It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Anyone who knows me knows I am a big Christmas guy. I do a pretty good job of containing my excitement until the socially acceptable day-after-Christmas, but let’s just say holiday music has been playing in my headphones for a while.
While you have probably been pretty busy getting your Christmas tree up and getting your lights up on your house, have you been putting in the time to get your business ready?
And no, we aren’t just talking about decorations.
If you waited this long to start thinking about your holiday marketing plans, you may think that you are too late now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have passed, but there are still a lot of shopping days left until Christmas and there are plenty of people out there that are going to be looking for last-second gift ideas to put under the tree.
So what are the things that you can put together quickly that will still have a lot of impact to your local business?
It’s not too late to create an awesome offer
Sure, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are over but that doesn’t mean that holiday shopping has stopped. Billions of dollars are still going to be spent over the next month as people continue to look for the perfect gift for that special someone. That means there is still a lot of opportunities out there for you and your business.
How do I make a good marketing offer?
Creating an offer that will get someone to act can be a difficult thing. You are going to just slash prices and offer deep discounts that can leave your pocketbook hurting. Sure, discounts can be great and super effective in a lot of situations, but sometimes it is better to get creative and think about things a little bit differently.
When looking to create an offer, think about your customer and what gets them to act. A teenager has a very different motivation than a 65 year old, for example. So your offer would be very different. What types of services can you pair together? What can you give for free that people would be interested in? What is the biggest hurdle getting in someone’s way for purchasing?
Once you answer these questions, your offer will start to take shape and you will get a good idea for what will be effective.
Here is an example. Let’s say you own a board game store. You’re going to be tempted to make an offer like “25% off all games” in order to get people to buy. But will that offer really get people to buy? When people buy board games, they are likely going to play them with other people. So instead of a discount, why not put together a “board game night package” that includes snacks, drinks, and other fun things to make it an awesome experience!
What are the best paid advertising methods for small businesses?
A good offer isn’t much good if no one knows about it. Once you figure out your offer, the next step is to figure out how to get it out to the masses. The best way to get your offer out in your community is to use paid advertising, specifically, Facebook ads.
For as little as $.01 an impression, you can let the people in your area know about your offer and how to take advantage of it. We even wrote a blog on how to boost a Facebook post effectively.
Do something special for your customers
There is nothing like spreading a little holiday cheer! We all know that word of mouth is still one of the most effective marketing channels for small businesses and you get those word-of-mouth referrals by giving your customers a positive experience.
You can do this in a lot of ways and it really depends on your industry and who your customers are, but the goal is always the same: Make people happy.
Even the smallest of gestures can make a huge impact on people and make them feel special. Whether it is a free cup of coffee, some SWAG with your logo on it, or a social media shoutout it can all make that person feel special and think of you during a time of year that people are looking for gift ideas and referrals.
Be relevant
Holidays make it easy to make your business and your content be hyper relevant. Everyone is in the Christmas spirit which means that your business should be as well.
How to create Christmas content for your business
The first step in creating any content is understanding your target market. Who are they? How do they view your business? How do they view the holidays? What parts do they like the most? The Least?
From there, you can figure out how these items relate to your business. Remember, not all content is meant to sell to someone. This should be fun, light, and enjoyable for people to consume. Let’s make some examples together.
Take a board game store again. An obvious relationship is for a store like this is toys and Santa’s workshop and his worker elves. So maybe a blog about the elves’ favorite games or a funny video about the games being made might be great content.
How about something a little different? How about an oil change business?
What the heck do oil changes have to do with Christmas? Honestly nothing, but it has a lot to do with travel… both by vehicles and by sleigh. Some content around traveling for the holidays or maybe talking about how even Santa’s sleigh needs a little maintenance could both be good fun options for relevant content.
Now does every single thing you do around the holidays need to be related to it? Absolutely not, but it is a good place to start looking for inspiration when you need it.
So who is ready to make this Holiday season the best one yet?