23 Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas to Boost Your Sales

Thanksgiving promotions are one of the most important sales periods for retailers.

Setting store-wide discounts and stopping them is insufficient in a market that is becoming more and more competitive. To gain the most profit and the least amount of leftover inventory, you must entice customers with your year-end discounts and time them appropriately. We believe that with our Thanksgiving marketing ideas, you will quickly get through this holiday and achieve the best results in attracting customers and increasing profits. 

23 Thanksgiving Marketing Ideas for Your Business in 2023

Typically, the great holiday shopping begins on Thanksgiving, then customers hunt for bargains in-store on Black Friday and shop at their local retailers on Saturday. All this is accompanied by Cyber Monday advertising – the most digital event of these marketing campaigns.

We offer you 23 tips for an outstanding start to the season so that you can run an effective Thanksgiving campaign.

1. Use BOGO

BOGO (buy-one-get-one) is a promotion when an item is offered free or at a reduced price and another item is purchased at full price. After all, retailers and customers win. Thanksgiving buyers can stock up on freebies while you make a bigger profit than when you staged a half-price sale.

BOGO strategy helps clear inventory efficiently by giving shoppers a deal they can't pass up. Don't rush into a BOGO Thanksgiving promotion, though. While it helps grab attention, if an item can sell multiple units at full price, you don't need a BOGO sale to empty the shelves. That's why it might be a good idea to kick off these sales once you know ​​how fast your holiday stock is selling.

2. Reward loyalty

Your Thanksgiving marketing ideas should consider customer retention. Encourage holiday shoppers to become repeat customers by giving them bonus rewards when they sign up for your loyalty program. To entice them to make another purchase immediately, give them enough arguments to earn a reward or cash back toward their next shopping.

3. Quantity discounts

This selling idea rewards customers who buy more. Thanksgiving customers can buy three sweaters and get a discount on each sweater, or buy four phone cases and get a discount on their total. It's up to you to choose the type of sale that suits you best.

4. Offer time-limited perks

You can offer free shipping or a great discount code to get last-minute purchases from your store.

5. Attract clients who haven't purchased from you in a while 

Use loyalty rewards to keep customers returning throughout Thanksgiving promotions, sending discount offers to those who haven't returned in a month.

6. Use BNPL 

Technically, BNPL (buy now, pay later) isn't the idea of a sale because the customer is still paying full price. But it doesn't need to pay the full price immediately at checkout, so it works much like a sale where your business receives the item's full price.

Overall, 60% of consumers say they've used a BNPL service at least once, and 51% did so during the past year. It's especially popular with millennials and Gen Z shoppers.

Even if the customer doesn't immediately pay for their entire purchase, your business receives the item's full value, minus your BNPL service provider's fee. Then the service provider handles the customer's payments. All you need to do is make BNPL available to you.

7. Create Thanksgiving-themed content

As part of the Thanksgiving promotion, post content to help your customers celebrate the holiday in style. It may be about food, entertainment, family or gratitude. Additionally, you can subtly promote your goods to entice customers to buy them. Don’t forget to use Thanksgiving-related keywords for natural referencing during this Thanksgiving campaign.

8. Send Thanksgiving-emails

To wish your consumers a happy holiday and to remind them of the bargains you will be offering soon, use an email template with a Thanksgiving theme. 

9. Thank your customers

Thanksgiving marketing campaigns are the best occasion to express gratitude to your audience. For example, thank customers for their loyalty, trust and motivation to develop and improve your business. The main thing is to be sincere.

10. Post useful blog articles 

Think about what needs of your customers are most relevant right now. What are they googling? What do they care about? Invite them to solve their queries and make their lives easier with helpful articles. “Top 5 cheap snack ideas for Thanksgiving”, “10 games for Thanksgiving evening” or even “20 topics to discuss with his mom over Thanksgiving dinner” – choose non-banal topics and offer solutions in different areas.

11. Use Thanksgiving popups

The importance of pop-ups should not be underestimated. With their help, you can do the following:

• convert online visitors into customers and increase the number of your subscribers,
• stimulate sales by increasing the sense of urgency,
• prevent cart abandonment,
• keep in touch with your clients by saying greetings or congratulations on holidays and so on.

Customers may be persuaded to purchase from you through pop-up ads that offer exclusive savings, discounts, early access to promotions, and other incentives.

You can choose and integrate it on your website to make eye-catching images and convert your visitors into buyers. Register on Claspo for free and enjoy a big template library available in your personal account.

You can use the following popup templates for Thanksgiving:

12. Don't forget about the video

Thanksgiving promotion ideas don't just have to revolve around sales and promotions. They may also assist you in increasing website traffic. To increase interest in your store, make videos with a Thanksgiving theme or stream your event live. Offer interesting interactions with your product for the holidays and discuss it in the video.

Watch the McDonald's "Thanksgiving Thank You" video if you're seeking ideas.

13. Start a viral trend

Social media is an efficient communication channel where funny or witty posts go viral. If you come up with something really trendy, social media users will do all the marketing for you. An example of such a post could be a Thanksgiving meme or a cute thank-you video for customers.

14. Throw a Thanksgiving giveaway

You can organize a social media competition for your followers. For example, to win the prize, all they have to do is like your page and leave a comment about what they are grateful for this season. This giveaway will make some of your customers happy and more loyal and let you broaden your social media audience.

15. Conduct an offline Thanksgiving event

Don't limit your Thanksgiving promotions to just social media. Competitions are still a possibility in your physical store. Consider playing brief games and giving away, for example, branded mugs, backpacks or reusable shopping bags.

16. Optimize your local SEO

It will make it easier for clients to find you if you update your holiday hours and website links. Make sure your contact information is accurate on Google My Business, Google Maps and Apple Maps.‌‌

17. Partner with other businesses

Thanksgiving is frequently associated with friends and family. So, use your Thanksgiving promotions to highlight other local businesses. You can make co-branded material for your website and socials or use videos. If there is a nearby business, you may collaborate on an offline co-promotion.

18. Create catchy hashtags

Use Thanksgiving-related hashtags on social media to broaden your audience and engage with prospective customers. The easiest strategy is to create a memorable hashtag and wait for the trend to propagate among people.

19. Run Thanksgiving marketing campaigns that last an entire month

Customers have several options regarding where they will shop for Thanksgiving. That is why you should launch your Thanksgiving promotions early in November and keep them going all month to get a jump start on your rivals.

20. Offer a valuable downloadable resource

For example, share the recipe for stuffed turkey, cranberry syrup and sweet pumpkin pie. This promo can come in various formats while quickly adapting to your particular type of business: a manual, a whitepaper, or an instructional video.

21. Show your clients

For the Thanksgiving promotion, thank your customers by highlighting them on your blog, email newsletter, or social media. Ask them to send you photos of themselves using your product and display the best ones all month long.

22. Organize an after-work shopping

If you have a store, team up with a few other owners of nearby companies to invite your customers to an after-work shopping event. Offer discounts and promote it as a means for people to do all their shopping before Thanksgiving Day's chaos.

23. Collaborate with bloggers

Choose bloggers who are influencers in your niche. In case of successful collaboration, they will bring you the target audience. You may also offer the blogger to throw a giveaway for their followers. To retain some of the blogger's traffic after the giveaway is over, also provide the blogger's followers a discount on a future purchase.

Thanksgiving Promotions Are a Great Chance to Fire Up Your Business!

The Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday period represents a sales blitz that kicks off the holiday season. These days are among the most significant buying times of the year.

With the holiday season as crucial as it is, you must carefully plan your sales and promotional ideas. It's easier if you devise a step-by-step plan for implementing your Thanksgiving promotion ideas in advance to be fully prepared, set different types of discounts and take the maximum for business from this period.