Everybody is doing it, which means the competition is doing it, which further means that you should do it, as well, or you will fall behind. The thing that everybody is doing is – preparing for the holidays. Sales, discounts, marketing campaigns, Santas, cards, decorations and the entire cheerful fuss are all about to start. Therefore, plan ahead, be prepared and make sure you are ready to go with the flow and make the most of it. Here are some of the best tips on how to prepare for the holiday season.
Analyze Last Year
You need to do a long, hard and thorough analysis of the last year, so that you can correct the mistakes and repeat the good moves. Start with your sales. See what sort of products you sold the most. See if your stores were visited during the mornings or the evenings and plan the promotions accordingly. Analyze the website activity and see what did the users want and what did they respond to the best.
Plan the Discounts and Special Occasions
You need to set the budget for the discounts and the sales that you need to organize. It is expected from you, so you need to make sure that you get it right. Choose the discounts and the products that will be on sale. Next, make sure that you know which days you are about to make the sale. Decide on your attitude towards the Black Friday and similar events. Once you do it, advertise those sales and promotions.
Choose the Focus
A lot of businesses choose email marketing as their primary channel for advertising their holiday offers and promotions. It makes sense because your loyal customers will want to learn about these actions first. There are many ways to advertise and promote your discounts, but you need to choose two main ones and make sure that you focus on those. Otherwise, it can happen that you weaken your efforts in attempt to promote yourself at all channels at once.
Remember “Elf Yourself”?
Holidays are all about fun and entertainment. Office Depot and Office Max made a website Elf Yourself with a really simple and fun game – you could put faces of you and your six friends on the bodies of elves that fool around the screen in a great animation. The game went viral. Over a million animations were made and shared on all social media. It was great marketing and it was fun for everybody. The cheeky title “Elf Yourself’ definitely helped this fun app to spread. You can design something similar for your business as well. Fun Facebook apps that resemble this one can go viral easily.
Gifts and Cards
This is the time of the year when you need to remember your loyal and returning customers. The least you can do is send them a card. To make it more special, make it a hand written note. One step more is a promotional item, or even a couple of them packed into a present. Everybody loves getting presents, especially during the holidays. Useful gifts for adults will find their way into their everyday lives, but a couple of customised lollies will definitely put a smile on the face of their little ones.
Holiday season is definitely the busiest time of the year for many businesses. That hectic atmosphere can get on your nerves, but if you are prepared, you will see that everything is going according to your plans, so you can lay back and enjoy the fun things about the holiday spirit.
