Check out these tips to improve your Q4 sales this holiday season
October 2025 | PerfectGift Experts | 5 minute read
Main image courtesy of Fox Business.
As the end of the year draws closer, businesses of all sizes are beginning to plan their strategies for the profitable, but busy, fourth quarter. For lots of companies, Q4 is one of the biggest sources of revenue they’ll get all year, which is why it’s so important for business owners and marketers to capitalize on holiday incentives to drive sales performance. But you can’t just rely on shoppers coming to you if you really want to see larger profit margins for the end of the year.
There’s a lot of competition out there, and not only are you vying for your customer’s attention, you want their loyalty too so that they’ll turn into repeat customers. That’s why it’s essential to start planning your Q4 incentives early, because having a strategy in place to attract and retain customers is sure to boost your sales performance.
In this article, we’ll be delving deeper into:
- Why holiday incentives are so important for the 4th quarter
- 6 need-to-know tips to use holiday incentives to drive Q4 sales
- Why going with PerfectGift corporate is your best bet this year!
Why holiday incentives are essential for businesses
Using incentives in Q4 is beneficial for a variety of different reasons
Don’t get left behind this Q4! Make sure you’re planning holiday incentives to really drive your sales performance. Image courtesy of Forbes.
Holiday incentives are a great way to try and increase the amount of customers that visit your store or site. The fourth quarter consists of the last few months of the year, and it’s the prime season for shopping—both for the holidays in those three months, as well as shoppers who want to do their Christmas shopping early. The benefits of having a robust Q4 incentive plan include:
- Increase the number of customers. The whole point of including incentives for the last quarter of the year is that it will really drive your sales. You want to increase the amount of customers that come across your product or service, which increases the likelihood that they’ll make a purchase. But you don’t want to rely on customers just coming across your brand by chance when there are so many other competitors to choose from. Making a sustained effort with the help of incentives is sure to boost the amount of customers who come across your business.
- Gain customer loyalty. But just increasing the amount of customers you reach isn’t enough (although that certainly is an essential part of your strategy!) You want to also gain their loyalty, and incentive programs are some of the best ways to do that. When you give customers a reason to keep choosing your business over others, you’ve increased the chances they’ll stick around in the long term—as well as use word of mouth to spread awareness.
- Boost the average purchase amount. Incentives can also increase the chance that customers will increase their purchasing amount. When your strategy includes offers or rewards to add more to their cart, you’re making it easy to increase the average purchase.
- Strengthens relationships. When customers know that you’re making it a point to prioritize them, it builds and strengths your relationship with them. Loyal customers are more likely to keep choosing your brand when they know that you’re working hard to give them a stellar product/service, as well as personalize the experience for them.
The fourth quarter is one of the most opportune times of the year to engage in this type of strategic thinking because there are plenty of holidays to choose from that will keep driving your sales, including:
- Halloween
- Veteran’s Day
- Thanksgiving
- Including Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- Christmas
- Hanukkah
- Kwanza
- New Years Day and New Years Eve
Our top 6 tips for how to use holiday incentives to drive Q4 sales performance
These are some of the best holiday incentive ideas to increase sales that you can use this year!
When you incentivize your customers with some of these best-practices, you’re going to see some fantastic results in Q4! Image courtesy of The Mall at Green Hills.
Want to have a fourth quarter that really shines this year? Then you’ve got to plan on getting a head start with holiday incentives like these.
1. Gift card incentives
Number one on the list has got to be harnessing the power of gift cards for your customers. There are few ways that can really get customers to not only choose your brand, but to keep coming back for more. You can use gift cards in a few ways, but one of the most popular is to offer them as an incentive to increase their purchase amount, or to make a return trip to your site or store.
In order to do this you’ll need to make a marketing campaign that makes it clear gift cards are up for grabs if they follow a few simple steps.
- Offer an incentive such as spending a certain amount, and receiving either a gift card to your store, or a Visa prepaid gift card. This is especially helpful if your goal is to increase the amount of items that each customer buys.
- You could also offer gift cards for purchasing gift cards to your own store. This works when someone is considering purchasing a gift card for someone else, but then has an incentive to follow through because they’ll receive a gift card as well. Here you’re not only sealing a sale, but you’re ensuring two people are going to be returning to your store to purchase items in the future.
Pro tip: Visa gift card incentives that are personalized with your brand make an even bigger impact. Whenever the customer goes to use their gift card, they’re reminded about your brand, and how you prioritize putting customers first and offering deals that help them get more of what they need.
Choose PerfectGift corporate for your gift card incentives!
Gift card incentives are one of the top ranked ways to boost holiday sales. But not all gift card vendors are the same. Instead of just going with a run of the mill program, why not get the planning and support your business deserves with PerfectGift corporate! This isn’t your ordinary gift card incentive program, this is your one stop shop for organizing dedicated campaigns for your customers.
When you set up an account, you’ll immediately have access to our client portal, where you can design and personalize all your campaigns. It’s incredibly easy to do, all you need is:
- Choose whether you want to go with physical or digital gift cards
- Determine the budget you’ll use for your incentive program
- Add your brand name or logo to the Visa gift card
- Customize it with a message
- Mail them out or send through email or text
This is how you can really level up your holiday incentives with the help of gift cards this year.
Why choose PerfectGift corporate?
More and more business owners are taking advantage of all the perks of having a gift card incentive program, especially as Q4 approaches. But having PerfectGift corporate to manage your program comes with lots of benefits, including:
- Our own fulfillment center which allows us to print and ship customized cards same day with next day delivery available!
- Google and Apple wallet compatible for convenience.
- No order limits – no minimum & no maximum number of gifts or purchase value.
- Dedicated account manager with 365-day support.
- Robust branding with logos on physical & digital cards and packaging so you can easily add your property management logo.
- Access to hundreds of major merchant gift cards with everyday discounts.
- International acceptance of VISA & Mastercard
- Multiple VISA & Mastercard card expiration periods of 6, 12, 24 and 36 months (funds never expire)
- Robust ordering portal (optional API) with full order history so you can track how many gift cards have been sent.
- The portal can help you resend, replace, reissue & refund gift cards.
- Online access to complete order history including all invoices, order dates, and gift redemption date. This can help you track which incentive programs are really resonating with your customers.
2. Holiday exclusive sales
Who doesn’t love shopping for the holidays in the fourth quarter, especially when stores and e-commerce sites make it fun to do so! You can capitalize on shoppers who want to have an enjoyable experience while they shop, and really get into the spirit of the season. Offering holiday exclusive sales or discounts is a fantastic way to take advantage of the novelty of the season.
You could include a small gift or a discount on a future purchase in order to urge customers to buy during a certain time period. Additionally, offering exclusive prices on items or holiday-centric items on a particular day (such as Black-Friday only deals) increases the urgency as customers don’t want to miss out on limited time prices, or getting additional discounts or items for free with their order. Make sure to layer in messaging throughout your campaign that highlights the urgency.
3. Know your hero products (and promote them with additional discounts)
Every business owner has items that really seem to sell well, or they’re the items with higher profit margins. You may also be offering holiday-specific items or services that you want to put in front of customers. Whichever strategy makes the most sense to you, make sure your shoppers are aware of these products/services, and encourage customers to purchase with the help of discounts or gift cards.
Not every product needs to have the same attention or be called out in your advertising, social media, or copy, which is why it’s essential to zero in on hero products, and then offer incentives for customers to purchase them.
4. Incorporate loyalty rewards
Just like using gift cards, you can also set up a loyalty reward program. When customers are a part of this you can further incentivize them with deals exclusive for members, or members only pricing. Existing customers will benefit because purchasing will increase their loyalty points, and new customers will want to join before they purchase to reap the rewards.
In addition to exclusive prices or sales, another great loyalty incentive is to incorporate point multipliers. Rewarding your loyal customers with these incentives is a great way to keep them coming back season after season.
5. Consider bundled deals
Customers are always looking for a streamlined experience, especially when they can get a lot of their shopping done at the same time. Another holiday incentive you can take advantage of is offering bundled deals to make shopping more convenient. Shoppers can potentially pick up more items for people on their list, and it increases the average value of their purchase.
Lots of businesses use the incentive to buy one item at full price, and get another one at a discounted price. Customers like how easy it is to get multiple items, and you’ll like how it steadily increases their purchasing amount.
6. Free shipping is always an option!
If your business ships out anything, consider free shipping for a duration of time. It doesn’t have to be for the whole year, but offering free shipping during the holidays in December could be what sways customers to go with your brand. Alternatively, offering free shipping once customers get to a certain purchasing amount incentivizes them to get more products so they’ll reach the free shipping level.
Keep these tips in mind this Q4 and watch your business succeed!
No matter what type of business you’re in, it’s in your best interest to take advantage of holiday incentives to boost Q4 performance. You can choose to do a few of these tips, or try and maximize your quarter and do them all. What’s important is that you plan ahead and really make it a point to offer the best type of incentive for your brand. When you go with PerfectGift, you’re guaranteed to really see the results you want!
