The holidays are an emotional time of year. Consumers spend a disproportionate amount of money during the holidays, so it behooves your business to take advantage of your seasonal revenue opportunities.
It’s a time to have fun with festive marketing, and create top-of-mind awareness to beat your competition. That means planning to increase your marketing investment while making a list and checking it twice.
Write a strategy. The holidays are a whirlwind of activity. To stay on track you need a written plan of action. The actual days for holidays will vary so each year write them on your marketing calendar. Starting writing your thoughts for each.
Develop relevant offers to engage your target audience for each opportunity. Plan relevant fun events either at your locations or on the Web.
Plan for seven holiday opportunities:
— Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving)
— Small Business Saturday (two days after Thanksgiving)
— Cyber Monday (four days after Thanksgiving)
— Hanukah (which can occur any dates from late November to late December)
— Christmas Eve (December 24)
— Return and exchanges (starting December 26 the day after Christmas)
— Kwanzaa (December 26 to January 1)
Get a jump on the competition by testing your advertising concepts, and promote your events well in advance.
Your revenue jumps significantly in Q4. Therefore, plan to invest accordingly in creative and advertising mediums that best engage your prospects and customers.
As consumers continue to start earlier and earlier to shop for their holiday giving, hone your marketing strategies.
Tools include advertising, brand protection, strategic pricing, staging events, and using traditional media and digital. That’s how merchants increase profits in Q4 holiday sales.
Update listings
Of importance for the convenience of working customers, update your business hours on your Google My Business listing, Yelp, SuperPages, other online directories and in your e-mail marketing campaigns.
Strategize to capture e-mail addresses. That probably means good offers to get e-mail addresses on your Web site or in your locations.
In e-mails, include a gift of special offers or coupons. Because people are busy, don’t over-do it. Keep your e-mail offers to a minimum.
If you’re really great at marketing, you know your target audience. Segment your e-mail lists, according to what your customers want.
Because holidays are emotional for consumers, selling depends on your ability to provide emotional reasons for people to buy.
People appreciate important information affecting their work and lifestyles.
If you’re a service company, blog with helpful holiday-themed hints and include coupons or special offers.
Expand list
Plan to send great deals, and explain to customers that you send e-mail coupons only.
Entice customers via a drawing. Motivate them to disclose their e-mail address by offering a chance to win a nice prize worth at least $300.
While you’re at it, pull out all the stops to expand your e-mail list.
You know, of course, strong brand perceptions and emotional engagement drive sales. You also know your mobile-site strategy should be a priority, as a result of the skyrocketing popularity of mobile devices.
Is your mobile site actually hindering brand perception and emotional engagement? You risk sales if you don’t use the right marketing strategy.
Two final thoughts:
While you might think only about promoting online, think traditional media, too. Remember even Amazon.com advertises on television. And in your bricks-and-mortar locations, provide your guests with free samples.
From the Coach’s Corner, more marketing strategies:
Checklist to Create Cyber Monday Sales Success – In order to celebrate your Cyber Monday sales, you must first create a happy buying environment. That means reviewing your store and Web site to attract prospects and to create happy customers.
Stage a Great Business Event with This Checklist of Tips – The details can be overwhelming in staging a major business event. You might want to hire a firm to help you. If not, you can do it yourself. Either way, communication and planning are vital for your success.
How Small Businesses Can Profit from Cyber Strategies — Yes, it’s become important for small businesses to capitalize on cyber strategies for profit. Small and even regional retailers should be cognizant of important realities.
7 Precautions for a Profitable Layaway Program — Despite the continuous changes in technology, retailers are reverting to a sales and customer-loyalty practice that was prevalent in the 1950s. That would be a layaway program to sell more products to cash-strapped customers. Big box stores, such as Walmart and Toys R Us, have benefited from PR when they’ve announced their layaway programs.
Energize Your Customer-Loyalty Program with 6 Steps — The quickest way for established businesses to optimize revenue is to have a stellar customer-loyalty program — there are six steps you can take for repeat sales and referrals. If you’re not a great steward of your current book of business, it’s futile to look for new customers.
Because holidays are emotional for consumers, selling depends on your ability to provide emotional reasons for people to buy.
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