The holiday season is a wonderful time, full of family visits, vacation trips, and plenty of food. If you’re a business owner, however, there’s another layer of holiday cheer you can look forward to – rushing customers, increased demand and, hopefully, some hefty holiday profits. The trick is knowing how to prepare for this time of the year in a way that will both provide the best experience for your customers and also get you sales!
There’s no denying that it can be stressful getting your business in streamlined holiday order, but it’s also much easier when you have a gameplan. If you’re looking for some ideas to kickstart your business’ holiday marketing, try a few of these:
Offer Holiday Bundles
One of the best ways to increase your profits during the holiday season is to simply give people what they want in the easiest format possible. Take some of your bestselling products and build some awesome holiday bundles with a bit of a discount tacked on! That way, someone who might have only bought Product X will now grab the Product X & Y bundle, and you’ll come out ahead even with the discount.
Upsell Stocking Stuffers
If Amazon has taught us anything, it’s that upselling is the way to go. If you don’t have a “you may also like” section at some point during your checkout process, you may want to rethink that particular strategy. This is even more relevant during the holidays, and that’s because stocking stuffers are the perfect things to upsell to holiday shoppers. A small, clever add on that mom or dad can tuck into a stocking on Christmas Eve will be a no-brainer when they’re already buying the bigger gifts.
Employ A Holiday Rebate Program
Toys R Us is currently having a great event where their Rewards members earn 10% of what they spend this month back as a gift card in November. Now, not only does this work to entice customers to get their Christmas shopping out of the way now, but next month they’ll have a gift certificate burning a hole in their pockets, and chances are high that they’ll be back, and they won’t spend exactly what’s on their card. This is a great example of a win-win situation that can result from a rebate program like this one.
Begin Planning Early
If you’re ready to start planning for your holiday promotions and sales, I’ve got news for you – you’re already far, far behind! By now, you should have fairly fleshed-out plans running all the way through the new year and be working to implement those plans. Get everything up and running, get emails and Facebook announcements and sales tweets scheduled, and then be ready to handle the rush of holiday customers.
Step Up Your Social Media Efforts
One thing that the holidays do bring is chaos! Everyone is competing for those holiday season sales numbers, and no matter what business you’re in, you’re going to have to do something to stand out from the crowd. Make sure all of your social media posts during this time are engaging and spot-on. Humor, holiday polls, sale announcements – no matter what you’re doing, make sure you give it that extra “oomph” during the holidays.
What is your business doing to prepare for the season? Share your tips and ideas with us below!