Written for the leaders, owners and professionals of the 11 million businesses with between $50,000 and $50 million in revenue.

First, Spirit Halloween became the de facto official store of spooky season, with over 1,500 North American locations popping up every fall. Now, it’s getting into the Christmas spirit.

A Spirit Christmas store will open this Friday in Mays Landing, New Jersey. Nine more East Coast locations will follow, offering “thousands of stocking stuffers, holiday apparel, fun gifts, unique décor, plus all the special trimmings for creating an unforgettable Christmas,” according to its website. Plus, you can visit a gingerbread village and book a meet-and-greet with Santa Claus.

Spirit hasn’t cornered the yuletide market (yet), so check out our guide to 13 Marketing Strategies That Will Boost Your Holiday Sales.

Storytelling: Create buzz for your product launch

The Algebra of Wealth: “Prof G’s” finance hacks

Pokémon: Company will x-ray unopened cards

Gap: Remembering its one-week logo redesign

(Source: Shutterstock)

Ever wonder how certain marketing campaigns become juggernauts and pop-culture spectacles?

Consider Tesla’s Cybertruck unveiling, which — whatever you think of the controversial design — generated billions in media value. And last year’s Barbie movie had everybody wearing hot pink and clearing their weekends for the “Barbenheimer” double-feature phenomenon. 

At the heart of such effective campaigns is the fueling of anticipation.

Tease with purpose

Curiosity is a major component of excitement. When we feel like we’re missing key details, we become fixated on filling that information gap.

J.J. Abrams famously calls his storytelling approach “the mystery box,” leaving viewers desperate to see what’s inside. Apple leverages this principle by refusing to confirm any info ahead of product launches, keeping tech outlets speculating and discussing; no rumor is too small to cover.

Plan a series of teasers to pique interest, such as sneak peek graphics, behind-the-scenes videos, or mysterious social media posts. 

Leverage credible influencers

Tinder’s “It Starts With A Swipe” campaign enlisted internet celebrities to share personal stories of how they met their significant others on the dating app. These impactful endorsements led to a 20% spike in new users because they felt so real.

The right influencers can tell your story in a more authentic and fun way — with greater reach — than you likely could do on your own.

Create a sense of urgency

Fashion brand Supreme has this strategy down to a tee with its limited-edition drops. In 2020, the “Cross Box Logo” hoodies (which are just plain sweatshirts with Supreme’s logo slapped on) sold out in minutes. And the kicker? Resale prices shot up to five times the original amount.

Scarcity compels urgency, and urgency compels action. Limited-edition releases, countdowns, early-bird specials, or exclusive offers for your most loyal customers are all ways to harness this principle.

Drive engagement across platforms

Spotify’s “Wrapped” campaign fills up social media feeds like clockwork every year by creating fun summaries of users’ personal listening habits. Everyone loves flaunting their top tracks, making “Wrapped” a genius multiplatform tool for organic promotion. It drives fans from Spotify to social platforms then back to Spotify to hear their friends’ favorite artists.

Use Instagram Stories to send fans to your podcast. Use your podcast to drive sign-ups for your newsletter. Use your newsletter to share limited-time promo codes for your sales page. These little missions generate anticipation and a whole lot of FOMO.

Your digital store has some key advantages over brick-and-mortar retailers: lower overhead, flexible inventory, and more automation. One big disadvantage, though, is that you must work extra hard to build a relationship with consumers.

Omnisend can help, thanks to its e-commerce specific marketing tools, which deliver personalized marketing directly to your target audience. Its email and text message tools offer the automation, segmentation, and integrations that e-commerce businesses need to generate new leads and drive more sales. And it’s all packaged in a super user-friendly interface.

To engage your e-commerce business’s audience and drive brand loyalty, get started with Omnisend for free today.

Young people are struggling to buy homes, start families, and hit other milestones that traditionally lead to economic security. You can’t do much about high prices and lending rates, but in The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Financial Security, New York University Stern School of Business professor Scott Galloway (aka “Prof G”) offers his advice.

Among those tips: avoiding lifestyle creep, learning DIY basics, choosing a financial advisor who focuses on long-term goals rather than “beating the market,” and even deleting Instagram and TikTok.

“Social media is likely one of the great wealth destroyers in history,” Galloway writes. “It robs young people of years of time when they need it most — when investing in work and (real) relationships can compound.”

Spend a few hours away from IG to give The Algebra of Wealth a read.

(Source: Shutterstock)

The global collectible card game market is valued at $7.6 billion, and a single rare Pokémon card sold for $252,000 at auction in 2022. That’s real money for a pristine, professionally graded holographic trading card…

But what if it hadn’t even been ripped out of its foil booster pack yet?

That’s exactly the tantalizing question Industrial Inspection & Consulting asks card collectors. For $75 per pack, this CT scanning company will x-ray your unopened Pokémon (or Yu-Gi-Oh! or Disney Lorcana or Topps NBA or … ) cards and provide digital images of potential rare “hits.” As soon as the service went live, II&C’s web traffic spiked 17,000%.

So, will the company disrupt a volatile collector’s market? As they tell PC Gamer, “We firmly believe we stand in the zone of chaotic good.”

It takes a big company to admit a mistake, and clothing retailers don’t get much bigger than Gap.

Back in 2010, the fashion brand made the mind-boggling decision to replace its iconic, globally recognized logo with one that looked like a rejected Microsoft app. “We believe this is a more contemporary, modern expression,” said Gap’s head of communications at the time. “The only nod to the past is that there’s still a blue box, but it looks forward.”

A mere six days later, the company was already looking back, restoring the original logo after unanimous criticism of the new Helvetica one.

Today, Gap is enjoying strong sales growth, so it was probably the right call. Sometimes a logo refresh is a good idea, but experts tend to recommend incremental changes over complete redesigns in order to maintain brand continuity instead of creating a … y’know … gap.

Written by Antonio Ferme, Dan Ketchum, and Elizabeth Barton.