don’t want to spend time hammering out a collaboration, only to see little to no boost in sales afterward.

Therefore, look for influencers with audiences who are likely to be interested in your offerings—and hence more willing to open their wallets!

5. Encourage followers to share your content

Apart from partnering with influencers to promote your Thanksgiving sale, you can get a helping hand from your followers themselves, too.

How? It’s easy. In your social media posts about your sale, ask your followers to tag a friend (or multiple friends) in the comments.

If your followers want to participate, they’ll then scan their follower lists and tag people whom they think will be interested in your sale.

When this happens, their friends will be pinged to check out the tag. And when they do so, they’ll also have the chance to read your post and learn about your sale.

Here’s an example from skincare retailer Philosophy to illustrate (pay attention to the caption):

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by philosophy (@lovephilosophy)

Scrolling the post comments, you’ll see that many of Philosophy’s followers have dutifully tagged their friends, resulting in extra publicity for the brand.

6. Publish Thanksgiving-themed blog content

While putting together your Thanksgiving social media posts, don’t forget about your blog! It’s the perfect place for publishing long-form content that you may not be able to fit into a 280-character tweet, a square-shaped Instagram post, or even a three-minute TikTok video.

Your blog posts don’t have to be overly promotional, either. Use this opportunity to share helpful content related to what you sell, and educate people on your niche and products.

For instance, the Food52 website sells a variety of kitchen tools, foods, and cookbooks. And to promote its products during the Thanksgiving season, the business published a neat blog post on Thanksgiving dishes like pumpkin cotton cheesecake and garlicky fan rolls. Mmmm.

At the end of Food52’s blog post, you’ll spot a call to action inviting readers to shop the website’s products (and use them to cook the yummy dishes mentioned in the post).

Bonus tip: use search engine optimization strategies to help your blog posts rank higher for relevant keyword searches. This can help you get search traffic flowing to your blog content on autopilot, reducing the time and effort needed to promote it.

7. Hold a giveaway

Giveaways are a great way of creating buzz for events, and a Thanksgiving sale is no different. Choose an attractive item as a prize, then offer to give it away to a lucky winner. (You can even give away more than one prize!)

Then, if people want to qualify for your giveaway, they’ll need to jump through a couple of hoops—which is where you can take the opportunity to promote your sale.

As an example, you can require participants to:

• Like and/or share your post on their socials
• Leave a comment on your post, to generate engagement that can help your post reach a wider audience
• Tag their friends in the comments (see point #5 above for more info on the effectiveness of this tactic!)

This is exactly what camera retailer Caddx FPV has done in its recent Thanksgiving giveaway. Just take a look at its giveaway post:

Also Read: 5 Video Editing Tips for Marketers

Start promoting your Thanksgiving sale!

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the major year-end shopping season. As people start to buy gifts for themselves and their loved ones, this is your chance to rake in the sales.

However, you’ll need to put in the effort to make your sale a success. Use the above suggestions to flesh out your Thanksgiving sale campaigns, then prepare the necessary marketing collateral. Invest in hiring temporary staff to help out if you find your current team stretched to the limits—every extra pair of hands counts!

Execute your promotional strategies carefully, and you’ll have customers eager to snag your deals when Thanksgiving finally rolls around. And as the orders come in, the only thing left for you to do is to beam from ear to ear and listen as your cash registers sing.