Holiday direct mail can help restaurants and retailers turn seasonal interest into specific actions, whether that’s booking a holiday dinner or making a purchase online. With a limited window to capture seasonal demand, businesses need to give customers a compelling reason to choose them.
But here’s the wrinkle: Your competitors are planning their campaigns too. With so many businesses competing for customers’ attention, standing out takes more than just another seasonal promotion.
What are some effective holiday marketing strategies for restaurants and retailers?
An effective holiday marketing strategy starts with a clear business goal. Restaurants can use direct mail to encourage reservations or promote seasonal menus, while retailers can use it to drive store visits and holiday purchases. Combining direct mail with digital marketing helps businesses reach customers across channels and makes it easier for them to act.
In this guide, we’ll look at practical holiday direct mail ideas for restaurants and retailers and how to choose an approach based on your business goals.
TL;DR
- Start with the holiday result you want before choosing a direct mail format.
- Give customers something useful or timely, like a relevant holiday offer.
- Connect direct mail with digital channels so customers can easily book or buy online.
- Make the next step clear and measurable so you can learn which messages worked.
Start With What You Want Your Holiday Campaign to Do
Restaurants and retailers may be marketing during the same holiday season, but their customers aren’t necessarily making the same decisions. A restaurant may need to fill holiday reservations, while a retailer may want to increase store traffic.
For restaurants: Choose one timely reason for customers to act
Your restaurant may offer holiday menus and catering packages, but not every promotion needs to appear in the same mailer. Neighbourhood Mail™ can help restaurants reach households in selected geographic areas, including potential diners who may not have visited before.
Here are some direct mail ideas for restaurants:
- Promote your holiday menu: Feature seasonal dishes or limited-time specials to encourage customers to book a table.
- Highlight catering and group dining packages: Reach local businesses planning office celebrations or households hosting holiday gatherings.
- Encourage early reservations: Remind customers to book ahead for popular holiday dates, especially when seating is limited.
- Promote holiday takeout and pre-orders: Share ordering deadlines and pickup options for customers who prefer celebrating at home.
- Attract new customers: Reach nearby households with a seasonal offer that gives them a reason to visit your restaurant.
For example, DRMG supported Papa Murphy’s Pizza with an integrated direct mail and digital campaign that included four mailings reaching 30,000 homes per issue. The campaign illustrates how restaurants can use coordinated marketing to reach local households.
How to apply it:
Check available mailing dates now and work backwards from your holiday reservation or pre-order deadlines. This helps you plan a campaign that reaches customers while they still have time to act.
The mailer could feature available catering packages, serving sizes, pricing, and pre-order deadlines. Restaurants with private dining spaces could instead highlight booking availability and the types of events they can accommodate.
Include clear reservation or ordering instructions so interested customers know exactly how to secure their preferred date or place an order.
For retailers: Give customers a reason to shop with you this holiday season
According to Lob and Comperemedia’s 2023 State of Direct Mail report, 63% of surveyed retail-industry professionals agreed that direct mail delivered the best ROI among the marketing channels their companies used.(1)
Here are some holiday direct mail ideas for retailers:
- Create a holiday gift guide: Feature curated gift ideas organized by interest or price range to help customers find what they're looking for.
- Highlight seasonal products and bestsellers: Showcase popular holiday items or limited-edition collections.
- Promote in-store holiday events: Invite local customers to special shopping days or other seasonal experiences.
- Encourage early holiday shopping: Feature early-access promotions or limited-time offers that give customers a reason to shop before the holiday rush.
- Reach new local shoppers: Introduce your store to nearby households with a seasonal offer or invitation to visit.
How to apply it:
Think about how your customers typically shop during the holidays. Are they looking for gifts for family members or something special they can't find elsewhere?
For example, a home goods retailer could create a holiday gift guide featuring products grouped by recipient or occasion. Instead of showcasing its entire inventory, the mailer could highlight a few carefully selected items, include their prices and direct customers to the full collection online.
A local boutique, on the other hand, could use direct mail to invite nearby shoppers to an exclusive holiday shopping event, giving them a reason to visit the store rather than browse online.
What Should You Include in Your Holiday Direct Mail?
Once you've decided what your holiday campaign should promote, the next step is making sure your mail piece gives customers the information they need to respond.
The details will depend on your business and the action you want customers to take. A restaurant promoting holiday reservations, for example, will need different information from a retailer advertising a seasonal collection.
For restaurants: Make reservations and ordering information easy to find
Customers considering your restaurant for a holiday gathering should be able to find essential details without having to search for them elsewhere.
Depending on your campaign, include relevant information such as:
- Available menus and pricing
- Reservation or pre-order deadlines
- Group sizes or catering serving options
- Holiday operating hours
- Clear booking or ordering instructions
For example, a restaurant promoting holiday catering could include package prices, the number of people each package serves, and the final date for placing an order. This helps customers determine whether the offering suits their needs before contacting the restaurant. You can also check out our guide on holiday party booking mailers for a more in-depth discussion.
For retailers: Make product information easy to browse
Holiday shoppers may be comparing several products or looking for gifts within a particular price range. Your mail piece should make it easy to explore the options you're promoting.
Consider including:
- Clear product photos and descriptions
- Prices and available promotional offers
- Product categories organized by recipient or price range
- Store locations and holiday shopping hours
- Information on where customers can browse or purchase additional items
A printed gift guide can also encourage customers to explore products online. Research discussed in a 2022 Harvard Business Review article suggests that catalogues can complement online shopping by helping customers discover products before making a purchase.(2)
Connect Holiday Direct Mail With Your Digital Marketing
The most successful holiday campaigns integrate direct mail with digital marketing. Direct mail can introduce an offer, while digital channels make it easy for the customer to take the next step.
Let’s look at how you can create an effective integrated plan:
Use QR codes and landing pages to shorten the path to action
A QR code or campaign-specific URL can connect the physical mail piece directly to the action you want customers to take.
For restaurants, that destination might be a holiday menu or online ordering system. For retailers, it could lead to a curated gift collection or ecommerce page.
Keep the message consistent across print and digital
Integration isn’t only about adding a QR code. The customer should recognize that the mail piece and other campaign elements belong together.
Use consistent campaign language and visual cues where appropriate. That gives customers a more coherent experience regardless of where they encounter the message.
Measure Your Holiday Direct Mail Results
Before launching, decide what customer response you want to measure and how you’ll recognize it. This helps you understand not only whether the campaign generated activity, but which messages and offers may be worth using again.
Choose the action you want to track
Depending on the campaign, measurable actions might include visits to a campaign landing page, coupon or promotional code use, reservations, online orders, or other trackable conversions.
The measurement method should follow the campaign objective. If the goal is online ordering, for example, measuring only an offline response would leave part of the customer journey invisible.
Use the results to improve the next campaign
Once the campaign ends, look beyond a single conversion number.
- Which offer generated the strongest response?
- Which audience engaged?
- Did customers respond earlier or later than expected?
- Which digital destination received traffic from the mail piece?
This matters because attribution models can sometimes understate direct mail’s contribution when another channel receives the final conversion credit. First- and last-touch models, for example, assign all credit to a single interaction, while multi-touch approaches can account for several points in the customer journey.
Make Direct Mail Part of Your Holiday Strategy
The best holiday direct mail idea isn’t necessarily the cleverest format or the biggest discount. It’s the one built around a clear business objective.
Instead of starting with “What should we mail?”, start with “What do we want customers to do?”
From there, you can build the audience, message, offer, timing, format, and digital connections around that goal. That turns direct mail from an isolated holiday promotion into part of a coordinated marketing campaign.
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