The holiday campaign for your small business should be memorable and effective, integrating your social media marketing and mobile efforts with a consistent message across all channels, according to entrepreneur Michael Tasner, writing recently for The Huffington Post.
“The holidays are a great opportunity for marketers and businesses to thank their customers for another great year, while also allowing brands using social media to leverage their holiday campaigns to attract new customers,” says Tasner, who also advises that by now you should have an idea of what resources you want to dedicate to your holiday marketing, and what your sales forecast will look like.
Tasner suggests that you start generating buzz with an email campaign in early November, which is when 40 percent of consumers begin their holiday shopping, according to statistics from HubSpot. Start promoting your Black Friday deals and social media holiday campaign by using your existing customer email database and then follow up with additional emails spaced about a week apart leading up to the post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend.
“A successful holiday campaign integrates multiple channels in order to raise customer awareness, drive traffic to your website, and inform them about current and future deals,” notes Tasner. ‘Your campaign can take on any form and you’re not limited with your strategy or your intended output. But, you should set these objectives in order to gauge how the campaign was executed and to figure out what worked and what didn’t in order to improve for next year.”
Other advice from Tasner includes:
- Craft your offer to include one or more of these basics: holiday coupons to use during December, a discount on a specific product line, free shipping if customers spend over a certain amount and BOGO (buy one, get one free or half off).
- Encourage participation by going social. Promote your offer through Facebook, Twitter or other social media. Encourage your fans and followers to participate by giving them value for engaging with your page. “Ask them to share their photos from last year’s Christmas party, and for doing so, they’ll receive a 10 percent holiday coupon,” Tasner suggests. “Customers will begin to expect holiday deals from you on your social networks, and they will be driven to your website to shop!”
- Give back in the spirit of holidays by donating a percentage of your sales on a specific day or for a specific time period to a non-profit that reflects your values. Not only will you and your employees feel good about your business, but your customers will appreciate the opportunity to contribute to a good cause with their purchases.
And don’t forget that about one-third of all shoppers wait until ten days before Christmas to do their gift buying, so be sure to keep an offer or two in abeyance for the procrastinators!
Best wishes for a great holiday season for your small business!
