Selling the Holidays 🎄 in October 🎃

Each year the holidays come earlier - promotions and pushes to deck the halls and find the perfect gift have become a win-or-lose race for businesses of all sizes who are vying for customers.

With economic downturn a constant topic in the news, and global shipping backups affecting product availability - as a small business, what is your plan to compete with large corporations and engage your regular and prospective customers so that you see positive revenue at year-end?

If you haven’t started planning yet (I hope you have!), now is the time to define your holiday strategy, draft deliverables, and engage your customers - both current and future - with how their holidays (and the post-holiday lull) will be better by spending their resources with your business.

Here are some ideas to get you started; to discuss how Rooted can help you put together a holiday marketing strategy, get in touch today.

Holiday Strategy Development

The foundation of Rooted will always be the “why” behind the marketing efforts your small business puts out - and how they align with your brand. So before developing your strategy, think about the “why” and what you want to accomplish/your goals:

1. Do you want to grow your customer base or deepen your relationships with current customers?

2. Do you have a revenue goal - and is it specific to a product or service, or general?

3. Do you want to launch something new?

4. How do traditional holiday messages align with your brand value proposition?

5. What are your resources/budget and how do you want to prioritize its spending?

Then, think about your target audience:

1. What do they need this season?

2. What are their pain points?

3. What do they want to accomplish?

4. What are some of the environmental variables affecting these answers?

5. Why should customers choose your business over others when it comes to their holiday spending?

Once you have a solid idea of your goals and audience needs, then you can start to put together a promotional plan that marries these. Decide your timeline, budget, pricing/product, channels, key messages, and collateral needed, and get started! (Want help?)

Holiday Specials

One of the most obvious strategies for bringing in customers is to offer special pricing on popular items or services. As you think about any special discounts you’ll be offering, think also about how you can leverage the opportunity to engage your audience and get them involved; i.e.:

1. Customers vote on what product they want to go on special - offer a survey for a new product each week for 4-6 weeks, and encourage social sharing!

2. “Spread the Joy”: Offer a discount to current customers/clients who have already purchased a product or service and will share about its value and tag your business on social media before the holidays

3. “Gift the Gifter”: encourage customers to post about the gift they purchased for their special someone (i.e. did they like it? Share a photo or video!) and tag the business, for a post-holiday discount

4. Leverage technology and your expertise to offer non-traditional gifts, such as meet-and-greets, consultations, and assessments via Zoom for recipients who may live far away

5. Simply take the opportunity to thank your current customers by offering a small brand-aligned gift and thanking them for their continuous business

Helping the Community

The holidays have a significant focus on helping those less fortunate, and this is something that each small business should focus on, in some capacity - it helps build trust among customers, builds your network, and mostly - is just something good to do.

Think about how your business can give back this season. Choose a nonprofit or a cause your brand, or you personally, can get behind, and then promote the opportunity for your customers to get involved. They could donate food, goods, or money, they could sign up to volunteer, and/or they could help spread the word through social media. You could also combine these efforts with a discount.

Beyond the Holidays

The days between Christmas and the first week of January can be slow for a lot of Americans - especially after going back to work in the New Year; think now about how you can leverage that time to run promotions that engage customers and visitors who may be in town for an extended period of time.