Why Most Holiday Sales Are Useless & How You Can Fix It

99% of the seasonal sales you will see now are boring, ineffective, and pointless.

If the companies running holiday sales knew what I’m about to reveal, then they’d be crushing their competition with how many customers they’re getting.

If you give me 3 minutes of your time, I’ll explain what the secret to good sales campaigns is, backed by science.

Let’s begin!

How Most Holiday Sales Set Themselves Up For Failure

The reason seasonal sales don’t do as well as they hope… is because they call themselves a seasonal sale.

In other words, it all comes down to their naming.

During Christmas time, you’ll undoubtedly see one of these names:

• ‘Christmas Sale!’

• ‘Holiday Sale!’

• ‘Boxing Day Sale!’

Even I just searched up different sales, and 99% had one of these in the title.

And that’s exactly the problem.

Anyone doing online shopping will end up seeing these phrases a lot. 

So much so that they will get used to seeing the phrases ‘Christmas Sale’ and ‘Boxing Day Sale’ all of the time.

This is called habituation - when you see something so much that you no longer respond to it.

These ad campaigns become similar to habits such as nail biting, where they are read or done so much that the person doesn’t even have to think about it when reading or doing it.

When you read ‘Christmas Sale’, you may stop thinking it’s unique and that all businesses are running the exact same thing. That’s because they’re all under the exact same name.

With words, this is called semantic satiation - when you repeat a word so many times that it loses its meaning.

And the reason this is so bad when running a sale… is because your customers will just think of you as any other business and treat you as such.

Therefore, you’re going to get low-quality customers who don’t respect your business and may not even want to buy from you.

So here’s how to fix this once and for all:

Fix This Problem To Get More High-Quality Customers

Above is a graph of what happens in our brains the more we see something.

The first few times we see ‘Christmas Sale’, we give it more meaning. We are reminded that it is Christmas and we now know that there is a sale.

However, as explained before, the more you see it, the more meaning it loses.

So if you ran a ‘Christmas Sale’, your customers wouldn’t think it has any specific meaning. They would treat your business like any other business running a ‘Christmas Sale’.

The way we avoid this is by giving your sale a unique name.

You can do your own thinking, or you can hire ChatGPT for help like I did below. Here are a few examples we made up:

• “Elves’ Choice Discounts’

• ‘Santa’s Secret Savings’ (my personal favourite)

• ‘Holiday Cheer Clearance Sale’

You may think that these names are weird, and they are. But that’s why they work.

If you saw a business running a sale under any of these names, you would remember that business as unique.

And suddenly, that business and its sale is now unique to you. It’s not the same as the hundreds of other companies running basically the same sales.

That’s the position you want to be in. Having customers respect you as your own business.

Because customers who respect you are more likely to be loyal customers who trust your business.

So just by changing a few words, you’ve increased your chance of getting high-quality customers in the long-term!

Try spicing up your seasonal sale the next time you run a sale, and see the difference in results that you get. It will help with creating a stronger brand for your business.

And if you want to know how to implement more strategies into your local business, then check out this free eBook on local business marketing for 2025 ➡️ by clicking this link.