As the starting line of a new year, January is an opportunity for businesses and consumers alike to reset, get organized, and plan for the future. But so many people get caught up in looking ahead and recovering from the holiday season that they forget about what opportunities there are in January to kick off the year strong.
January Calendar
- Jan 1: New Year’s Day
- Jan 6: National Returns Day
- Jan 18: National Use Your Gift Card Day
- Jan 20: MLK Day
- Jan 29: Lunar New Year
Obviously, January starts on New Year’s Day—which means you should have any New Year, New You campaigns ready to go on the first of the month. On top of it being a holiday for most people, it’s a day where motivation is high, and people want to get a head start on the resolutions they just set. Trending industries include health & fitness, subscriptions, home decor & improvement, organization, etc.
Help consumers stick to their goals with helpful tips and the products they need to succeed. Create segments for common resolutions and send them to those in your database who have demonstrated related traits or drop new colors based on seasonal change.
The other thing that is predictable other than New Year’s resolutions? The inevitable rush of holiday returns! It’s so well known that the first Monday of the year has been named National Returns Day. It’s a fact of holiday retail sales but if you prepare accordingly…it doesn’t have to be a negative. Providing a great customer experience during returns can be the biggest motivating factor for someone to return to your business.
If you get the product return experience right, 92% of customers will return to buy again. Returns and exchanges should be seen as a potential profit center rather than an inherent resource drain. Doing them well with a good CX in mind will increase lifetime value and keep you at the top of mind when they’re ready to purchase again!
Coming up later in the month on January 28th is National Use Your Gift Card Day—which is the perfect reason to reach out to gift card recipients from the holiday season who haven’t used up their balance yet! You should already be nurturing them with relationship-building content. Show off products, provide recommendations based on any data you have, etc.
Did you know that there are around $21 billion in unused gift cards around the US? Grab customer attention by asking them how much money is just sitting in their junk drawer and give them a good reason to spend it! A pro-tip for the 2025 holiday season would be to go ahead and segment out the people who sent gift cards this year as a gift segment to retarget with holiday campaigns later on.
Throughout January, some other opportunities are clearance sales to clean out inventory and make room for new items. It’s a good time to reach out to your database letting them know about sales and last-chance products (bonus points if you have an Extreme Discount Loving segment already) before they’re gone.
This year, Lunar New Year falls on January 29th—and 2025 is the year of the snake! Lunar New Year celebrations vary widely by location and tradition but are commonly done via family gatherings and traditional gifting giving. Some brands create limited-time product lines or bundle products into collections. These are worthwhile strategies if this is something your audience celebrates!
Finally, this is more a best practice than a January campaign suggestion but start focusing on building a relationship with newly acquired holiday customers. Not all of them will turn into repeat customers, but through personalized and relevant content, you can find out which will. Campaigns around loyalty programs through new member sign-up incentives or perks on a second purchase are great. Other options include content about products they purchased, like care instructions, warranty details, etc. are great as well.
These are just some of the many sales and marketing opportunities you can leverage in January to kick off Q1 strong.
