The holidays are quickly approaching, and you’re probably getting excited about all the fun activities you’ll be doing with your family over the next few weeks!
The holidays are all about spending time with loved ones, taking time off from your everyday responsibilities, and enjoying the celebration.
Some small business owners see this as an opportunity to take a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. They may stop taking orders for a week or two, leave their social media pages unattended, and tell clients they’re on vacation until further notice.
But, shutting down for the holidays is one of the biggest mistakes a small business owner can make! Why? Let’s get into it!
Why the Holiday Season is Important for Small Businesses
If you ask anyone, they’d probably say they shop more in November and December than in all the other months combined.
The holiday season is the biggest shopping season of the whole year — everyone’s out shopping for the perfect presents to give to their loved ones, and some are even treating themselves ahead of the celebration.
In the giving spirit of the holidays, some people choose to do their holiday shopping exclusively at small businesses. Giving back is a big part of celebrating these winter holidays, and a lot of people start by supporting their community’s local businesses.
What does this all mean?
You should never shut down your shop during the winter months — if anything, you should focus on marketing and promoting your company even more than usual!
How Can I Market My Business to Increase Holiday Sales?
Now that you know how important it is to step your business up during the holidays, let’s talk about some ways you can increase your marketing efforts to ramp up holiday sales.
Remember that you should always keep going with what works — regular posts on social media, monthly newsletters, and consistent communication with your clients.
But, if you want to break your sales goal before the end of the year, try adding one or more of these methods into your marketing strategy:
● Create gift guides
● Provide extra services
● Offer holiday specials
How can you fit these tips into your strategy? Let’s find out!
Create Gift Guides
Most of the time, you’re talking directly to the person who will purchase and use your products when you advertise them.
But, during the holidays when everyone’s shopping for their friends and family members, you never know who’s looking at your site!
If someone comes across your page while looking for a gift for a family member, they may not know what products to look into.
How can you steer them in the right direction? By creating gift guides.
Think about which of your products would be best for certain types of people. Compile a list, then create a graphic or blog post that people browsing your site can check out!
How specific these gift guides get will depend on the types of products you sell.
If your products are geared toward all ages and genders, you might want to break them down into groups like:
● Mom
● Dad
● Grandma
● Grandpa
● Brother
● Sister
But, if you have a more niche audience, these groups will need to be more specific.
Let’s say you market primarily to women — you might want to break your guides into categories like:
● Working women
● Stay-at-home moms
● College girls
● Travel enthusiasts
These gift guides won’t just get you more sales from friends and family members of clients — they’ll also make you a holiday hero!
Provide Extra Services
While preparing for the holidays is definitely a lot of fun, it also comes with a good deal of extra work and effort.
Everyone appreciates someone who takes just a little bit of preparation off their plate and offering extra services during the holidays could be the difference that gets you that extra sale!
There are a couple of ways you can go the extra mile for your clients during the holidays. You might want to offer gift wrapping so orders arrive ready to place under the tree, or you could play Santa and offer in-person drop-off to keep your clients’ purchases a secret!
If you know certain clients especially well, you could even email their spouses or children a holiday wish list — if they’ve been struggling to find that perfect gift, you just might become a lifesaver.
Offer Holiday Specials
All the best companies offer special deals for the holidays! If you can swing it, doing the same can do wonders for your business.
There are a lot of shopping-related holidays coming up — we’ve got Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and most importantly, Small Business Saturday.
Everyone’s looking for deals on Thanksgiving weekend, and if you can give them to your clients, you’ll have no problem racking up those extra sales.
But, Black Friday weekend isn’t the only time you should focus on holiday specials — if possible, you should give your clients little deals all season long!
Maybe you’ll offer a discount on orders over a certain amount, or perhaps you’ll run a BOGO deal! Even if all you can do is give a small gift in every order, your clients will appreciate it.
How Do I Find the Time to Do All This?!
We’ve discussed how important it is to keep things on track with your business during the holiday season. But, now you’re probably wondering — how can I ramp up my business while still getting everything done that I need to during the holidays?
Luckily, there are a few ways you can streamline your business during the holidays — both online and in-person.
Streamlining Your Social Media
While you’re out shopping, wrapping presents, and decorating the house for the holidays, you’re probably not thinking about the last time you posted on your business page.
To avoid weeks going by without a post, especially during the busiest shopping time of the year, you need to go into the holidays with a plan.
Set aside a few hours to create a holiday content calendar — decide when you’ll post and what you’ll post. Then, spend some time getting all your graphics, videos, and captions ready. Once it’s all set, log onto Facebook’s Meta Business Suite to schedule all your content in advance!
When the time comes, each scheduled post will automatically publish itself to your Facebook business page, group, and Instagram. All you have to remember to do is answer any comments and messages you get promptly!
Streamlining Your In-Person Practices
Unfortunately, there’s no way to schedule out the in-person work you have to do for your business. But, even though this is a busy time of year, there are ways to set aside enough time to do everything you need to keep your business running smoothly!
Your biggest in-person challenges during this time are all related to the same thing — order fulfillment. You’ll need to pack your orders, gift wrap if requested, and deliver or mail the packages.
First things first — handling orders as they come in.
At the end of each day, check to see if you received any orders. If you did, try to pack them all at once. Once you finish packaging, you can start gift wrapping. Then, set them aside.
Dedicate one day each week for deliveries — sort your packages into two groups: packages that will be sent in the mail, and packages to be delivered in person.
Head to the post office first to mail everything out, then start making your in-person deliveries!
Although this will definitely take some time out of your holiday preparation, it’s essential to get your packages out in a timely and orderly fashion. Having dedicated time to do this will make it all feel a lot less stressful!
Tackling the Holiday Season to Meet Your Goals
With everything that goes into preparing for the holiday season, it would be easy to take a break from your business for just a couple of weeks. But, that’s not a move you want to make.
The holiday season is the biggest shopping time of the year, and pushing through could help you reach (or even exceed!) your sales goal.
After all the work throughout the holiday season is done, it’s time to start thinking of all the goals you’ll reach in the New Year. Planning is key to meeting your sales goals, building relationships with clients, and running the best small business you possibly can!
And, if you need help getting everything done, book a consultation with Promote Creatively so you can start streamlining your business and focusing on what matters most — your clients!