Master OND 2025 With The Great Indian Engagement Festival Planner
Your MoEngage Guide to the 2025 Festive Marketing Season! A comprehensive planner for marketers to navigate and succeed during the "Great Indian Engagement Festival" (OND 2025).
Reading Time: 7 minutes
The air in India is buzzing. The shimmer of silk, the joyous sounds of merriment, and the scent of festive feasts fill the air, signaling the start of India’s grandest season.
For marketers, this isn’t just a time of celebration; it’s the Great Indian Engagement Festival.
From October to December (OND), your campaigns need to shine brighter than a Diwali diya, resonate louder than wedding shehnais, and deliver conversions faster than Black Friday doorbusters.
Throughout this planner, you’ll find valuable insights from industry leaders Jaideep Singh Bedi (Xiaomi India) and Aditya Arunn Sakhuja (The Body Shop), to help elevate your festive strategy.
Why this period matters — Maximizing OND for gains
OND isn’t just a period; it’s a goldmine.
Indian consumers are projected to spend billions during this time, with e-commerce sales alone seeing significant year-on-year growth. For marketers, it’s an unparalleled opportunity to skyrocket sales, acquire new customers, and build lasting loyalty. But with intense competition, tight budgets, and easily distracted customers, how do you stand out?
The secret sauce lies in three powerful ingredients: historic data, deep personalization, and smart automation
Forget generic blasts and one-size-fits-all approaches. The brands that win OND are the ones that understand customers inside out, predict their needs, and deliver tailored experiences at scale. This planner will guide you through mastering each critical month of the Great Indian Engagement Festival, empowering you to turn festive FOMO into festive wins.
October — Diwali’s Big Kickoff: Ignite Engagement
October marks the beginning of the festive frenzy, culminating in Diwali, the festival of lights. For marketers, this means immense potential but also significant challenges:
- Information Overload: Customers are bombarded with offers from every direction. Your message needs to cut through the noise.
- Early Planning, High Stakes: Many consumers start their festive shopping well in advance, and if you’re not top-of-mind, you lose out.
- Cart Abandonment Blues: Excitement often turns into indecision, leading to high cart abandonment rates.
Campaign Tactics for a Sparkling October 👇
🎇 Pre-Diwali Warm-Up Campaigns
Build anticipation with “Early Bird” offers, sneak peeks, and gift guides. Use MoEngage Analytics to understand segment behavior for your 2025 festive marketing strategy.
🎇 Wishlist & Cart Recovery Automation
Automated reminders are key. Send notifications like “Your Diwali Sparkle Awaits! ✨ Complete Your Purchase” for abandoned carts, potentially with a discount. Automate using Multi-channel Flows within MoEngage.
🎇 Muhurat-Based Notifications
Leverage cultural insights. A gold retailer could send timely notifications for auspicious buying times, offering incentives.
🎇 Repeat Buyer Nurturing
Reward loyal customers with exclusive early access or discounts. Offer top customers a “VIP Diwali Preview.” Easily segment valuable customers based on past purchases for targeted offers.
November — Shaadi Season x Black Friday: The Dual Engagement Challenge
November presents a unique challenge for Indian retail marketers: the peak of Shaadi Season (wedding season) and the global retail phenomenon of Black Friday:
- Dual Focus: Juggling the Wedding Season and Black Friday can be overwhelming. Your strategy needs to be agile and targeted.
- Gifting Pressure: Customers are looking for perfect gifts for weddings, often at discounted prices, leading to high expectations.
- Black Friday Noise: The sheer volume of Black Friday promotions means your deals need to stand out.
Campaign Tactics for an Opulent November
💍 Shaadi Season Personalization
Focus on personalized gifting and trousseau. A fashion brand could offer a “Wedding Guest Edit” or “Bridal Trousseau Guide” via email/in-app messages. Use MoEngage’s RFM Analysis to tailor offers for valuable customers.
💍 RFM-Driven Wedding Nudges
Target high-value customers (e.g., parents of marrying children) with reminders for wedding-related items like jewelry. MoEngage’s Sherpa AI predicts conversion likelihood to optimize marketing spend.
💍 Black Friday Flash Sales & Scarcity
Create urgent, time-sensitive campaigns. Send push notifications (“Flash Sale Ends in 2 Hours!”) and highlight limited stock. Use Multi-channel Flash Sale Workflows in MoEngage across Push, Email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
💍 Multi-Channel Blitz for Sales
Coordinate offers across all touchpoints (app, web, social, SMS/WhatsApp) for maximum visibility. Promote a “Wedding Gifting Gala” on your app and “Black Friday Steals” on your website. MoEngage’s Sherpa AI identifies segments likely to convert, optimizing multi-channel efforts.
December — Gifting & Year-End Close: Sustain the Momentum
December brings the festive spirit of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, along with the challenge of offer fatigue and the need for strong customer retention:
- Offer Fatigue: Customers are saturated with deals after months of promotions, making it harder to stand out.
- Post-Holiday Slump: The rush subsides, leading to a potential drop in engagement and sales if not managed proactively.
- Retention Imperative: While acquisition peaks earlier, December is crucial for cementing loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases into the new year.
Campaign Tactics for a Merry December
🎄 Personalized Gifting Guides
Help shoppers find gifts with segmented, curated recommendations. An electronics retailer could send a “Top 5 Gifts for Gadget Lovers” email. Use Generative AI in MoEngage for hyper-personalized gift guide content.
🎄 Post-Purchase Nurturing for Gifting
Engage gift buyers to become repeat customers. Send a “Treat Yourself” offer after a gift purchase.
🎄 Year-End Clearance & New Year Hooks
Capitalize on fresh starts and deals. Promote “New Year, New You” or “Last Chance Deals.” Use MoEngage’s Best Time to Send for optimal offer delivery.
🎄 Loyalty & Retention Loops
Cement loyalty in December. Offer loyalty points, bonuses, or 2026 collection previews. Implement Automated Loyalty Flows for personalized rewards and retention.
Your MoEngage-Led Approach
Mastering the Great Indian Engagement Festival isn’t about guesswork; it’s about a strategic, data-driven approach. MoEngage provides a comprehensive platform to execute this seamlessly.
Take a MoEngage Platform Tour to learn more →
Carrying GIEF into 2026 – Maximize Festive CLTV
The insights gained during OND aren’t just for a single season; they are a goldmine for your long-term engagement strategy. MoEngage helps you capture, analyze, and act on this data to build a stronger, more resilient customer engagement strategy for 2026 and beyond.
✅ Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) Tracking:
Use MoEngage Analytics Dashboards to continuously monitor and improve your CLTV. How did customers acquired during Diwali perform in the subsequent months? What was the CLTV of your wedding season buyers compared to Black Friday shoppers? These insights inform your acquisition and retention budgets for the next year.
✅ Predictive Journey Mapping:
Leverage Sherpa AI to anticipate future customer needs and behaviors. Identify customers at risk of churn post-festive season and proactively engage them with re-engagement campaigns. Predict which product categories will trend in early 2026 based on festive browsing patterns.
✅ Post-Festive Reactivation:
The festive season leaves a trail of one-time buyers. Design specific reactivation campaigns using Flows and Segmentation to convert these into loyal customers. A retail brand could target customers who only purchased during Diwali with a “We Miss You” campaign in January, offering a special discount on non-festive items or highlighting their new year collection.
✅ Learning & Iteration:
Continuously review your OND 2025 campaign performance using MoEngage Analytics Dashboards. A/B Test different strategies, messaging, and channels. Document what worked, what didn’t, and why, to refine your approach for future festive seasons. This continuous learning loop is crucial for sustained growth.
Conclusion: Win the Great Indian Engagement Festival with MoEngage
The Great Indian Engagement Festival is more than just a sales period; it’s a testament to the power of connection and personalization. By embracing the strategies outlined in this planner and leveraging the robust capabilities of MoEngage, Indian retail marketers can move beyond generic blasts and truly engage customers on a deeper level.
Ready to transform your OND 2025 strategy?
Book a personalized demo with MoEngage and discover how India’s #1 Customer Data & Engagement Platform can help you win the Great Indian Engagement Festival.
