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The holidays are filled with excitement, family, and fun — and holiday shopping. Starting with the Black Friday kick-off, the holiday shopping season is bustling with possibilities, prospects, and eager buyers.
As a small business owner, you want to take advantage of the rush of commerce by promoting your seasonal sales early. Use this time leading up to the holidays to generate brand awareness and remember, it’s never too early to start planning for your holiday campaigns.
If you haven’t started planning for the holiday rush, here are some of our top tips to prepare your business for a successful marketing season.
Audit Previous Holiday Marketing Campaigns
Take this time to analyze and adapt from the previous year. What campaigns worked from last year? What about them didn’t work? Choose your new campaign strategy based on what really resonated with your audience and make improvements based on your previous statistics. By looking at what you have done in the past, you can learn from your mistakes and challenges you faced to create campaigns that will see even more success this year.
As you look over your marketing history, be sure to look at the data from your current (and previous) customer base. If your main audience has changed, you might not want to include the same messaging from last year. Understanding who your ideal customer is can help to connect with your audience in a more meaningful way.
Get Ahead With Online Reputation Management
Always put your best foot forward for your holiday marketing season and show off your star customer service with raving reviews. What others are saying about your business on social media, through user-generated content, and on review sites like Google can make a huge impact on how your business performs through the holidays.
Having a positive online reputation is one of the best ways to get more conversions and generate more leads. We found some interesting statistics from a recent consumer survey that would make you think twice about implementing reputation management into your holiday strategy. We found that:
- 96% of shoppers find local businesses through an online search, so it’s important to keep your business listings updated.
- 91% of those shopper will read the reviews online before deciding to make a purchase, making it even more important to ensure your online reputation is a positive one.
- 73% of shopper say reviews are irrelevant if they are older than 3 months, so be consistent and always be monitoring your online presence.
Your online reputation can make or break your year and become especially important for the holiday rush. Always over deliver with your best customer service, and reach out to those who left a negative review, offering to make it right and change their experience.
Use Omnichannel Marketing to Boost Holiday Sales
To boost visibility and get more eyes on your brand, omnichannel marketing is a great way to offer high-value messaging to your customers while reaching them on multiple platforms. Mailers are a great way to get in front of your audience in a personal way and digital channels can then retarget your customers with your holiday promotions when they are on the go and shopping for their holiday gifts online.
Combining direct mail strategies with your digital campaigns offers the most success and brand consistency across channels, but creating this kind of seamless campaign requires more time to prepare, so now is the best time to start.
Get in touch with one of our leading marketing experts to start planning for the most wonderful time of the year!
