5 Easter Marketing Promotion Ideas to Boost Sales

Most businesses come up with new marketing ideas for Easter every year or use ones that have worked well in previous years. And it is not surprising. Easter campaigns are an excellent opportunity to remind the audience about the brand, convey the holiday vibe and increase sales.  We will share a few examples of marketing campaigns that will inspire you to create your own successful promotions. 

Importance of Easter Promotion Campaigns

Statista polls show that in 2023, more than 80% of Americans celebrated Easter, and this percentage has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years. In the UK, this figure is even higher — according to Finder, 84% of UK residents follow this tradition, and 77% plan to significantly increase spending during the holiday. 

Such statistics allow businesses to plan large-scale Easter promotions. Oberlo's calculations show that in 2023, the total revenue of retailers in the United States on Easter weekend amounted to $24 billion. According to YCharts, this is $5 billion, or 26.3%, more than on a regular weekend. 

And that's not all! Propeller Ads suggests that you should pay attention not only to the holiday itself but also to the long period before it. Sales increase by 10% within two weeks and 15% during the 1–2 days before the weekend. Therefore, successful marketing campaigns have a long-lasting effect that can significantly improve the financial performance of a business. 

5 Easter Promotion Ideas

Easter has huge commercial potential. But to unlock this potential, it's essential to align your Easter sales promotions with your overall strategy, positioning and the interests of your target audience. So be inspired by the ideas from this list, but carefully analyze whether they will work for your business before adapting them for yourself or choosing to remain unique.

1. Combine traditions with modern trends

Every year, we see the same things in shop windows, on postcards and banners - eggs, rabbits, baskets, flowers. This monotony creates the effect of "advertising blindness" - people subconsciously ignore common slogans and images, not even responding to promises of favorable prices and expensive gifts. 

But you shouldn't rush to abandon the symbols of Easter — just combine them with current trends. Pay attention to popular movies and TV shows, memes and jokes, new technologies, and top products. As of mid-March 2024, Google Trends says that Americans are most interested in the Super Bowl, the movies Oppenheimer and Dune, the Griselda Blanco series, and the word game Connections. Why not use one of these marketing ideas for Easter? 

A great example is the marketing campaign of the Deliveroo delivery service. In 2019, it offered its British customers a limited edition dessert — Dragon Eggs, made of fine chocolate varieties. Given that the last season of the Game of Thrones TV series was released at that time, the campaign was a phenomenal success. According to Gitnux, the revenue of the delivery service increased by 54%. The promotion was even prolonged — in its second part, five customers received golden eggs that could be exchanged for cash prizes of £5,000. 

Naturally, such campaigns (like many others on this list) require careful preparation, "warming up" of the audience on various communication channels, and early launch to reach and interest as many people as possible. And that's why the marketing calendar from Claspo will be appropriate. Yes, you most likely know the date of Easter, but there are many other big and small holidays throughout the year that you can time your creative campaign around and beat the competition. In addition, you will find tips on when and how to build your omnichannel communication for the specified holidays.

2. Apply user-generated content

In many countries, people decorate their homes for Easter, cook traditional dishes, bake various desserts and wear their best outfits. Why not give them a chance to present their preparations for the holiday on the Internet? This idea is especially attractive as a contest. By offering a prize, you will give consumers double the motivation. 

You can collect different types of user-generated content in the form of photos and implement such contests as:

• craft jewelry,
• interior decor,
• Easter dishes,
• festive tables, and
• people and animals in funny costumes. 

Are you holding a contest on social media? Use Claspo widgets to announce a contest on your site and easily redirect visitors to your chosen platform to participate. Or! Accept participation applications directly on the site. Claspo can collect audience contact data and transfer it to your ESP or CRM to build further communication, collect user-generated content, and issue prizes to winners.

Once participants have shared their holiday photos and videos, use our slider to display them on the site as a slideshow. Sounds cool, right?

Use this template

One example of such a marketing campaign is a contest launched by the chocolate brand Cadbury in 2023. According to its conditions, people posted funny photos of their pets dressed as Easter bunnies using the hashtag #CadburyBunnyTryouts. The winners received cash prizes of up to $5,000. In addition to promoting its brand, the company drew attention to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and donated funds to the charity. This strengthened the brand's reputation and helped create emotional connections with customers.

3. Use gamification

This relatively new Easter marketing idea has been well-proven in real-life scenarios but is not widespread yet. By choosing it, you can significantly overtake your competitors by increasing sales and improving customer engagement. 

All you need to do is add a mini-game to your website, for example:

• "Wheel of Fortune",
• "Three in a row",
• puzzles,
• an arcade game in the Pacman style,
• various puzzles,
• quizzes, etc.

Remember that the rules of such games should be very simple to attract potential customers. You can also stimulate demand by offering real prizes, such as discounts, free shipping, gifts with orders, replenishment of bonus accounts, etc. 

One of the pioneers in the gamification of Easter promotions was the Austrian chain of home and care products BIPA. In 2023, it added a simple mini-game to its website where users had to catch eggs in a basket. It attracted customers in two ways: through rewards in the loyalty program and a standings table that encouraged users to compete with each other. According to the game developer Brame.io, the marketing campaign brought 138 thousand new customers to the retailer within two weeks. 

At Claspo, we always try to follow the trends. In our Easter email campaign, we asked our users to find the Easter eggs hidden in the email. It's a fairly simple game that requires attention and offers fabulous prizes.

Specifically, users could win a free one-hour consultation on improving pop-up performance on their sites. It included selecting a suitable widget for their strategy and having our team develop it from scratch for free.

If you missed this interactive campaign and its valuable prizes, let's fix it, shall we? Sign up for our newsletter, participate in other promotions and sweepstakes, and, most importantly, get tons of helpful information to improve your business results.

4. Add a holiday vibe to your brand

If you offer something unique and themed to your audience in the lead-up to the holiday, it can be the ground for the best Easter promotions and add individuality to your marketing campaign. We have collected some interesting Easter promotion ideas for you based on real-life examples:

• Design and offer limited-edition Easter-themed merchandise, such as apparel, accessories, or home decor items featuring unique designs or characters related to the holiday.
• Provide Easter-themed product personalization services such as engraving, monogramming, or custom embroidery on select items. Allow customers to add Easter-themed designs or messages to create unique gifts for their loved ones.
• Create downloadable Easter-themed wallpapers, screensavers, or digital greeting cards featuring your brand's logo or designs. Offer these digital downloads for free or as a bonus for customers who make a purchase during the promotion period.
• Partner with a local charity or nonprofit organization to host an Easter charity drive. Encourage your customers to donate Easter baskets or essential items to families in need, and offer incentives such as discounts or exclusive products for those who participate.

A good example is the Easter marketing campaign from IKEA, a furniture hypermarket chain. In 2019, it added an original product called Vårkänsla to its assortment. This is a chocolate rabbit figure consisting of several flat pieces packed in a small box. Yes, you read that right - it had to be assembled before use, just like the Swedish company's budget-friendly furniture.

5. Share useful content

People are tired of endless calls to action — "buy," "subscribe," "order." That's why, in recent years, more attention has been paid to inbound sales and content marketing techniques. The idea is that you share useful information by responding to people's requests, needs and preferences. In turn, they address you to solve their problems and become your customers. 

So, before Easter, you can launch marketing campaigns by sharing these types of content:

• recipes for traditional dishes and original desserts,
• reviews of themed goods and gifts,
• guides on decorating homes and commercial premises,
• ideas for organizing parties and family celebrations,
• lists of movies and TV series, etc.

Remember to seamlessly integrate your products into your campaigns! An example of successful Easter content marketing is the British supermarket chain Morrisons. Every year, before the holiday, it shares dessert recipes on social media that can be prepared quickly without any special cooking skills. According to Marketing Week, such campaigns have become one of the key factors in improving the company's financial results. In 2016, it finally received 217 million pounds of profit after several unprofitable years in a row. 

Easter Holiday Promotions: how can Claspo help

Well, first of all, we have prepared an article with fantastic ideas for you, isn't that a help? Jokes aside, not only ideas are essential, but also ways of conveying them. Claspo widgets help you make them visible and appealing to site visitors (and your site is your primary communication channel). We have many Easter templates that capture the holiday spirit and can be easily adapted to your branding. Here is just one example:

Use this template

With flexible display rules, your pop-ups will appear in the right context, making your message or offer work much more effectively.

Want to share useful holiday content? Place a widget on the homepage and redirect visitors to relevant blog articles, or add it to a specific article and offer readers to receive more helpful content in their inbox. Want to promote limited edition Easter-themed products? Show a widget with a countdown timer to visitors who intend to leave the site and remind them that this series is only available for a limited time.

You may have different ideas, and Claspo will help you realize any of them. Shall we check? Get started with our free lifetime plan and see the first results as soon as possible!