One of the hardest parts about selling online is the lack of personal interaction you have with your customers. It can feel impersonal. Especially if you don’t have much of a social presence.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t have opportunities to connect with your customers, bring them a little joy and make them feel special. That’s why today we’re gonna talk about 7 ways to surprise and delight your customers this holiday season.
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1. Give them a little more than they ordered
If it makes sense for your brand and what you sell, giving them an unexpected product sample or small gift in their order is a great way to make them feel special, when you do it right. The most important thing to keep in mind is relevance. Would this person actually be excited to receive it, based on what they bought?
If you sell skincare, that might be a sample of a complementary product. If you sell stationery, maybe it’s a few gift tags they can use for their holiday wrapping. Something small that feels like you thought about how they’re going to use their purchase..
This can be easier to pull off if you make your own items, but what if you buy and sell other brands? Well, reach out to them. You never know what inventory they’re willing to move at a lower than wholesale price, or what samples they’re able to share. We used to do this at my previous day job all the time. We were able to get substantial items for a super affordable price and the customers were stoked to get a surprise in their package.
Plus, more than just doing something nice for them, if you can give them samples of the products you sell, it could be good for you too. Just recently one of my lounge members took a deep dive into the products her customers typically purchased on their first and second order. Turns out, the top products for both were basically the same. I read that as: once they try one of her products – which happen to be consumable – they’re hooked. So her biggest lever with repeat customers is to get them to try more items.
Whatever you end up doing, make sure you do the math before you commit. Include the cost of the item, any extra shipping weight, packaging, and the work involved in packing it. And definitely put some parameters around it, whether it’s a minimum order, limited time, or only for specific categories. You don’t have to do this from now until the end of December.
2. Give Your Regulars an Unexpected Upgrade
We spend so much time thinking about how to get a new customer that it’s easy to forget to do something special for the ones we already have.
So choose a small group of loyal customers and give them a little VIP treatment this season. Maybe you include a full-size version of something they’ve sampled before. Maybe you upgrade their gift packaging at no charge. Or you send them a small holiday gift separately from an order.
Include a message that tells them why: “You’ve supported us so much this year, and we wanted to send a little something to say thank you.”
That explanation matters. Otherwise, they might assume you made a packing mistake.
And they shouldn’t have to spend another hundred dollars to receive it. You’re recognizing the relationship they already have with your business.
You can absolutely put some boundaries around this. Decide who qualifies, how many people you can include, and what you can afford. For a small group of customers who support you consistently, a thoughtful upgrade can feel much more personal than another coupon code.
3. Make Your Thank You More Personal
Creating a new touchpoint with your customer so they know you value them can go a long way toward brand loyalty.
There was a brand I worked with awhile ago – Supercrush. It was a mother and daughter duo who started a hair accessories brand. Think claw clips and scrunchies. They’ve since sold the business, but they used to do this super cute thing where they would call their customers on the phone to say thank you, and they recorded it and shared it on social media. The customers were always so excited to hear from them. I’m sure anyone who wasn’t didn’t make it to the Instagram feed. But still, it was just a simple, fun way to connect with their customers.
If phone calls are out of the question, a handwritten thank you note does the trick too. Pick out something specific and unique about their order and make sure you mention it, so they know it wasn’t just a template that every customer got.
Maybe you know it’s their fifth order so you call that out, or tell you at checkout it’s a gift for their sister and ask for a gift note – you can mention that. Anything that shows it was actually a human who wrote it. It sounds so basic I know, but when so much about online shopping is automated, it’s really refreshing.
And just like the free gift, you don’t have to do this for every order. Pick a few each week. Have your team flag repeat customers or meaningful order notes so you know when there’s an order it makes sense for. Depending on your criteria you could even automate the notification process through Shopify flow.
4. Give Something Special Toward Their Next Visit
Another thing you can tuck into their package is something they can look forward to on their next visit. Think scratch-off cards, sealed envelopes with a mystery offer, or even a gift card they can use on a future purchase.
Bouncebacks are a tried and true retail strategy for bringing customers back at specific times of the year. And the holidays are a great time to give them out because you’ve likely got new customers discovering you and repeat customers who haven’t been around in awhile finally showing up. Set the redemption window for early in the new year, and you’re giving them a reason to come back during your slower months.
I actually have an entire episode about bringing Q4 shoppers back in the new year – it’s episode 303 if you want to take a listen.
5. Help Them Enjoy What They Bought
This is a great place to reuse content you already have. If you sell cocktail mixers, send a few holiday drink recipes. If you sell clothing, show them three ways to style what they bought for different holiday plans. If you sell craft supplies, give them a small project they can actually finish during a busy season.
The question is, “What would help them get more out of this product?”
And go beyond the basic instructions they need to use it. Those should already be there. This is the extra idea they might not have thought of themselves.
You can deliver it in a post-purchase email or include a card with a QR code. Just tell them what they’ll get when they scan it. “Three holiday cocktails you can make with your new mixer” gives them a reason to bother.
Also, think about who’s receiving it. If your customer bought something as a gift, an email to the purchaser might never reach the person who’s going to use it. Putting the recipe or tutorial link with the product means that extra bit of value can make it to the recipient too.
6. Make Your Website Festive
I regularly talk about the power of dressing up your website for the Holiday season, because it helps people get in the mood to shop. One of my favorite ways to do this is with confetti!
Yep, you can put confetti on your website.
There are a bunch of ways you can do this, whether it’s putting rain confetti that plays the entire time, or just a burst when someone lands on a page or takes an action.
I love website confetti so much, I even made a confetti generator! There are a ton of them online already, but they all leave a lot to be desired from an interface perspective, and none of them make it easy to connect to your email sign up forms.
I’ll put a link in the show notes so you can check it out.
If you are going to use confetti, be intentional with it, you don’t want it everywhere. Maybe you stick it on your holiday gift guide page, or add a burst when they sign up for your early access list. One or two implementations is all it takes to put a smile on their face.
7. Be Their Personal Gifting Concierge
You know I love a good gift guide on your website, and even the flippable magazine version I show you how to create in the Gift Guide Glow Up.
But what I’m talking about goes above and beyond the static assortment you show to everyone. I mean, actually connecting directly with customers and offering to help them with their holiday shopping.
This will be especially powerful if you sell higher priced items, or if the gift-giver is mostly men.
You might reach out to a handful of VIP customers or identify a segment of holiday-only shoppers. Reach out to them through email and ask them for a few details to help you curate the perfect items for them.
Once you narrow it down, send them a few details about why you chose the items you did. You can record a video, put together a lookbook, whatever you can do to try and recreate that in-person shopping experience.
If you don’t have a targeted list you can reach out to, you could consider marketing it publicly. You’ll have to be careful to make sure you don’t get overwhelmed. Maybe you do some sort of live shopping event instead, or you take a deposit that can be put toward their final purchase to keep away the riff-raff.
Your Next Move
Of course the trick to bringing the surprise and delight without overwhelming yourself is to pick the one or two things that make the most sense, or will be the most impactful for your store, your products, and your customers.
You don’t have to do them all, and you shouldn’t.
Listen to this Episode
Links Mentioned
- 303. How to Bring Q4 Shoppers Back in the New Year
- 376. Why Your Online Store Isn’t Fun to Shop
- All Holiday Podcast Episodes
- Confetti Generator
