Holidays bring happiness.
And part of the joy of holidays is spoiling yourself and giving to others.
Now, how does this benefit your business?
It’s an opportunity to sell more products.
Since many of your ideal audience already scroll Instagram every day, you can deliver your holiday offers to them right there.
And in this guide, I’ll share 13+ Instagram holiday marketing ideas to use during the holidays.
Instagram holiday marketing ideas
1. Run Instagram giveaways
Instagram giveaways push your audience to take action to win your prize.
With Instagram giveaways, you can increase product awareness, brand awareness, lead generation, and sales.
When running an Instagram giveaway;
- Set a giveaway goal (e.g. engagement, product awareness, or lead generation)
- State giveaway entry requirements
- Use the right Instagram giveaway tool to manage your giveaways
- Reach out to winners
- Announce the winner
Kospet, a smartwatch brand, organizes a Thanksgiving giveaway to give out 3 smartwatches during the celebrations.
2. Collaborate with influencers
Collaborating with influencers helps you reach a bigger audience to promote products, increase brand awareness, and achieve other goals.
And more, influencers can push your holiday offers to a bigger and ideal audience.
To collaborate effectively:
- Find the right influencer in your niche
- Create a shortlist and reach out to influencers about your holiday campaign
- Launch your campaign
- Analyze results at the end of the campaign
For example, Megan Fairley collaborated with Alyshia Jones, a model, to promote a giveaway. The brand will gain many followers as participants have to follow its account.
3. Collect and share Instagram UGC
Since customers often have nothing to gain from promoting your product, people tend to trust their message.
This is why you should collect Instagram user-generated content (UGC) and share it to promote your offers.
To collect UGC for your account, encourage customers to use your branded holiday hashtag when creating content about your product.
This way, you can easily find great posts.
4. Create gift guides
Many people wonder what to buy for a friend, how to make their wife happy, or the best addition to their homes.
Educate these people, and you have a good chance of selling to them.
Gift guides provide information about the types of gifts suitable for various people and occasions, including:
- Gifts for men
- Gifts for women
- Gifts for Children
- Gifts for parents
- Gifts for Christmas
- Gifts for Thanksgiving
Apart from educating your audience, gift guides increase product awareness.
You can create effective gift guides by featuring your products in various gift categories. For example, if you sell makeup products, you can create gift guides for wives, mothers, and girlfriends.
In these gift guides, mention relevant products for each buyer category.
For example, Sundays Health and Wellness Club created a gift guide for different types of ladies.
The guide features the gifts you can buy for each type of lady. But in each guide, the brand adds its daily wellness journal to the list.
5. Promote discount offers
Holiday discounts encourage purchases from people who love your product but balk at its original price.
And for people who already buy your products, discounts can encourage them to buy more.
Businesses run discounts for various types of products.
- Holiday products
- Popular products
- Slow-selling products
So, running discounts is a popular and effective way of selling more products during the holidays.
For Thanksgiving, Braids Experts by Mimi offered discounts on Boho and Knotless braids.
And in the comments, someone promised to bring their granddaughter, while others made inquiries about the braids.
6. Run flash sales
Flash sales offer big discounts on a product for 2 or fewer days.
Because of the steep discounts and short time, flash sales trigger the fear of missing out in shoppers (FOMO).
To do flash sales, launch them close to a particular holiday. For example, Thanksgiving day or 2 days before Christmas will attract many people doing last-minute shopping.
Glory Haus did 12 days of Christmas Flash Sales.
For each day, the brand posted a product and its discounted price for the next 24 hours.
7. Launch an Instagram takeover
An Instagram takeover involves someone publishing content from your account for a period.
This can be content on your feed or Stories.
With an Instagram takeover, you can build brand awareness, reach more people, and generate leads.
To achieve your goals with an Instagram takeover, you have to invite the right takeover host. This can be an influencer, a customer, or an employee.
Then, discuss the direction of the content with your proposed host. This can be them sharing their holiday plans or how they’re using your products for more memorable holidays.
8. Feature employees
Employees work hard behind the scenes to deliver valuable products to customers.
Featuring these employees can show how you’re preparing to serve customers during the holidays, and this can increase product awareness.
When featuring employees, let them explain how they plan to serve customers during the holidays.
Optimum Skills featured employees reading what other employees are grateful for over the year.
This can boost employee engagement and build trust with your audience.
9. Promote holiday products
If you sell Christmas trees or any other holiday products, you have to promote them to shoppers weeks before they need them.
This way, you’ll be on top of your customers’ minds before they buy.
To get the best results, show your products’ use cases and benefits to buyers.
In preparation for Christmas, The Cake Wizard promotes its Christmas cakes and lists the prices.
This creates awareness for families that want to celebrate Christmas with a cake.
10. Run Instagram ads
Instagram ads let you reach a bigger audience fast to promote your holiday offers.
So, instead of reaching 20,000 people with your organic posts, you can reach 150,000 people similar to your ideal audience.
To run an Instagram ad:
- Visit the Meta Ads Manager to select an objective, upload ad creative, specify audience, and select placement.
- Launch your ad and track results.
- Adjust your ad strategy to improve results.
While running Instagram ads may cost more, it’s a fast way to reach a bigger targeted audience with your holiday offers.
11. Collaborate with a complementary brand
If you sell bread and another brand sells jam, there’s your opportunity to collaborate.
Collaborating with a complementary brand helps you reach a bigger audience. Then, both brands will sell more, as shoppers who need one set of products will likely need the other.
So, reach out to complementary brands about a campaign targeted at holiday shoppers.
This campaign can be a discount, giveaway, or flash sale.
Then, launch the campaign with an Instagram collaborative post.
Two clothing brands, Sunkissed coconut and KMM Clothing, collaborated for a giveaway.
The winners won a gift card to shop on both brands’ websites.
12. Create tutorials
Whether it’s assembling a chair or setting up a Christmas tree, buyers sometimes need help to get the best results from your products.
Without this help, you can have many dissatisfied customers dropping 1-star reviews.
This is where creating tutorials comes in.
With tutorials, you can show buyers how to explore your product’s use cases for the holiday.
Tutorials improve customer satisfaction and encourage prospects to buy.
To create tutorials, think of your product’s holiday use cases and build content around them.
13. Show holiday behind-the-scenes
How is your business preparing for the holidays?
This Instagram holiday marketing idea involves taking your audience behind the scenes to show:
- How employees are preparing for the holidays
- How you’re stocking for the holidays
- Holiday-themed decorations around the office
Behind-the-scenes content shows your brand’s human side and helps you connect with followers. Then, it can create awareness for your holiday products.
To create this content, think of holiday behind-the-scenes events that will interest your audience, and build content around them.
Webb Landscape shared a behind-the-scenes video of employees unloading trucks of Christmas trees.
14. Publish an Instagram poll
People have strong opinions about many things, whether it’s the US presidency or pizza toppings.
And an Instagram poll is an opportunity for them to pick a side.
An Instagram poll lets you engage your audience and collect product feedback.
Some common Instagram poll ideas include:
- Picking one of product variations
- Picking a favorite holiday product
- Picking a prize for your next giveaway
Use these ideas to create a poll on your Instagram feed posts and Stories.
Instagram polls help to engage and build an emotional connection with your audience.
Conclusion
The holidays bring happiness. And with happiness, many willing spenders who want to celebrate.
Exploit these Instagram holiday marketing ideas to get your share of consumer spending during the holidays.
Disclosure: When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. We only recommend products we use and/or believe will deliver value to you.
Samuel is a freelance SaaS writer. He has written for top SaaS websites like GetResponse, SweepWidget, and Hopper HQ to raise awareness, attract users, and drive monthly recurring revenue (MRR). Get in touch with him to rev up your content engine.