A clearance sale is the best way to get your old stock out without having to waste it. However, you need to market it in such a way that you sell as many items as possible. This requires a different kind of approach than you’d take with new stock. Focus on the discounts and savings you’re offering your customers, and work on their FOMO. Here are a few other marketing tips for running a successful clearance sale.
Create a clearance section on your website
You should create a separate clearance sale section on your website. List all the clearance items here, complete with the discounts you’re offering. Make sure to add subcategories for different percentage tiers and item types. Tools like Shopify will help you set up this section without much hassle.
Make sure you add the link to this section on your social media pages and in your marketing collateral. This way, people will directly go to your clearance items instead of having to navigate through the rest of your website. The less clicks they have to do, the more likely they are to check out with items purchased.
Run a social media marketing campaign
Social media is the prime medium for marketing your clearance sale. So, you should update all your social media profiles and let people know about the sale. Around two weeks in advance, start sharing posts teasing the upcoming sale. Also highlight a few key items that usually sell really well.
Make sure you have a few posts set up beforehand, so that you can focus on running the sale and marketing it across all mediums. Use the sale social media post templates on PosterMyWall to decide on a set layout for these posts, so that your marketing looks cohesive.
Give exclusive early access
Make select customers feel happy by giving them exclusive early access to your clearance sale. You can either choose these customers on a first-come first-serve basis through a registration link, or randomly pick customers among your list of regulars.
Mention this early access on your marketing platforms and let people know they’ll miss out if they don’t participate in the sale ASAP. This will generate a sense of urgency and will also serve as a lead capture tool for your future campaigns and sales. Add a countdown timer with your exclusive early access pop-up, so that your customers get hyped up and excited about your sale. You can even offer extra discounts on select items to these selected customers.
Create item bundles
Often, people tend to buy more than one item in a clearance sale. This is because prices are often so low, it makes sense to buy as much as they can and get around the same shipping costs. Make this an intuitive part of your sale by bundling some items and offering them at bigger overall discounts.
Bundle these items according to various themes. These can include color schemes, family bundles, similar items, complementary items etc. For example, if you sell clothes, you can offer jackets or tshirts in different sizes as a family bundle. Similarly, if you sell candles and diffusers, you can bundle items by scents or colors. You can even offer gifting bundles that customers can customize according to their needs.
Send abandoned cart email reminders
The allure of a clearance sale might bring a lot of people to your website, but not all of them will check out. In many cases, they’ll add items that pique their interest to their carts, and then just leave the cart like that. So, you need to opt for retargeting strategies to lower your rate of abandoned carts.
Send people who abandoned their carts reminder emails about their items. Let them know they should check out before stocks run out. Also emphasize on the excellent prices they can currently avail, and how these will only be present for a limited time. Another way to bring them back is to offer them special deals on their carts, and make the discounts too good to miss out on. Use terms like ‘Last chance’ and ‘Time is running out’ in your email subject lines to work on customer FOMO.
Offer free gifts with certain purchase amounts
Make things even more appealing and get your clearance stock out with free gifts. If customers buy products worth a certain amount, offer them free gifts. These can be items that are low-ticket, but don’t really sell much if put on the shelves. This way, you’ll be hitting two birds with one stone.
These free gifts will create more incentive for people to buy as many items from your clearance sale as possible. So, do talk about these in your marketing. It is also a good idea to have free gift tiers, with better items offered with more money spent.
In conclusion, there are many ways to market your clearance sale and make it a success. Your goal should be to clear your stock without having to waste anything. These tips will help you meet this goal.
