55 Ideas to Help Members Boost Retail Sales This Holiday Season

Your chamber members have a lot riding on this upcoming holiday season. They need to boost retail sales this coming holiday season because COVID and social distancing means their sales in 2020 probably have been far below what they needed.

They need the chamber’s help but they might not even know that you’re in a place to assist them. Here are 55 ideas to help your chamber member businesses boost retail sales from now through Christmas and into the New Year.

Some of these ideas may not be possible in your community as you may not be fully open yet. However, take them and brainstorm ways in which you can make them work virtually.

1. Launch a shop local for the holidays campaign.
2. Create a shopping/dining challenge or bingo card or passport that offers something for shopping/dining at the participating businesses.
3. Lobby for free downtown parking.
4. Create a local currency/chamber bucks program to ensure gift cards are spent in town at participating merchants. Also, starting a local currency or gift card program allows businesses to offer the ease of purchasing with gift cards without taking on the administrative headache of implementing their own program.
5. Highlight special offerings at member businesses like concierge shopping or gift card purchasing specials.
6. Host webinars that show businesses how to sell online. Many merchants don’t know where or how to start.
7. Meet with marketing members to see if they are willing to provide marketing packages for members who aren’t sure what to do or don’t have the time to do it. Perhaps the marketers would be willing to create a beginner package or a “lite” version of a course for a special introductory price.
8. Ask a local college if there are marketing students who would be willing to provide free advice or set up assistance for social media or blog creation.
9. Highlight member specials on your website and social media.
10. Create a “Shop Home for the Holidays” Facebook page where local businesses can post information, specials, hours, highlights, etc.
11. Create a resource guide for getting more customers and include advice from local marketers and companies as well as Google, Facebook’s holiday program, and others.
12. Research to find out if there are local Facebook pages in your area that allow businesses to post information on them. Share this with your businesses.
13. Create “business-specific” graphics that include important information such as what restaurants are open on Christmas Day, what retail shops are open late on Christmas Eve, a list of gift card promos, or services people love to receive.
    Pawnee County in Kansas has a flyer for events, created by the Larned Area Chamber:
    
14. Gather ideas on unique gifts for hard-to-please people from local businesses. Write a blog post and quote them with a link.
15. Create a “Happy Holidays” video of your chamber members to keep them top of mind for potential customers.
16. Encourage members to make the leap of selling online, if they don’t currently do so.
17. Start a “Where’s the Chamber Elf?” program enticing people to figure out where the chamber’s holiday mascot is.
18. Start telling stories on social media. Get very descriptive of how it feels to buy from a local family.
19. Run a program on how easy it is to start selling on Amazon. Your chamber businesses need to move product. Amazon doesn’t have to be the enemy.
20. Interview several businesses and ask them what they want most for this year/what is their holiday wish. Feature them on social media.
21. Show businesses how to use Pinterest to sell products. That site offers a very high correlation between pins and purchases.
22. Encourage businesses to do more video. Show them how.
23. Dress up in the holiday spirit and visit businesses for photo ops. Socially distanced, of course.
24. If you enjoy the dramatic, create a short video “It’s a Wonderful Life” style featuring what life in your town would be like without your wonderful businesses.
    
25. Create a Christmas jingle parody encouraging people to shop in your community.
26. Create photo ops outside of businesses or encourage them to do it by hosting a holiday decorating contest.
27. Teach them about content marketing and the value it could have for them around the holidays.
28. Create a list of gifts for specific types of people such as “the busy mom” or the “techie.” Highlight member businesses as places to buy these gifts.
29. Put together a holiday discount/coupon book for the community.
30. Create videos highlighting special products at some businesses.
31. Host an “Ugly Christmas Mask” contest community-wide instead of an ugly Christmas sweater. Vote for the “ugliest” on social media. Instead of naming contestants, use the name of the business.
32. Teach them about email marketing and the importance of building a list.
33. Encourage them to stay open special hours by creating a holiday shopping extravaganza one evening.
34. Host a maker’s market for local artisans.
35. Create a coalition for a local industry that needs help or has special concerns such as distilleries.
36. Send a holiday email sharing stories about merchants.
37. Encourage merchants to send out an email detailing the highlights of their year (or how they adapted and overcame) and thanking customers for their support and encouragement.
    For example, Mr Bubbles Laundromats in Reno simply posted this thank you statement:
    
38. Host a Google My Business session so that everyone has up-to-date info on Google and can be found easily. Suggest they use keywords/keyword phrases that people would search to find their offerings in their Google business description.
39. Encourage them to create Facebook events for special holiday celebrations in their businesses. Suggest that employees and friends of the business select “interested” on Facebook so that the event gets a larger reach.
40. Talk to businesses about updating their websites for the holidays including hours, deals, and holiday content.
41. Post marketing tips on social media on things like the importance of using calls to action and updating the join the email list to something like “Sign up for special holiday discounts and promotions.” Discounts and promotions are the largest reasons people sign up for newsletters.
42. Create a list of excellent holiday blog topics that will get noticed. Ideas could include awesome gift lists, product or service highlights, creative ways to wrap gifts, etc.
43. Tell them whenever possible to use festive holiday-inspired email subject lines.
44. Encourage them to think about what their customers need during the holidays. Is it more time, less pressure, the perfect hostess gift? Then instruct them to find (and communicate) a way in which their business solves that problem.
45. Suggest they use fun attention-getters like ecards and “Elf Yourself” videos.
46. Encourage the use of real cards and mail.
    
47. Highlight gift basket providers in your town. Lots of businesses want to send gifts to their best customers and clients at the end of the year and gift baskets are a great idea.
48. Talk about the importance of location-based tagging in social media, especially when it comes to businesses that only serve local customers.
49. Host a learning session about using SMS and Messenger in reaching their audience. It’s not hard to implement and texts have a better read rate than emails. Plus, using Messenger gives their customers instant access to them for quick answers to their questions. This can be critical to making a sale.
50. Run a session on mobile design and strategy. People often consult their phones during the holidays to check pricing, hours, and offers. They should make sure their site looks as great on mobile as it does on desktop.
51. Talk about the excitement of using flash deals on social media or with their email list.
52. Help them tie their product or service into how to use those things during the holiday. This needn’t be limited to retail. Even a business like plumbing can talk about readying the house for out-of-town guests or ensuring the pipes are ready for the “extra traffic.”
53. Do a countdown to Christmas featuring members of different types such as “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a diamond solitaire from X Jewelers.” This shows off both a member and a gift idea.
54. Don’t ignore COVID in holiday marketing. People have changed their buying patterns with the pandemic. Encourage businesses to think about what services or products might be hot this year.
55. Create “Best of” bundles from your town. These gift baskets can include items from several local businesses and available for sale at multiple spots around town. This can create a special opportunity for several businesses at once.

The holidays may be exactly what many businesses are waiting on to decide what their future will be. They need as much help to boost retail sales as they can get from you and the community. Use as many of these ideas as you can to make a difference.