Small business owners, marketing professionals, and customer experience managers in touch with their market segments react to crucial trigger points indicating a surge in demand. Sometimes, they’re one-offs, going viral, only to die as a “fad.” In other cases, the spikes in revenue recur year after year at the same time, lasting for days or weeks before receding. These are seasonal market events, with Thanksgiving (typically in this category) catching millions of consumers’ attention in late November.

We frequently forget that Thanksgiving weekend, conceived as a family get-together opportunity, represents much more than a 24-hour event. Indeed, it’s the opening act of the next few weeks of festivity extravaganza, shopping, traveling, and letting one’s hair down. It signals that opening one’s wallet or purse with Black Friday and Cyber Monday hot on Thanksgiving’s heels is okay, then rest briefly before engaging with Christmas and New Year. (Read more about holiday sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday!)

So, every stakeholder who relies on the Thanksgiving events surrounding it (without the rest of the festive season’s coverage) should read on. This content narrowly focuses on Thanksgiving surveys, implying research of shopping events, entertainment, in-home or destination gatherings, travel to destination hotels, fine dining, and more (i.e., activities specific to enjoying Thanksgiving Day).

Which strategists will benefit most from these Thanksgiving survey tips?

• The hospitality industry (hotels, motels, restaurants, and event planners)
• Travel facilitators (air carriers, bus services, trains, car rentals, and cruise lines)
• Food outlets (from supermarkets to specialty food distributors)
• Farming distributors – many of whom are dedicated interest in customers’ buying behavior with Thanksgiving as the central motivator

Marketers’ understanding of the different steps involved in the following is crucial:

• Creating Thanksgiving readiness
• Timing and promotional duration
• Learning how to deploy software to analyze the relevant data
• Deciding on the questions to ask on the surveys

In short, this article is a must-read if your small business or enterprise relies on Thanksgiving as a revenue generator.

Why Thanksgiving survey tips are essential

Never heard of a Thanksgiving survey at all? You’ve come to the right place! 😉

What are Thanksgiving surveys?

Businesses want to measure customer trends, preferences, and perspectives as they approach Thanksgiving, which covers items such as:

• Where consumers travel to
• How long they stay in away destinations
• What at-home celebrations look like
• Menus and delicacies
• Gifts for guests and hosts

Our Thanksgiving survey tips focus on all the above to help you streamline your marketing strategies to stand out as a compelling value proposition in the intensely competitive few days surrounding this historic holiday.

Thanksgiving surveys can yield valuable quantitative data from well-thought-out questions requiring simple “Yes” or “No” answers or ratings from one to ten with qualitative probes to measure feelings and thoughts on critical motivators. The more you know about your audience’s Thanksgiving customer experience (CX), the better your chances of steering attention toward your brand.

Benefits of collecting customer feedback for Thanksgiving campaigns

Unique pain points drive Thanksgiving shopping, so discovering the ones pertinent to your value proposition is vital. With that knowledge at your fingertips, you can connect with customers with a differentiated offer more emphatically than competitors. Thanksgiving surveys are a viable research tool providing the peak-season perspectives you need to accelerate customer loyalty for this and future festive season celebrations.

Here are a few pain points related to Thanksgiving:

• Difficulties navigating your website for Thanksgiving offers and discounts.
• An inadequate product or service range related to the Thanksgiving holiday
• Limited availability of the most demanded lines
• Unexciting discounts when everyone’s anticipating Black Friday and Cyber Monday hot on Thanksgiving’s heels
• Tight budgets, including Christmas and New Year
• Traditional stores disorganized on high-traffic days
• Slow online delivery when there’s zero tolerance for “late”
• No free shipping, no gift wrapping, or no Thanksgiving card options
• Traveling to destinations on time in the most frantic travel period
• Gift selection confusion
• The complexities surrounding hosting Thanksgiving celebrations at home
• Loneliness when everyone else is with family
• Integration with travel and hospitality expenses going through the roof

The other side of the “pain point coin” is “opportunity” if you can insert your brand as a solution to consumers’ lifestyle disruption, inconvenience, and stress created by overwhelming to-do lists and time pressures. My Thanksgiving survey tips can be the open sesame, making your brand a winner this year and every future festive event from late November into the New Year.

Holiday promotion surveys and insights that help shape your marketing strategy

Online spending growth is one of the most important considerations in reviewing marketing strategies.

Countrywide online sales in 2023 Thanksgiving touched $5.6 billion, an incredible leap from 2017’s $2.87 billion – nearly 100% six-year growth in e-commerce as a holiday season buying channel. Other notable 2023 Thanksgiving Day trends included:

• Mobile devices were the most favored channel for Thanksgiving online sales (59%), generating a massive $3.3 billion spending spree – a 14% year-on-year increase (Y-on-Y).
• Compared to an average selling day in October, Thanksgiving day purchases of toys were 182% higher, with jewelry (+126%) and apparel (+124%) close behind.
• Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday dominate the news as the most crucial shopping days, a trend discovered in a 2022 survey showed that 75% of U.S. consumers shopped early with the Thanksgiving weekend as the trigger (70% up on 2021). If this doesn’t signify that Thanksgiving is a significant selling opportunity for marketers, nothing does.
• Average discounts reflected as an average of 28% off (with toys, electronics, and computers ranging between 22% and 28% off standard pricing).

 

Critical types of Thanksgiving surveys for businesses

Now that you’re aware of the value of maximizing the opportunities that can come your way during the Thanksgiving season, consider the timing of your outreach. What do you need to know and when do you need the information in order be able to put it to use? Consider three key stages.

• Pre-holiday promotion surveys: Understanding customer expectations
• During-holiday surveys: Collecting real-time feedback
• Post-holiday campaign feedback: Reflections

1. Pre-holiday promotion surveys: Understanding customer expectations

These surveys – as the name implies – emerge before Thanksgiving to create insights into how your customers and prospects are going to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend or the few days preceding it. They reveal consumers’ go-to resources, preferred buying channels, unique feelings, and thoughts toward the short Thanksgiving shopping period (separate from Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas). A pre-Thanksgiving survey allows you to structure your marketing and sales strategies professionally.

Typical questions in pre-Thanksgiving surveys:

1. When do you expect to start your Thanksgiving shopping?
2. What’s your Thanksgiving budget for:
   • Gifts $_____
   • Celebratory events $_____
   • Travel $_____
   • Hotels and restaurants $_____
   • Not sure, but my total budget is $________
3. How are you going to shop before or during Thanksgiving?
   • Online ____%
   • Traditional store shopping _____%
4. How much do you intend to spend on:
   • Connecting with family and friends through gifts, travel, and hospitality events? $______
   • Yourself $______
5. Which are the three online or traditional stores you’re most likely to support during Thanksgiving?
6. What gift categories are you most likely to consider during the Thanksgiving weekend?
   • Toys and games
   • Hardware
   • Home Decor
   • Auto
   • Apparel
   • Footwear
   • Jewelry
   • Electronics
   • Computers
   • Gift cards
   • Other (explain)
7. What’s an exciting discount level for (name the product category) this Thanksgiving?
8. What discount level will turn you off this Thanksgiving?
9. What delivery speed are you expecting for e-commerce purchases this Thanksgiving?
10. What kind of purchase confirmation are you expecting for e-commerce purchases this Thanksgiving?
    • Type: SMS / Email / Both?
    • Speed: Instantly / Same Day / Other (explain)

Business benefits of pre-holiday surveys

Extraordinary advantages emerge when you enter Thanksgiving with the insights pre-seasonal surveys provide. They enable you to control inventory better, ensure distribution and delivery facilities are top-notch, and develop resonating messages in your promotions, aside from:

• Crucial customer segmentation
• Fortifying your loyalty programs with exciting incentives
• Structuring pricing policies to compete with any other brand in your space

2. On-Thanksgiving-Day surveys: Real-time insights on customer experience

“Real-time surveys” during Thanksgiving generally create insights valuable for future events on similar late November dates. There’s little one can do to adjust in 12 hours unless you count days preceding the actual day as “real-time.” Indeed, a longer-time perspective – considering the trend to early buying behavior – is practical. Still, it works best for businesses with the agility and resources to quickly adjust to unexpected trends during Thanksgiving shopping.

Much depends on what you’re surveying. Questions differ based on (for example):

• Long-term retained customers who are more receptive to specific brand questions
• Prospects (yet to buy your products or services)
• Thanksgiving promotions to everyone or exclusive loyalty incentives

On the one hand, you have brand familiarity; on the other hand, you don’t know if your brand is anywhere near consumers’ shopping lists.

Thanksgiving survey questions for prospects

1. Are you matching your Thanksgiving budgets as expected for:
   • Gifts $_____ YES NO
   • Events $_____ YES NO
   • Travel $_____ YES NO
2. What channels are capturing it:
   • Online ____% Which platforms?
   • Traditional store shopping _____% Which stores?
3. Which Thanksgiving promotions are grabbing your attention?
4. How much are you spending on the following over Thanksgiving?
   • Yourself
   • Your family $______
   • Friends $______

Looking to track consistently? Keep it simple by changing the pre-Thanksgiving question tenses from “will you” to “are you.”

Thanksgiving survey questions for current customers

1. Are you buying (brand name or product category) this Thanksgiving?
   • If not, why not?
   • If so, where are you buying it?
2. How much are (brand name) discounts helping your budget this Thanksgiving?
   • Rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is extremely helpful.
   • Why did you choose this rating?
3. How uniquely is (brand name) meeting your gifting needs this Thanksgiving?
   • Rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is amazingly unique.
   • Why did you choose this rating?

Consider asking similar questions relating to discounts, delivery times, confirmation notices, website navigation, loyalty incentives, and more.

Any marketer that ignores the power of omnichannel adaptation (with particular emphasis on mobiles), will lose shopper connection left, right, and center and thus quality response rates to real-time surveys. Remember that questionnaires popping up during shopping activity can be irritating, and extra traffic can slow down survey results. A few tips:

• Don’t hesitate to seek the help of leading survey specialists like Sogolytics, thus positioning yourself to use the best real-time data collection platforms with proven data analytics.
• Ensure your questions are short and to the point, specific to the insights you’re after, in surveys with only a few questions.
• Sogolytics and other facilitators will fortify your strategies with the ability to generate survey reminders (through mobile push notifications and incentives such as small gifts) for respondents who complete the surveys.

3. Post-Thanksgiving survey questions to evaluate success

In other words, this deals with how surveys can improve next year’s promotions.

It’s a challenging research phase for Thanksgiving, considering many respondents have already transitioned into Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping – pushing Thanksgiving into the background. Again, small gift incentives to respond will help to create acceptable response rates, using professional advice to develop insights that make a difference. Questions such as the following can help you plan better for 2025 and beyond:

1. How was our delivery speed in your recent Thanksgiving purchase?
   • Rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is extremely fast.
   • Can you tell us why you gave this rating?
2. How was our customer support in your recent Thanksgiving purchase?
   • Rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is very helpful.
   • Can you tell us why you gave this rating?
3. How well did (brand name) compete this past Thanksgiving versus the following brands (rate it from 0 to 10, where 10 is highly competitive)?
   • Brand X
   • Brand Y
   • Brand Z
4. Tell us more about why you ranked us as you did.

Apply the approach above — rating based on key metrics and ranking based on competitors, as well as asking for follow-up explanations — to any other insights vital to your success.

Small business success with holiday promotion surveys

The questions above go to the heart of gift preferences, shopping habits, promotions, discounts, service satisfaction, and future Intentions for Thanksgiving weekend. It’s challenging to be Thanksgiving-specific, considering that so many events (like Cyber Monday and Black Friday) merge into each other. Standard question formats are rare. Why? Timing considerations, survey length, quantitative versus qualitative probing, and prospects or loyalist focus require customization.

Developing a Thanksgiving Survey strategy that’s guaranteed to be successful depends on contracting a professional who follows best practices and provides access to cutting-edge technology software. It’s crucial to align your planning to optimize speed, flexibility, customer personalization, and connection with thoughts and emotions. The Sogolytics team has the Thanksgiving program experience and essential skills to give your Thanksgiving programs the edge in the holiday season, whether it’s this holiday, Cyber Monday, Black Friday, or Christmas research. With the latest data analytics at our fingertips, we cover every component, from timing to devising penetrative questions. Contact us today to learn more.

Top Thanksgiving survey FAQs

Q1: What are Thanksgiving surveys?

A: Businesses want to measure customer trends, preferences, and perspectives as they approach Thanksgiving, where consumers travel to, how long they stay in away destinations, what at-home celebrations look like, menus, delicacies, gifts for guests and hosts, and more. Thanksgiving surveys focus on all the above to help you streamline your marketing strategies and stand out in the intensely competitive few days surrounding this historic holiday.

Q2: Why should businesses conduct Thanksgiving surveys?

A: For deeper insights into how surveys can improve next year’s promotions and customers’ buying behavior during the Thanksgiving phase of the festive season.

Q3: What types of questions should be included in a Thanksgiving survey?

A: Questions that focus on gift preferences, shopping habits, promotions, discounts, service satisfaction, and future Intentions. It’s challenging to be Thanksgiving-specific, considering that so many events merge into each other. There’s no standard question list. Why? It depends on timing (pre-season, Thanksgiving, or after), the customer category under focus (prospects, loyalists, etc.), and the available resources.

Q4: How can small businesses use a holiday promotion survey effectively?

A: Partner with professionals like Sogolytics to manage your programs from corner to corner. It’s less costly in the long run with fewer trial and error actions.

Q5: What is the best time for sending out Thanksgiving surveys to maximize engagement?

A: Pre-holiday, during-holiday, and post-holiday surveys all have a role to play. See more on this in the article above.