How to Build up Holiday Hype: The Comms Plan to Get Your Shoppers Primed to Gift

A successful holiday season doesn’t just happen because of good vibes alone. For brands that thrive during the holidays, months of planning and prepping have already taken place before the calendar even flips to December.

From curating bundles, ordering inventory, and fine-tuning promos — and that’s just the tip of the holiday iceberg — there’s a lot that needs to happen behind the scenes so shoppers get everything they want and brands don’t get bogged down by bottlenecks.

And when it comes to your gifting channel? People want a way to buy and send gifts without adding a speck of extra stress to an already hectic season.

The truth is, you can have everything in place, from partnering with Zest (a wise choice) to all your logistical prep, but none of that is enough if you aren’t hyping it up with your customers. All of your prep work relies on one final piece to the puzzle: A communication plan.

Knowing when, where, and how to shout about your products, promos, and CX is the linchpin to having your best year yet. In this playbook, we share tips and recommendations for key gifting comms to weave into your overall Q4 strategy both on and offline.

Keep reading to learn:

Remember when Black Friday used to be its own tidy little shopping holiday? Consumers could go about their lives until the Friday after Thanksgiving, and only then would they battle it out at their favorite brick-and-mortar retailer to snag a good deal. One day of madness, then back to some sort of consumer normalcy.

Fast-forward to today, and a peaceful prelude to Black Friday is practically unfathomable. The evolution of Cyber Monday, advanced ecom tech, email marketing tools that can pinpoint segments and personalization, endless ways to ping and prod shoppers, and more have made winning the Black Friday customer a fight that starts weeks — if not months — ahead of time.

You and every other brand are vying for the same eyeballs and pocketbooks, so it’s crucial to make sure every comm counts. Q4 shopping has officially shifted from a sprint to a marathon, and your holidays comms strategy should follow suit.

According to Klaviyo, more than 40% of email campaigns are filled with BFCM intel roughly a week out from Black Friday. On top of that, roughly 60% of shoppers are scouting out what they’re going to buy weeks beforehand.

What does this mean for you? If you wait until the day before to blast out BFCM info, half of your competitors have already gotten the word out about their offerings, and most shoppers have solidified their shopping gameplan.

With these facts in mind, we recommend two simple strategies:

In order to secure a spot on someone’s “to shop” list, early engagement is key. The aforementioned competition is fired up by early- to mid-November, but Zest partners have another factor to consider: they need to drive awareness of their gifting capabilities.

Cutting your BFCM emails close might work for online shops advertising discounts that follow the standard checkout flow, but you have to go one step further. You have to get your customers comfortable with your gifting checkout, too.

Sending comms as early as October gives you plenty of runway to familiarize and educate your audience with:

This information is best served well before Black Friday (and the string of Q4 holidays that follow) so you aren’t trying to educate your customers during their inbox’s busiest season. Getting ahead of the hubbub is your go-to move here.

It’s rare for someone to absorb a message after seeing it just once. (Remember the Rule of 7? Shoppers have to typically encounter your message at least seven times for it to stick.) Your goal in Q4 is to make your store synonymous with easy gifting, which means cramming that message in your comms as often as possible.

We recommend sticking a nod to gifting in every email you send to stoke year-round gift sales, but if you’re just starting in Q4, it’s not too late to start hammering the message home now.

Send emails weekly starting in October, and that’s ample time to warm up your audience and get them primed for the gifting season.

Repeat your message in each email or touchpoint so it sticks. And if you’re not quite sure what exactly to say in each email, keep on readin’.

Everyone and their brother is going to be focused on headline discounts in their comms. Inboxes are going to be inundated with subject lines spotlighting one hefty discount or another, and it’s only a matter of time before shoppers’ stop reading and start deleting en masse.

This is your opportunity to stand out by talking about something other than a percentage off. With Zest on your site, you have a competitive edge, and now’s the prime time to hype it up.

In addition to sharing discounts and deals, talk about:

Basically, any type of gifting your store offers is a new topic to talk about in your comms.

Most of your competitors offer zero dedicated gifting conversion journeys and shoppers are forced to make their own path to purchase gifts (like going through the checkout again and again and again…).

This leaves a big gap between what most stores provide and what shoppers want, i.e., it’s the perfect opportunity for you to slide right in and start meeting the needs of those who want to gift online.

Here’s a flow we would follow if starting a BFCM campaign in October this year:

Send emails to your audience weekly, then ramp up the week of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Start in October with digestible educational emails, like simple GIFs showing your storefront or simple instructions that get shoppers familiar with how Zest-powered gifting works.

Then, as BFCM approaches, power product discovery and lean into your curated gifts, bundles, and discounts. Check out these examples of emails that drive awareness, education, and discovery.

Momofuku doesn't hesitate to tout the ease of its gifting storefront. We love the main benefit front and center while also enticing shoppers with volume-based discounts and curated bestsellers.

Poppy Hand-crafted Popcorn knows exactly what shoppers want — less stress. And this email delivers by educating customers about its gifting programs (multi-address and bulk single-address gifting capabilities) and benefits like gift scheduling.

Jamagansett puts its best gift bundles on full display here, each with a very thoughtful note about what makes each one great. It's a human touch that makes me want to gift everything, TBH.

Allen Brothers backs up its headlining "effortless gifting" claim with four easy steps to sending an e-gift. Instructions should be approachable and quick to read — both of which Allen Brothers nails in this email.

E-gifting is a nice-to-have feature all year long for your shoppers, but there’s one span in time when it becomes your go-to talking point: after shipping cutoff dates.

Instant e-gifting is a lifesaver for shoppers who waited just a liiittle bit too long to pick out presents. This is the must-send comm once the shipping window to receive gifts by Christmas has officially closed (and it will officially make your store the hero of the holidays).

If you offer e-gifting to your shoppers, these comms also need to offer a certain level of education. After all, self-service e-gifting is a relatively new way to send gifts, and your audience may not be totally well-versed in how it all works.

Here are some tenets of a great last-minute e-gifting email:

Check out a couple more examples of e-gifting comms done right 👇

Garrett Popcorn turns the procrastinating shopper's problem into a benefit in a few lines of clever copy and the perfect last-minute solution — e-gifting.

Cincy Favs is adamant that it's never too late to send a gift with e-gifting — and they're right! The CTA makes it crystal clear to shoppers that they can deliver the primo present via email.

Many of your in-person fans might not be aware of your online gifting capabilities, so getting the word out through any in-real-life (IRL) touchpoint drives awareness and could lead to more meaningful online revenue.

Consider a strategy to bridge the two worlds by way of your:

Driving in-person traffic to your gifting storefront is as easy as displaying signage in the right places. For example, next to your display of best-selling gifts at your holiday market, also add a sign with a CTA such as “Want to send as a gift? Go to our gifting storefront!” beside a QR code that drives people to your gifting storefront.

The best part? Bridging your online gifting with your offline presence has never been easier than now thanks to free or low-cost tools like Canva’s QR code generator.

Worried folks won’t want to go online from your store? According to Brij, consumers are most interested in scanning QR codes for food and bev products, and they’re more likely to scan one in-person than in an email or on a website (plus, 80% of consumers are supportive of QR codes on in-store displays).

Adding IRL gifting signage and CTAs also drives awareness around your multi-address gifting capabilities. When it comes to signage, the possibilities are pretty endless, but we recommend adding notes about your online gifting in physical contexts like:

An in-person touchpoint drives awareness, and printed materials like postcards and business cards make for tangible reminders that your brand has just what they need when it comes time to gift — no matter what time of year it is.
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We imagined if Zest had a brick-and-mortar store and came up with some printed assets we'd set up around our shop and slip to shoppers with their receipt. Put your own spin on images, messaging, and more this season.

Post Cards

These are perfect for sending directly to prospective customers, slipping into shopping bags at checkout, placing into packaging all year long, and more. Each card serves as a reminder of your gifting storefront.

Table Tents

Don't hesitate to try different types of physical signage, like table tents. Stand these up at the register, at your table during the next holiday market, or around your brick-and-mortar store. Print is a relatively low-budget way to turn foot traffic into site traffic, so don't hesitate to test different ideas and see what sticks.