Venue Promotion Ideas for December: How to Promote a Venue
Coming up with incredible venue promotion ideas for December is incredibly important because it’s one of the busiest times of the year for the hospitality industry. It’s the most awaited time of the year and competition is stiff!
And while 2020 hasn’t really been the best year (for so many reasons, sigh!) here’s the time to finally cheer up and revel in the festivities.
As a business owner and marketer, this year hasn’t been easy on you either. In fact, businesses, both big and small have been drastically affected, courtesy of the pandemic and its consequences. But here’s the right time to buckle up and come up with some bang-on strategies and promotions, which will help you get back on track quickly.
We’ve compiled a list of venue promotion ideas for December, and we’re sure these ideas will help you establish the perfect promotion strategy for your business.
Here is our list of venue promotion ideas for December:
1. Glam up and go festive
2. Create a helpful gift guide
3. Don’t skip Hanukkah
4. Send out cards with coupons
5. Host giveaways
6. Plan events
7. Host a drive
8. Update your venue details on Google my Business listing
9. Up your email marketing game
10. Personalize experiences
11. Conduct workshops
12. Start a Christmas Day countdown
13. Organize competitions
14. Think out of the box
1. Glam up and go festive
There’s nothing like bringing Christmas into your venue. While you are going all out to deck the halls with rows of hollies, don’t forget that your online presence needs a Christmassy touch too.
Add a stocking cap to your logo, bring in Santa Claus and his reindeer right onto your homepage for an instant makeover.
For the physical venue, you don’t really need to burn a hole in your pocket to deck it up. Instead, look up for simple, cost-effective yet elegant options, using which you can give your venue a grand, winter wonderland look right away!
2. Create a helpful gift guide
Let’s be honest – most people are confused as to what to give their loved ones during festivals. They want to gift something that is not only useful but also pretty and budget friendly. Use this opportunity and swoop in to help the confused masses out! Simply create a beautiful gift guide – line up all the things you feel will be perfect gifts.
Go one step ahead and create separate categories such as ‘Gifts for Him’, ‘Gifts for Her’, ‘Gifts for Best Friends” and so on!
You can also create a gift guide for fitness enthusiasts, artists or even gardeners – basically curate the gift guide as per your business. Include all the best products from your business in this gift guide and make it as user-friendly as you can.
3. Don’t skip Hanukkah
You definitely have a lot of your customers celebrating Hanukkah. So, missing out on this important festival wouldn’t make sense at all.
While you are planning your marketing strategies for Christmas and New Year’s, do include Hanukkah in these plans too. Add Hannukah décor to your venue – oodles of light and gold will do the trick.
To attract crowds, you can also come up with Hanukkah special promotions on your website as well as the venue. This gesture will be certainly appreciated by your customers, as not all businesses really consider Hanukkah in their marketing strategies.
4. Send out cards with coupons
There’s nothing like receiving a handmade card during the Holiday Season. Instead of getting a bunch of printed cards, lookout for a local store creating handmade greeting cards.
This way, you will not only send out personalized greetings to your customers, but you will also promote another store.
The cards need not be all jazzy – just pick some warm, fuzzy ones with cute messages will work wonders too. And don’t forget to add a coupon or a discount voucher in the cards – that’s a great way to encourage your customers to drop into your store for a visit during the holidays.
5. Host giveaways
Giveaways are always trending on Instagram for all the right reasons! Hosting giveaways give your venue a massive exposure, drawing loads of customers to your store right away. Not forgetting to mention the lucky winners, who are always overjoyed receiving free goodies.
While you’re at giveaways, try collaboration with another local brand and create a lovely hamper to give out. By promoting a fellow business, you will not only help them out but also add to your own exposure.
6. Plan events
Small, fun events are always welcome. Make sure you target people of all age groups when you host these events at your venue. For example, you can celebrate the first day of Winter (which falls on 21st December) by hosting an Ugly Sweater Day at your venue!
The whole of December is marked with many such interesting days – a little research and brainstorming and you will be able to come up with a range of fun events.
And yes, you want people to turn up in huge numbers. So, simply create a buzz on your social media platforms so that your customers and others following you on social media are informed well in advance.
Don’t forget to give goodies to the people who win. This way, you’re promoting your products, venue as well as leaving smiles on the faces of happy customers!
7. Host a drive
This is definitely an interesting and unique way to promote your venue – start a drive! You can host a toy or winter clothes collection drive. For all those who contribute to this drive, give them a voucher or a discount coupon for their next visit to your store.
Take happy pictures with those who have donated their toys or clothes (you can get creative here and choose what type of drive you want to host) and post it on your social media platforms to spread the word among others too.
You can then choose to give away the clothes and toys you have collected to those who need them, adding to the number of smiles during the holiday season.
8. Update your venue details on Google my Business listing
Google is where most people head to whenever they’re looking out for something worth visiting. So, before you begin planning your marketing strategies for the month of December, first head straight to Google and update everything – right from your address to your contact details.
Mention your holiday hours, upload photos and create offers and event posts. Also, encourage your customers to drop in reviews and ratings – this makes your listing even more impactful.
Optimizing your Google listing is the goal – so do all you can to get noticed amongst hundreds of venues out there.
9. Up your email marketing game
Don’t ever commit the mistake of thinking that email marketing is useless. These emails that you send out in fact work as reminders to people, who otherwise get busy during the holiday season.
Your email communications should be intentional – you can wish your customers and also let them know about the holiday special deals you have come up with. Let them know you’re thinking about them and want them to drop by for a visit to your store.
If you’re a service and don’t have any products to offer, you can simply send out an informational email. For example, if you’re a fitness business, your email could revolve around how to stay healthy during the holiday season.
As a counsellor, you can send out an email as to how to destress in this busy month. The whole idea is to get creative and send out effective emails.
10. Personalize experiences
Give your customers an opportunity to have a sneak-peek into what the business looks like behind the scenes, especially during the busy season.
With this, you can instantly connect with your customers. A short video as to how your bakery looks when you’re baking all those rum cakes and cookies for Christmas or even a video of cookies and cakes rising in the oven will do the trick.
You can also try introducing your employees to the customers on your social media platforms in some creative ways, to build a more personal connection with your client base. Think of out of the box ideas to do this and will definitely gain you all the publicity you deserve.
11. Conduct workshops
If you have a gift shop, you can simply do an origami workshop where you teach kids (and adults!) how to make basic Christmas ornaments.
Or you can have a DIY Christmas Décor workshop too!
If you’re a baker, a simple cake and cookie making workshop is the best way to pull crowds to your business. Let the participants take back home all the things they’re making by themselves, and you’ll have a happy workshop full of smiling faces!
12. Start a Christmas Day countdown
12 Days of Christmas is the best way to spread the festive cheer. This countdown gives you a lot of creative scope to not only promote your brand but also to remind customers that Christmas is approaching!
If you’re a bed-and-breakfast business, offer your customers a free stay on one of the 12 days. Or if you’re an adventure park, give the entire family a free one-day tour of your adventure park.
You can also choose to take the 12 days of Christmas offline and straight into your venue! It’s your business, and totally in your hands to offer to your patrons whatever you feel best. Offer a different promotion each day of the 12 days and you’ll surely be able to generate enough buzz for both your business as well as the holiday season!
13. Organize competitions
People are anyway going to decorate their Christmas trees and cribs, so why not organize a competition revolving around this theme?
You can come up with competitions like – ‘best eco-friendly Christmas décor’, or ‘out-of-the-box Christmas décor and then give away gift vouchers to the winners.
Ask the winners to post their entries on your social media pages and tag your business. You will get a solid outreach with this activity.
If you don’t want to go mainstream with the competitions, you can also have competitions like ‘share your Christmas story’ or ‘your favourite holiday season memories’.
14. Think out of the box
Most events out there would be for family or couples, so why not organise an event dedicated to singles? Or you could even host a nice cook for people staying away from home, like students and the working class.
This time around, this idea would really work well, as many would not be able to make it home – considering the pandemic travel restrictions.
With so many people missing out on their family time during this holiday season, you can totally go ahead and give all these people an experience that will make them feel a lot better than they would, were they to spend the holidays alone.
Summing up
There’s no dearth of creativity when it comes to venue promotion ideas for December. Also, you may not be able to implement most of these ideas considering budget constraints and a whole lot of other factors.
But yes, what you can do is chart out a budget, and look for ways and means to market your business during the festive season. Big or small, every business is just as important and you have to take every possible effort to make it thrive, irrespective of the conditions around.
If you’ve had a tough time this year, this festive season is a golden opportunity for you to revive your business! Get creative, use the possible resources and make the most of this opportunity!
