Want to end the business year with a bang? More and more people are getting their Christmas shopping done online. Your business can make as much money in the fourth quarter as it made in the first three in total!
Here’s how you can wrap up the year with tons of holiday sales.
Design drool-worthy promotions
The first step to having a record holiday season for your business is taking the time to plan out special events and product launches.
This should happen weeks, even months before the the holidays start.
How do you ensure that your promotions are drool-worthy?
You need to understand your customers and why they buy your products. What drives your customers? Who are they buying for? Do you sell impulse purchase products (think candy bars right at the checkout station at Target) or more high-end, premium wares that requires more thought and time to buy?
Remember the 12 Days of Christmas song? Each day in the song, the lover sends a different gift. If you sell an easy gift product, great! You can try creating an “8 Weeks of Christmas Sale” promotion. Each week, you can offer one design for sale. If you can tie it in with a new product design, that’s even better because people love new and fresh things!
‘Tis the season. Gift the creative in your life something special – check out our curated holiday gifts.
The one day a year you can sell out
Most creative business owners are hesitant to offer discounts – and for good reason! If done too frequently, it can undervalue your time, skill and brand. You don’t want to train your audience to wait for a discount to buy from you.
But what if I told you that there’s one out of the 365 days in the year that you can discount your products without being seen as undervaluing your products?
Black Friday is THE biggest shopping day of the year in the United States. People make shopping lists, save up and blow all their money in a single day. Many of them are also buying Christmas gifts.
Going back to the first point, if you decide to participate with a Black Friday sale of your own, it’s super important that you design a jaw dropping promotion.
Gone are the 10% discount days. No one cares about those anymore because everyone is doing it. Get creative with your sale! How about an hourly discount ladder sale? For example, you can offer a 40% discount in the first hour of your sale going live. Then the discount drops to 30% in the second hour. Then 20% in hours three to five. Then 10% for the rest of the day. This converts into sales like gangbusters!
Building buzz and anticipation
Now that you’ve figured out your holiday events, it’s time to start promoting your promotions. Yes, even your promotions need to be promoted, or no one will come!
For each event you’re doing, carve aside one to two weeks to frequently post about your upcoming events and sales on your marketing platforms.
To keep your audience engaged and interested, think about how you can craft your promotional posts in different angles. Sneak peeks, behind the scenes and question posts are all great ways to leave hints and clues about upcoming promotions without being too in-your-face.
You cannot skip this step! Even if your sale was for a 99% off discount, if no one knows about it because you didn’t promote it, you still won’t make any sales.
Here’s a bonus tip: you can send interested people to your email list sign up form so that they get notified right away when your sale is live so they don’t miss it! That’s a great way to tie in your promotion with list building.
Curating strategic holiday gift guides
People may not say this publicly, but subconsciously, humans absolutely love being the center of attention. If you use a blog to promote your shop, you can curate a few holiday gift guides that are relevant to your customer. You can definitely add your own products but also see how you can include products from other small business owners.
Once the gift guide is live, send an email to all of the other business owners that you featured and ask them for a share. Most of them will be happy to because their product was included.
This will help you get in front of new audiences and promote other businesses at the same time. Win-win!
‘Tis the season. Gift the creative in your life something special – check out our curated holiday gifts.
