While other holidays like Valentine’s and Mother’s Day are great for giving gifts of jewelry to loved ones, there is no better holiday to promote your jewelry, watches and other gift items than Christmas. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day remain by far the major gift giving holidays in the United States, and jewelry remains a prime gift giving item.
While the time leading up to Thanksgiving all the way through Christmas Eve is important to advertise and promote your jewelry store, there are 7 days in particular you need to know about and customize special marketing messages and/or promotions for them.
1. Black Friday – the Friday after Thanksgiving, November 28
When I started in the jewelry industry in the late ‘70s the Friday after Thanksgiving was the busiest day of the year at the local jewelry store where I worked. However, for many local jewelry stores today it is a slow day because all the shopping traffic is at the malls and large chain stores.
In spite of this shift in shopping preference, Black Friday is an important day to advertise especially with your Social Media and other online marketing. From Wednesday night before Thanksgiving through Black Friday morning, more people will be looking online for Christmas gift ideas and special offers than at any other time of the year. If you do not include Black Friday advertising in your marketing you will not be seen when the most people are looking for the products you carry.
Be certain to include in your marketing the advantages of buying fine quality jewelry from your store instead of the mass-produced jewelry they find in most Black Friday advertising.
2. Small Business Saturday – the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 29
Because of the massive shift in shopping preference on Black Friday from local retailers to big box stores, American Express wanted to provide small local businesses a special shopping opportunity. In 2010, they introduced Small Business Saturday to encourage consumers to spend their dollars supporting local small businesses.
If you have not promoted this in the past, this year would be a great time to get on board and take advantage of this new marketing event for local retailers. For more information on promoting Small Business Saturday and marketing tools to use go to Facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday or ShopSmall.com.
3. Cyber Monday – the Monday after Thanksgiving, December 1
The Monday after Thanksgiving has become the least productive day of the year for businesses in America. People head back to their offices after the holiday weekend and rather than get back to work they spend their time looking online for the gifts they could not find while shopping all weekend.
For online retailers, Cyber Monday has quickly become the biggest shopping day of the year. Since the consumer is online, this is also the perfect time to share your marketing message informing them to beware of online jewelry outlets and the advantages of coming into your store to see the jewelry before they buy.
4. Green Monday – the second Monday of December, December 8
The name is not what you think. This shopping day has nothing to do with the environment or earth preservation. It’s all about CASH! Green Monday, the second Monday of December, is historically the busiest shopping day of the month.
While Green Monday’s sales numbers do not trump Black Friday’s, they do come pretty close. The biggest difference between the two days: Consumers won’t be exposed to nearly as many offers. So why not take advantage of the day?!
5. Free Shipping Day – 1 week before Christmas, December 18
Free Shipping Day needs very little explanation: It is the day when online businesses offer free shipping, of course! The online retailers that participate in this shopping day event, guarantee that purchases made on the day will be delivered for free by Christmas Eve. Free Shipping day is the third-busiest day of the year for online shopping in the U.S.
While Free Shipping Day is promoted by online retailers, this is also a time for local businesses to market their stores on social and other online media. Just like Cyber Monday, consumers are on the Internet and looking for gift ideas. It is a great time to be online promoting the advantage of shopping in person at your jewelry store.
6. Super Saturday – the final Saturday before Christmas, December 20
Super Saturday is the most popular of all the shopping days during the holidays. The promotions and deals will not be nearly as widespread as they are on Black Friday, but this does not drive away the thousands of last-minute shoppers.
This is the perfect time to promote to men. Open early and offer coffee and doughnuts. Promote your gift wrapping service and last-minute offers. And you may want to continue to do so until the 24th.
7. Gift Card Exchange Day – the day after Christmas, December 26
You may not have heard of this day before as it just started last year. With the enormous increase in giving gift cards for Christmas presents, this event was inevitable. A growing number of people find themselves with gift cards they don’t want. As a result, on the day after Christmas more gift cards from restaurants and national stores are exchanged or traded-in for cash than any other time of the year.
This provides a unique occasion for astute jewelers! Offer to accept any and all gift cards for full value on any purchase of new jewelry in your store! This promotion can be for the single day or all week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Card readers for mobile phones are inexpensive to purchase which allow you to read the gift card balance, and many credit card swipe machines can also read them. Once you have collected the cards there are several companies that will buy the gift cards in bulk from you. Just do a Google search and you can find many different Gift Card Exchange Services. Typically you need a minimum of $2,000 to $5,000 in gift cards and you receive around 90% of the total value of the cards. You can even select a few exceptional cards to keep for yourself or use as year-end bonuses for employees.
This type of event will certainly set you apart as an innovative jeweler, and is a superior promotion to just another 10% Off Sale!
Brad Simon is co-owner of Internet 4 Jewelers and specializes in Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, and Local Search Marketing exclusively for retail jewelry stores. For more information contact Brad at 864-680-4416 or Brad@Internet4Jewelers.com.
