Australians have been taking advantage of Boxing Day sales for years, but thanks to the substantial growth of online shopping the traditionally American Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have also become large events in the Australian shopping calendar. They are also not restricted to a single day anymore, often continuing throughout the next week.
No longer confined to retail stores, all businesses with an online presence can take advantage of people looking for deals. For hotels and accommodation providers, Black Friday sales can kick off the festive season, while Boxing Day can give you a last minute boost before the end of the calendar year. It’s important to plan ahead so your deals are ready to go live and you can create awareness with your customers.
For 2022 the dates are:
Black Friday – Friday, 25 November
Cyber Monday – Monday, 28 November
Boxing Day – Monday, 26 December
See our tips below on how to plan and execute your sales.
Use your email marketing database and social media following
Having a newsletter sign up or pop-up widget on your website to entice people to enter their email address helps you build a marketing database. You can then use this database to alert customers to the specials once they are live. Using an email marketing tool such as My Guest List or Mail Chimp allows you to schedule a specific day and time for the email to be sent out, so you can have everything ready and scheduled to go in advance.
Creating a social media presence with regular posting is another great tool so you can target potential guests who are already following you.
Create discounts through Promo Codes and Special Offers
Promo codes allow you to create “secret” discounts which are only available to people who have been given the code or link. You can create unique codes for different platforms, allowing you to track how many bookings you get from each advertising channel (e.g. email, Facebook or Instagram).
Special offers are public discounts which anyone making a booking on your website can access, as long as they are searching for the correct dates.
Offer additional add-ons to the bookings
Sales don’t have to simply be discounts only. You can offer additional inclusions such as free breakfast, a spa voucher or wine and cheese in the room on arrival. Carefully curated packages can give the guest great value for money without needing to slash your rates too much.
Create a landing page
Making a unique landing page to advertise your specials and packages will help grab the attention of people visiting your website and generate a link you can put in your marketing campaigns. This sends the guest to a specific page with all the information they need to know about the special deal. It also helps maintain guest focus by allowing them to book your special rates directly on that page.
Use scarcity tactics
Highlighting that there is only a limited amount of time that this offer is available creates urgency and encourages people to book quickly. Using a countdown clock is a great way to clearly show how much time is left and give the user an extra push to book now!
In Levart you have the ability to set your special offers and promo codes to automatically activate and expire on certain dates, so you can rest assured you don’t need to remember to manually turn them on or off.
Summary
Black Friday and Boxing Day are both great opportunities to maximise your occupancy while shoppers are on high alert for good deals. Make sure you plan ahead and have everything set up and ready to go so you are not rushing on the day. Building up a marketing database and social media following gives you a great opportunity to market these deals to people who may have already stayed (or considered staying) at your accommodation in the past.
