Don’t wait until the last minute to get your holiday campaigns rolling! According to recent surveys, 50% of U.S. shoppers start their holiday shopping as early as October. That means if you’re only beginning your outreach in late November, you’re missing out on a huge portion of early-bird buyers. Get ahead of the competition by launching your campaigns now, whether it’s an early-access sale, VIP promotion, or just a preview message of upcoming deals. Starting early ensures that your brand is front-of-mind long before the holiday rush kicks into full gear.

Why are VIPs important? Well, it’s in the name! They’re your top spenders and most loyal customers — so you don’t want to neglect them. The more you can reward, nurture, and delight them, the more they’ll keep buying and supporting your brand. Consider these holiday offers and campaigns to engage your VIPs well:

• Early access to sales
• Exclusive discounts
• Hyper-personalized product recommendations
• Personal shopping appointments
• Surprise gifts

Black Friday is an already overwhelming time for your store associates, and they don’t need more busy work. You really want to walk them to the finish line with clienteling. To do this, plan your audience segments and campaign templates ahead of time. Then, when the time comes to send a personalized message, you can assign customers to your associates from a pre-built audience. All they’ll need to do is insert a template message, make edits if needed, and hit send! It’s a simple as that. Here are some audiences we recommend building:

• VIP clients or high-spenders
• Local online-only shoppers
• Local lapsed shoppers
  

And don’t forget to prep campaign templates. If you need inspiration, check out our 24 Top SMS and Email Campaigns for the Holidays.

Not every message needs to be sent directly from a sales associate to feel personal. With the right tools, automated campaigns can still feel tailored to the customer, and even appear to come from the associate the customer shopped with. Consider this thank you message:

“Hi Shelly! It’s Bianca from Mind the Gap Denver here and I just wanted to shoot you a quick text to say thanks for shopping with me this week! If you’re looking for anything else this holiday season or have any questions, you have a direct line to me via this number. Hope to see you back soon!”

This message feels personal, yet with Endear it can easily be automated without requiring any additional human touch. By automating key touch points like this one, you ensure your customers receive timely and personal messages without overwhelming your team. Here are a few campaigns we suggest automating:

• Thank you for first time purchase
• Announcing a sale
• New Collection drop

Creating personalized gift guides is one of the most effective strategies for the holidays — and it doesn’t have to be a hassle. If you create gift guide templates ahead of time, your associates can plug in their favorite product recommendations with just a few clicks.

With Endear’s Shoppable Stories you can easily create interactive gift guides straight from your store’s existing product photos. These stories are intuitive and let your customers shop straight from the guide. By building them in advance, your associates can quickly insert their product recommendations and wow your customers.

Don’t leave your team guessing — make sure they know exactly what’s expected during the holiday rush. From marketing initiatives to clienteling strategies, every team member should be on the same page.

And it’s not just about telling them what to do, it’s about walking them through the process. What’s the game plan? Who’s sending what, when, and to whom? By clarifying these details upfront, you can avoid confusion, streamline workflows, and make sure everyone is set up for success.

This holiday season, education isn’t optional. It’s the key to making sure your team feels confident and prepared.

The most effective clienteling strategies work with their brand’s marketing. One way to do this is to send out personalized messages as a follow up to your marketing campaigns.

Here’s how it works: Your marketing team sends email and SMS blasts to everyone, which is effective in creating awareness, but it’s not personal. That’s where you come in. Follow up with a more tailored message after the marketing email hits, making sure your customers don’t miss out. Something as simple as, “Hey Sarah, just wanted to make sure you saw our sale for this weekend—let me know if you have questions or need help picking anything out!” These messages keep your brand top of mind and help start a conversation with customers.

By piggybacking on those broader marketing pushes, you’re making your outreach stand out and your customer feel valued. And that’s how you take clienteling to the next level!

Make sure your team knows exactly what they’re working toward this holiday season. There’s nothing quite like the urgency of a public goal to keep people motivated. Whether it’s hitting a specific sales number, sending a certain number of messages, or increasing average order value (AOV), having a target keeps everyone on track.

But don’t stop at just setting the goal—track it. Make the progress visible to everyone. Post updates regularly, whether it’s through your CRM dashboard or even just a quick check-in during meetings. This keeps the fire burning and lets everyone see how their efforts are contributing to the bigger picture. As the holiday season ramps up, tracking progress ensures no one loses sight of the goal amidst the chaos.

Show your team the clear benefits of clienteling by connecting the dots between their efforts and the results. To motivate your team, provide dashboards that track metrics like the number of messages each team member has sent and the resulting sales they’ve generated. When team members can clearly see how their efforts are driving customer loyalty and sales, they’ll be more motivated to engage with their clients—and keep driving those results.

The holiday season doesn’t end after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In fact, 8 out of the 10 busiest shopping days this year are predicted to be in December. This means there’s plenty of opportunity to keep driving sales all the way through the New Year.

Continue your clienteling efforts by reaching out to customers who may have missed out on earlier deals or need last-minute gifts. You can offer tailored recommendations, last-minute gift guides, or even post-purchase follow ups. Consistent, personalized outreach ensures you stay top-of-mind during the busiest shopping days of the year—and well into the new year.