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8 Tips for Engaging Your Community Throughout the Holiday Season

Published Date
Author Tony Coray

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, last-minute discounts — the holiday season has become synonymous with deals. It’s also a highly competitive time for brands, which makes it an ideal moment to double down on your best customers. Providing verified, exclusive offers to consumer communities like students, teachers, and the military is an effective way to capture attention with special promotions that deepen brand loyalty while driving sales.

But the key to exclusive offers is making your community members feel recognized and appreciated for who they are. That means standing out from the crowd of holiday promotions — and ensuring your campaigns make your community feel genuinely valued. So we’ve gathered eight best practices to engage your best customers throughout the holiday season. 

1. Use Truly Personal Messaging

For any campaign you run, be sure to use language that resonates with your community. This could mean personalizing email subject lines to appeal to your audience — rather than an urgent “Buy Now” message like everyone else — or using a custom social graphic for your Instagram promos. 

But regardless of channel, by speaking directly to the community your customers belong to will make your messages more likely to rise above the noise. 

For example, when promoting their highly discounted student plan, meditation app Headspace speaks directly to the challenges college students face — day in, day out. With resonant language and relatable visuals, students feel recognized before they click the link to verify.

 

 

2. Make Your Discount Stackable

Keep your community feeling special by letting them redeem their exclusive discount on top of your other promotions. 

Imagine a veteran comes to your website to redeem her military discount, then discovers she’ll score a much better deal by using the same Black Friday promo code everyone else got. That doesn’t exactly create a feeling of value and appreciation. 

Instead, make verified discounts stackable. This will avoid the disappointment of learning your holiday sales are better than their exclusive discounts, and encourage your community members to shop with your brand first.

For example, Bass Pro Shops typically layers its Legendary Salute 10% discount on top of other promotions. This creates a positive experience for military and veterans, and helps Bass Pro Shops cement its National Service Award-winning reputation as a supporter of the armed forces.

 
 

3. Offer Holiday Loyalty Perks

Instead of joining other retailers’ race to the lowest price, use the holiday season to encourage loyalty among your community groups. Give extra points or rewards for:

  • Joining your loyalty program
  • Every purchase made during the season
  • Spending a certain amount with your brand before January
  • Referring other eligible community members 

If you haven’t already, integrate your verification platform into your loyalty program and ask community members to enroll in order to redeem your offer. This helps encourage repeat purchases and increases the amount of first-party data you’ll receive. 

This is exactly how Madewell extends its teacher and college student discount. Signing up for the Madewell Insider loyalty program is the first step in verification. 

 

 

4. Create a Splash with Limited-Time Flash Sales

Foster excitement by giving community members access to exclusive flash sales. Also known as pulse offers, these limited-time discounts — think 24 hours to three days — create urgency. You can pop up flash sales randomly, or schedule them to occur on a cadence, such as every Tuesday between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. 

For example, vineyard vines surprised its verified communities — healthcare workers, first responders, military personnel, veterans, and teachers — with a bonus 50% off sale during the holiday season. 

 

 

5. Offer VIP Perks

Get creative and go beyond dollars-off discounts to engage your community during the holiday season. Special perks help your community members feel like part of an exclusive club within your brand — especially during a time when traditional sales are widely marketed to everyone with a credit card.

For example, you can give community members: 

  • Early access to Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales
  • First dibs on doorbusters 
  • Access to personalized shopping assistance or events like product demos 
  • Combine products to create exclusive gift sets or bundles only available to community members

Additionally, consider expanding your exclusive offer to a new segment of a customer community to celebrate the holidays. That’s exactly what Lovesac did in 2020 — offering parcel carriers and mail delivery employees a discount to recognize their hard work during an especially challenging year.

 
 

6. Boost Social Media Engagement 

Encourage community members to post on social media about how they use their exclusive discount: gifts they bought, holiday experiences shared, or #treatyourself purchases. As an incentive, you can offer each participant a small gift or perk, or enter them into a contest to win a bigger-ticket item. 

Alternately, consider using social media as a platform to drum up even more recognition of your community members among your wider audience. 

For example, during the height of the 2023 holiday season, Tarte — which has earned headlines for its support of teachers — featured real New York teachers in a special product launch. They promoted the new campaign on Facebook, asking all their followers to tag deserving teachers in their own communities.

 
 

7. Make New Year’s Fun

Extend the festivities into January by tying your offers to your community members’ New Year’s resolutions and aspirations — such as new wardrobes for students, supplies for teachers, or health and wellness subscriptions for nurses.

January is also the perfect time to promote any personalized offer that resets at the start of each calendar year. Remind community members that a fresh discount is available in the new year to drive additional sales during the post-holiday slump.

For example, in 2022, music subscription service TIDAL kicked off a New Year’s program that ran for the full month of January, increasing verifications and signups for students, military, and first responders. 

 

 

8. Countdown to the Holiday

Take a page from ever-popular advent calendars with a countdown-inspired campaign. Keep your offers exclusive — make each day or week reveal an item that community members can buy at a special price.

For example, Bostitch created a special 12 Days of Bostitch Giveaways to entice teachers to verify their educator status during the holidays. From December 10 to 21st, they increased teachers’ personalized discounts from 15% to 25% off, and promoted special holiday sweepstakes throughout the campaign.

 

 

Forge New Community Connections This Season

From Gen Z to first responders to new movers, exclusive offers are a proven way to build loyalty by making consumers feel special — during the holidays, and all year long.

If you’re new to community marketing or looking to expand a program to a new group, learn more about finding your consumer community.