As a small business or startup, the holiday season is a great time to watch your revenue grow — it’s estimated consumers will spend $1,536 each on holiday goods and gifts. But you have to plan ahead and develop the perfect holiday marketing campaign before you can reap the rewards. Here are eight holiday essentials for small retail businesses and startups.
1. Plan a Holiday Marketing Campaign
The holidays are about more than selling your items. You need different messaging and tactics to tug at people’s heartstrings and remind them of your brand name. Your holiday marketing campaign such include SEO, emails, influencer marketing and display advertising. Don’t forget to adapt those messages whenever an event or a holiday happens to bring in even more customers.
2. Create a Personalized Experience
During the holidays, you can choose to increase your revenue by bringing in more customers, or you can increase profits through quality, loyal customers. Neither way is wrong, but choosing to focus on loyal customers may pay off in the long-term. Try to make your business approach personalized to keep those customers coming back. Hand-write thank you notes for purchases that are shipped or create an email campaign that targets repeat customers to keep people coming back.
3. Take Advantage of Big Shopping Dates
The last quarter of the year is typically when the biggest shopping dates hit. Throughout October, November and December you need to plan for Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. Also look at some of the big online spending days to figure out when you should be pushing paid advertisements and more.
4. Decide on a Return Policy
This one isn’t as exciting, but you should decide on a return policy and payment options before you get a rush of customers. Some online and offline stores offer more liberal and extended return/exchange policies during the holidays. Consider what is best for your store and how it will impact sales. You can also consider accepting other payment options such as PayPal.
5. Offer Multiple Delivery Options
Another important aspect of holiday shopping is delivery. Holiday shopping is important to consumers, and you want to keep them coming back by offering multiple delivery options that will allow their package to get their on-time. Whether it’s FedEx, UPS, USPS and more, check out the drop-dead shipping dates to know when the last possible day you can ship something is.
6. Pay Attention to Pricing
All sellers know that consumers will buy during the holiday season, no matter what the price of the product. However, good sellers will drop or increase the price of an item at just the right time based on many factors. Either watch the changes yourself or use dynamic repricing tools that use an algorithm to price things accordingly.
7. Make a Few Site Improvements
The last thing you want is for consumers to have a cart full of items that disappear if your site crashes. Factors such as site speed, slowdowns, content issues and overall stability will impact whether or not you make a sale. Take some time before the holiday rush to see what you can do to improve your site and make it more user-friendly for individuals who prefer to shop online.
8. Decide Where to Advertise
Not every advertising channel is the same, and you need to craft different messages depending on where you’re advertising. The more targeted you get with your promotions, the more people will buy. Do your research ahead of time to see where your competitors are advertising. Will a Facebook campaign work best? What about PPC on Google? Find the best ways to reach your audience this season to realize the biggest rewards.
Have Fun While Doing It
The holidays can often seem stressful, but they don’t need to be. As a small business or startup, you should have fun experiencing the holidays along with your customers. Help them find the perfect gifts for friends and family and do it with a smile on your face. The holidays are about giving, so give back with a cheerful attitude especially when the sales start to pile in.