From Halloween to Thanksgiving and finally ding dong Christmas into the New year, the holiday season is a favorite for many. For many business owners, the holidays can also be a hectic period. Furthermore, as most holiday celebrations begin in late October, most parts of the last few months of the year are spent trying to make the most for their businesses without crashing. If you are a business owner, your holiday preparations should have started as early as the middle of the year. However, if you are late to the party, you can still generate much profit and make the holiday season a seamless one for your business.
In this article, we will be Santa for a few minutes and share common dos and don’ts for business owners looking to make a huge profit this holiday. Strap your seatbelts and get ready for a ride.
DO: Set Realistic Holiday Goals
The best way to set your business up for success this holiday period is to set realistic holiday goals. You should look through your business’s history, note how you fared in the past holiday season, and use that information to set goals for this holiday. Working with your team helps make this process more efficient as they can give better insight into why the past year’s results were like that and possible improvements to make this year a better one. Organize your goals from the minimum achievable to the more stretched-out ones that would require a lot more effort. If this is your first holiday period as a business owner with no past data to inform your decision-making process, you can still take a cue from how your business has thrived in the past year to set goals. You can also check how your business competition has handled the holiday celebration in the past. Also, your goals do not have to be strictly about sales and revenue; they can include non-financial goals like increased social media engagement and brand awareness.
DON’T: Use Your Regular Marketing Campaign
One of the mistakes you DON’T want to make is to use your everyday marketing campaign for the holidays. Not only would you be leaving a lot of money on the table, but it also shows that you don’t care about your customers enough to celebrate such an exciting period with them. Take your holiday strategy up a notch by creating campaigns that are personalized and speak to the beauty of the season. A great holiday marketing campaign would help your customers appreciate the essence of family and make them feel at home with your brand. Take advantage of holiday discounts, collaborations, and promos to connect better with your customers this season.
DO: Order Supplies Early
While planning for the holidays, you should consider that it is a busy period for most businesses, and waiting till the holidays are just around the corner to order your supplies might be a bad idea. This is particularly important if your business requires a supply of raw materials from other businesses for production. Plan ahead of time and place an order for these supplies before it gets super busy. Doing this also prevents your business from running into the problems of incomplete or delayed orders and defective products for sale during the holidays.
DO: Stock Extra Inventory
Another thing you should absolutely do in preparation for the holidays is to stock up on extra inventory. Most businesses generally record more sales during the holidays, and you don’t want to miss your share of the holiday goodies by not having enough stock. Based on your past holiday sales and business estimations, you should get more than enough stock so that you do not run out on them when your customers come around. Just to be doubly sure, you should also put a plan in place to purchase extra stuff just in case the holiday sales get better than you expected.
DON’T: Ignore Your Website Or Online Market
Many people, especially those in the corporate sector, are often busy during the holiday period and may not have enough time to visit your store in person to make their holiday purchases. Naturally, many of them would turn to your online store or website, hoping to make their purchases there. One thing you definitely do not want to do is ignore your online market. Anticipate increased website traffic this holiday and put structures in place to accommodate your online customers. Ensure that you upload all your products on your website, and your customers can make their purchases without hassle. If you feel like the software you have might crash under the burden of the influx, then it might be time to invest in new software that gets the job done. Another way to cater to your online customers is to ensure that there are customer service representatives ready to respond to the questions and problems of your online customers as and when due.
DO: Invest In Content and Email Marketing
Many business owners lose a lot of money on holiday sales because they don’t take out time to invest in content and email marketing for the holidays. You don’t want to be one of them. During the holidays, customers are constantly searching for ways to enjoy the celebration better and make the most out of time spent with family. This is where you should come in with helpful and informative content to help them make a decision and eventually patronize your business. You can communicate this information through blog posts, social media captions, and more intimately through email. In addition to sending informative content, you can also send out discounts and promotions to your email subscribers to get them excited about celebrating the holidays with you.
DO: Get In The Mood and Celebrate With Your Staff
While the holidays are a period to help your customers enjoy time spent with family, you should also take note not to forget that your employees have families and want to be appreciated too. Decorate your store and create a holiday mood so that while your employees are swamped with work trying to make the holidays beautiful for your customers, they do not feel left behind. It would also help if you tried to create employee holiday discounts to help them celebrate too.
Do you need expertly crafted holiday-themed website content and email copies? You can contact the services of Top Content Marketing Agency for professional services. Would you rather speak to an expert to help you analyze your business strategies and the right type of services your business will require? Book a strategic session with one of our experts today: