It’s that time of year where the retail stores are buzzing with holiday sentiments, sales and smells of cinnamon, nutmeg, food samples, toys, gifts and more! Yes, the Holiday Season is in full bloom and while your customers are probably from different cultures, usually some type of festive holiday is being celebrated during the 4th quarter of each year. So, how will you take advantage of this season for your business? What marketing campaigns can you create to get your customers excited about buying from you?
Well, first you must realize that the 4th quarter Holiday Season can be celebrated and used to market to customers by all businesses and not just the large retailers. This is a time of year where festivities, lights, fun, joy, giving and plenty of good eating are expected and many of your customers are probably already gift buying early.
So, now is the time to start planning your Holiday Marketing Campaign and deciding which of your products or services will be the star attraction.
Below are 5 Ways to Get Started with Your Holiday Marketing:
1) Select Your Star Product or Service! While you might want to have a sale on multiple products or services during this time of year, you need to have one product or service that you’ll use to draw in the crowd and build a campaign around. It will be your “Star Product or Service” and usually it will have a deeper discount that all of the other products or services you’ll offer.
Make sure you have some good digital images of your product as well. If you’ll be featuring a service, work with your graphic designer to create 2 or 3 different digital image representations of your service. Both types of images should have a Holiday background or theme incorporated.
Also, make sure you have an attractive description that will bring value to your customer or client. Stay away from providing just the features. What’s the benefit of having this product or service? How will it help, beautify, relieve or enhance?
2) Prepare Your Marketing Campaign. While it will be important to consider multiple marketing avenues, it will be just as important to know the most effective way you are reaching your customers and clients now. Remember, 80% of your sales could come from 20% of your current customer/client list, because they know you and have already established a relationship with you. That means loyalty and a following can be built!
Because we’re living in a digital world, online purchasing is at an all time high. So, you should consider how you will market via email, mobile texting, on social media platforms, and even with Internet advertising like “Google Adwords” to attract prospects. Now, there’s no need to have a separate campaign for each of these. You just need to know how you will incorporate the one campaign using those different platforms.
One of the most effective ways to get started with planning your strategy is to ask yourself this question: “From the time someone sees my social post, sales image, advertisement or website, what should happen until the sale is closed?” This means that you should create a “sales funnel” that directs each person to your desired result.
For example: Your star product is a homemade from scratch sour cream pound cake. The beginning of your funnel is when someone clicks a link to receive a 25% off coupon if they order before Thanksgiving. So, the next thing that happens is that they receive a autoresponder email with the 25% code to go ahead and order online with a link to the order form. If they order, they will be added to the general customer list where they will be sent emails on other products for the holiday season and even great holiday recipes.
If they don’t order they will receive up to 7 more emails (leading up to the last day you can ship before Thanksgiving) with enticing offers that will compel them to order. So now that the funnel concept has been created, it’s time to pull together the images, create a email template with holiday header, write the actual email copy, shorten your copy for texting and decide if you want to also use paid advertisement like Facebook ads or Google Adwords.
Also, don’t forget that you can create a Holiday Referral Campaign just to reward your customers as well, because they have tasted the pound cake and can attest to the authentic and old-fashioned flavor. Asking your customers to take a video of themselves eating the cake with a few words of testimony would be great!
3) Use the Power of Video Today, video is Queen of the digital world. All of the social media platforms give priority to it and because of this your videos will be seen by more of your customers/clients, friends, followers and their friends. When your videos are shared, it can create a viral effect that catches on and really spreads your message quickly. So, it’s important to make sure you have a link to the right page to capture contact information and provide them with beautiful holiday image of your offer with an “order now” button.
4) Plan Holiday Social Events. It’s a great time of year to be social with your associates, customers/clients, family and friends. Get your calendar out and schedule 2-3 holiday social events and a customer/client appreciation event. It can be held at your storefront location, home, small hotel room or banquet hall. The important thing here is that you’re not having to compete with anyone. Your products/services are the center of attention, but you have made the event festive with fun holiday foods, music and deep discounts. NOTE: Make sure you have some one assisting you with the sales, because you need to be the “Ambassador” circulating the room and mingling with your guests!
5) Set up Black Friday Text Messages. Black Friday is considered the biggest sales day of the year for most retailers. Most people are out with family and friends shopping and enjoying the festivities, so your email won’t necessarily reach them on this day. However, your text message will!
Consider creating a mobile marketing campaign where you’ll give deep discounts on not only your “star product/service”, but also other products or services throughout the day. You might even want to place a time limit on how long the deep discount on the product/service will be available (maybe 1 to 2 hours).
Note: Remember, not to flood your customer’s text messages. The goal is to spread out 3-4 text messages throughout the day. It’s important that you have your product sales page up, tested and ready! There’s no time to go back and try to fix your sales page when customers are actively trying to purchase – they’ll just stop and move on to the next attraction.
Creating an effective marketing campaign for the Holiday Season can be most effective and financially rewarding. So, there’s no time like now to get started with your research, planning, designing and writing content to make this the best season ever for your business!
About the Author
Trina Newby is the founder and business success coach at Women About Biz host of the Successful Woman Radio Show. She coaches her clients with creative ways to lead, market and grow their small business. Click here for you FREE Power Talk Coaching Session.