It’s Almost Time for the Turkey 5!
As the holiday season approaches, all eyes are on the “Turkey 5.”
Turkey 5 huh?
Yeah, you know…that five-day shopping bonanza that kicks off on Thanksgiving and extends through Black Friday, into Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and maybe even Giving Tuesday!
Famously coined by Amazon back in 2017, the stretch of days can be super critical for a brand looking to close out the year on a high note.
With millions of consumers actively seeking deals, discounts, and gifts during these days, the Turkey 5 presents a golden opportunity for brands to boost their visibility, engage customers, and drive significant sales.
But how can your brand make the most of this crucial time?
Better yet, how can it best prepare to make this time period a true marketing moment?
Because let’s be honest, you have to do something.
Whether it’s going big in brick & mortar, or driving sales via your Shopify site, or boosting your social media followers with a fun and simple giveaway, you can’t not get in the game.
Before we share our Turkey 5 Checklist, let’s carve into the importance of the Turkey 5 for brands!
Why the Turkey 5 Matters for Your Brand
1. High Consumer Spending
The Turkey 5 marks one of the highest periods of consumer spending each year.
According to the National Retail Federation, holiday sales can represent up to 30% of a retailer’s annual sales. With shoppers prepared to spend and looking for deals, this period is crucial for boosting your brand’s bottom line.
Last year, consumers spent roughly $38 billion between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, an increase of 7.8 percent year-over-year, according to Adobe Analytics.
The breakdown of the days included:
- Thanksgiving – $5.6 billion, up 5.5 percent YoY
- Black Friday – $9.8 billion, up 7.5 percent YOY
- Saturday/Sunday – $10.3 billion, up 7.7 percent YoY
- Cyber Monday – $12.4 billion, up 9.6 percent YoY
2. Increased Customer Engagement
In addition to searching for gifts for friends and family, consumers are on high alert during this time period.
You can search for all the stats you want, but the story the same. Email click rates tend to be higher, conversion rates increase considerably, and social media is a buzz.
This presents an excellent opportunity to engage with both existing customers and attract new ones. Brands that can effectively communicate their value propositions and offer enticing deals are more likely to capture the attention of shoppers.
3. Brand Awareness and Loyalty
need help getting ready for the turkey 5?
With so many eyes on the market, the Turkey 5 is a prime time to increase brand awareness.
Effective marketing during this period can lead to a boost in customer loyalty, as shoppers are more likely to remember brands that offer great deals and an out of the box experience.
Additionally, the holiday season is an excellent time for brands to foster long-term relationships through email marketing, social media engagement, and personalized offers.
Turkey 5 Preparation Checklist for Brands
To capitalize on the Turkey 5, brands must be strategic and proactive. Here’s a quick checklist our team whipped up based off years of experience helping brands go big during this important time of year.
✅ Plan AS Early and AS Strategically AS you can!
This is easier said than done. Every brand would love to have all their ducks in a row prior to a big marketing push, but we all know that seems to never happen. Until now, of course.
Before you start figuring out what your “thing” is — perhaps it’s best to peruse past campaign performances to get a gander on whether your customers gobbled up your idea, or pushed it aside for something better. And the good news is that it’s pretty simple. All you have to do is:
- Analyze Past Performance: Review sales data from previous Turkey 5 periods to identify what worked and what didn’t. This can guide your strategy for the upcoming season.
- Set Clear Goals: Whether it’s increasing sales, acquiring new customers, or enhancing brand awareness, define what success looks like for your brand during the Turkey 5.
Now for the fun part.
✅ Create Compelling Offers and Promotions
It can’t just be…25% off sitewide sale yayyyy, wooooo, yayyyy. It’s gotta be something substantial. Here’s a few tried and true approaches we’ve found work:
- Develop Exclusive Daily Deals: Offering exclusive daily deals — whether it’s different deals altogether or escalating deals over the 5-day period – can lead to serious sales and engagement. Your loyal fans will love it and will keep coming back each day for more.
- Bundle Products: Building a bundle that features savings on some of your products is a creative way to drive bigger purchases. Don’t be afraid to build a fun bundle your customers will love, and be ready to give a bunch of them away.
- Gotta Do Giveaways: Coming up with a fun and interactive giveaway on top of your sales-driving efforts is a great way to show your tribe that you’re also in it for the engagement. It’s also a great way to earn some covered User Generated Content. Give your product away, or team up with a like-minded brand and do a big one.
✅ Leverage Your Strengths
Maybe you have 100K email subscribers, or maybe you have 10,000 highly engaged Instagram followers. Only you know where you’re the strongest. So, when it comes to deployment, make sure your creative idea/offer aligns with the nuisances of your strengths.
We’ve seen success in the following arenas:
- Craft Engaging Email Campaigns: Use personalized email marketing campaigns to inform your customers not only about your big sale, but maybe even offer an exclusive subscriber-only sale a few days prior to the launch. No matter what you do, you’ll want to make sure you’re brand is touching customers on almost every day of the Turkey 5 with engaging and compelling email offers.
- Boost Social Media Engagement: Organic social is obviously going to be apart of your campaign, but be sure to boost by dedicating a small spend ($500 to $1,000) to amplify your reach even further. If running Ads isn’t your thing, boosting posts is a perfectly acceptable way to expand your reach and boost engagement with your campaign.
- Leverage SMS Text: Whether you’re looking to build a SMS subscriber base by offering 20% off for opt-in, or you’ve already got SMS subscribers and you want to spread your campaign message even further— SMS text is 🙌🏼.
So there it is, a down and dirty task list on how to tackle the Turkey 5. We hope you use this checklist to ensure you’re ready to seize every opportunity the upcoming holiday shopping period has to offer.
NEED A TINY BIT OF INSPIRATION?
Check out the Turkey 5 campaign (email & social) we put together on behalf of our buddies at Blue-9 Pet Products:
Email Campaigns
Social Media Campaigns