Using PR To Promote Holiday Shopping Throughout The Year
Consumers have come to expect special offers during several holiday periods each year, and coordinating sales promotions with holidays can help bring in new customers and move more merchandise.
All businesses are aware that the Christmas shopping season brings in the highest retail sales, but other holidays – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Back-To-School season and more – offer additional opportunities to reach potential customers by crafting a professional press release.
The primary rule of using a press release to promote holiday sales: Timing is everything. While certain holiday periods are connected to specific product lines – for example, “white sales” (linens, bedding, towels) in January, romantic gift ide as for Valentine’s Day and tools and tech gadgets for Father’s Day – these product-specific offers are by no means set in stone. Since consumers expect sales during holiday periods throughout the year, promoting a special offer during one of the several standard retail sales periods can have a big effect on a company’s bottom line regardless of the specific items being promoted. Publishing a press release to coordinate a special offer with a shopping holiday is a cost-effective way to bring your business and products to top-of-mind awareness among your target market.
Following is a list of the traditional retail sales holidays in the U.S.:
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday
- Presidents Day
- St. Patrick’s Day
- Easter
- Mother’s Day
- Memorial Day
- School Graduations
- Father’s Day
- Fourth of July
- Amazon Prime Day
- Tax-free weekends
- Labor Day
- Back To School
- Columbus Day
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- New Year’s Eve
Keep in mind that your press release will be competing with a large number of others during these holiday sales periods, so make sure to send it out at least two weeks in advance of your promotion, and then send it again the week before your sale event. If your goal is to reach monthly publications, this schedule needs to be pushed back considerably; your press release will need to reach targeted journalists and editors at least two months before your sales event or promotion. It’s always a good idea to review the editorial calendars of your top publications as far in advance as possible so you can plan your holiday press release production and distribution to be sure to meet the deadlines for the month you will be targeting.
Most importantly, remember you are writing a news article, not an advertisement. Your press release must be tailored to your target publications’ editorial style and must contain content that is truly newsworthy. The fact that a sales promotion is planned usually is not considered news on its own – you must provide information that makes the products or services you are promoting interesting and different so your content will stand out from the crowd of press releases distributed by myriad companies during traditional holiday sales periods. For example, the fact that you may be bucking the trend and promoting non-traditional sales, such as tech gadgets or services during January when “white sales” are the standard, can help your content get noticed by journalists, editors, bloggers and online content curators.
Special offers and sales promotions are always a good press release topic as long as you craft your content professionally and learn to write like a journalist. Your special offer can reach industry influencers – and through them, potential consumers – provided your press release explains why your product or service is better, different, new, or even just less expensive than others of its kind. Taking the time to plan well in advance and be among the first to distribute a press release targeted toward a traditional shopping holiday can help reach journalists who will be inundated with similar releases closer to the actual event. This is why timing is crucial when using a press release to promote a holiday sales event.
Using PR To Promote Holiday Shopping Throughout The Year – Next Step
Targeting just the right journalists and publications is as important as crafting a stellar press release. Faselis offers access to the in-boxes of journalists, bloggers, editors and content curators in myriad industries as well as a host of general interest news outlets, and provides the opportunity to build a long-term relationships with just the right selection of influencers for your product or service. Faselis also offers a variety of templates to help you write a professional, newsworthy press release that journalists will be happy to publish.
by Jill McCoomber
