5 Clever Ways To Promote Your Business This Easter Holiday

With the Christmas season officially in the rear-view mirror, you can confidently turn your attention to growing your business in 2014. But don’t get too relaxed. In the U.S., there’s always another holiday lurking around the corner.

And Easter is next up to bat.

For the creative marketer, holiday promotions offer a great opportunity to win exposure and gain new customers. If you play your cards right, you can also generate a huge dollop of goodwill among your current customers, an advantage that will pay off for years to come.

So let’s turn our attention to Easter. It’s not just about eggs, bunnies, and kids hopped up on too much sugar. It’s a day that’s usually spent having fun with loved ones. That means folks are already geared up to have a good time. So here are 5 fun Easter promotion ideas you can use to ride that wave.

Idea #1: Organize An Easter Egg Hunt

You saw this one coming, right?

If you have a brick and mortar store, invite local customers and prospects to participate in an Easter egg hunt. Hide plastic eggs throughout your store with coupons hidden inside that offer significant savings on your products. Let the participants know that a few of the eggs contain certificates that let them choose one of your hottest-selling products for free.

How do you get the word out about the event? Send out a press release, use social media, email your customers, post about it on your blog, and put up signs and flyers around your store. If you use direct mail, send out postcards.

If you also have an online store, use a pop-up offer to tell visitors about the event. If they’re local, use the offer to let them RSVP to the event. They have the opportunity to attend a fun event and score some deals, and you just grew your email list. Win-win!

Idea #2: Hold An Online Easter Egg Hunt

You don’t have a local storefront, but you do have a website. Can you still host an Easter egg hunt?

Absolutely!

Instead of hiding plastic eggs around your store, hide virtual eggs on your site. The technology is easy to handle when you use Picreel. Simply create several offer campaigns that cause “eggs” to display throughout your website. Design your pop-ups using pastel colors, images of Easter eggs, or even animated GIF backgrounds. Target your offers so that they display after visitors have been on a page for a certain amount of time, when they click a specific element or link, or once they’ve scrolled a certain percentage.

The “eggs” can contain prizes for discounts, free shipping, or free products or services in exchange for the visitor’s email address. You can provide instant codes for use at checkout, or deliver the goods via email. You’re only limited by your imagination, and website visitors will be delighted by a surprise virtual Easter egg hunt!

You can even do a live broadcast of how the whole process will work.

Idea #3: Have An “Out With The Old” Sale

With Easter comes spring. And with spring comes spring cleaning. Why not use the occasion to do a little spring cleaning in your store?

Let your customers know that you’ll be cleaning out your stockroom or warehouse to make room for new products. Tell them you’ll be listing your old inventory at fire sale prices to clear it out. Pick a day for the sale, and give the event a fancy name. For example, call it “The 2014 Spring Cleaning Extravaganza” or “The Easter Holiday Out-With-The-Old, In-With-The-New Sale.”

Promote the sale in advance using pop-up offers, press releases, social media, and email marketing.

Idea #4: Say “Thanks!” With Chocolate

Nothing says Easter quite like candy! Thank customers for their business by giving them something to satisfy their sweet tooth when they make a purchase.

If you operate a physical storefront, small truffles at checkout will do nicely while keeping costs under control. If most of your business is done online, you’ll have more flexibility. You can instruct your packers to include candy and a thank you card based on the order. For example, affordable See’s Candies for customers with purchases under $100, and luxurious Godiva chocolate boxes for customers who spend more.

Plan ahead and order candy in bulk to get a good price. For online sales, create a fun pop-up that tells shoppers they’ll get a surprise gift with any order placed before Easter.

Idea #5: Create An Easter Website

Create a special website for the Easter holiday. You can use the site in a number of clever ways to promote your business.

For example, invite your customers to post their personal drawings of the Easter bunny. (Tell them their kids can participate, too!) Then, have everyone vote on their favorite 3 drawings. The winners can receive prizes ranging from major discounts to free products.

Or hold a contest where customers post their treasured Easter recipes to the site. Again, have everyone vote on their favorites and offer prizes to the winners.

Promote the temporary site on social media, with a press release, or with an email. Alert your regular website visitors of the site and contests using a pop-up, and collect their email in exchange for priority access or extra votes.

Easter is a great holiday to promote your business. It allows adults to enjoy the whimsy of the holiday through childhood activities like Easter egg hunts, and is a practical way to do some ‘spring cleaning’ to boost sales and make room for new inventory. It allows you to run fun, clever marketing campaigns you wouldn’t be able to do during Thanksgiving or Christmas. The key is to be creative and make sure you use online and in-person strategies to get the word out about your promotions.

Your Turn!

What Easter promotion ideas are you working on this year for your business? Did you do anything creative this time last year? Share your ideas and experiences in the comments section below! If you’ve seen other businesses using clever Easter marketing campaigns, describe them for us!