The holidays are not very far, but they are not there either, to look at us in front. It's the perfect time, before the rush, but not too much where you can really start working on these vacation promotion plans. But as a small business, you have to make sure you do it the right way.
Some mistakes are incredibly common among small businesses that do not have a whole team to plan each milestone based on millions of dollars in consumer research. You may not have the resources of the big ones, but that does not mean that you do not have your own ace in your sleeve.
Small mistakes of the end-of-year holidays
Just avoid these 10 mistakes and you'll have a great holiday season this year (and every year).
1. Do not need extra help
You do not need to have someone on hand if things go crazy, right? The extra help is for big, giant chains that will have swarms of people going to the store to wait at 5 am for Black Friday's door-breaking sales.
In fact, no … you need more help. Let's say your number of customers increases by 10% during the holidays. Will you have the time and energy to help them all? And if there is more than expected? When will you do your own shopping – or parties, or family time?
Hiring one or two other people as seasonal workers is worth the money and is easy to do because many young people in particular need a short term position to earn a little money. .
For small budgets, try to hire at least one virtual assistant who can take care of small repetitive tasks (like social media sharing, phone calls, etc.) or even help you sort your emails.
2. Keep their advertising budget the same
I hope you have experienced steady growth since last season. But anyway, you should consider increasing your advertising budget.
Advertising on social networks is so affordable, there is really no reason to inflate them a little as the holidays approach . Same with Google AdSense and other means of local search
3. Ignoring the Promise of Landing Pages
Landing pages are one of the easiest ways to boost your SEO influence, generate more traffic and promote your site. Having one for the holiday season is a great idea that gives you an excellent platform.
You can also make mini-sites, which are thematic versions of your pages. For example, Hubspot did a mini holiday site a few years ago with great success. In this case, it is a page on the theme of holidays that leads to products, services and content related to this time of year.
First Site Guide has made a great gathering of Christmas plugins to help you optimize your site for Christmas, including creating a special landing page. In addition, here is a summary of holiday marketing marketing tactics to bookmark.
4. Do not see the value of threshing after the holidays
We all know that holiday sales will be your goal. But that should not be your goal only . In fact, the period after the holidays is one of the most important periods of the entire year.
Think about it! People receive gifts from your business, which puts you on their radar. Maybe they're doing a review that will alert others to your brand.
You can do this by encouraging word-of-mouth or online reviews. Or ask them to sign up for your newsletter for special offers. A good call to action and a strategy to cultivate the activity after the holidays will be invaluable.
5. Does not go without paper
What is it, 1990? Why are we still encouraging check payments, or are we sending paper gift certificates or printed documents by mail? What's going on? We are in 2017 and now they should be digital.
The fact of not making paper saves your time (the post offices before the holidays are flooded!), Facilitates the purchase and sending of your gift cards, makes your business more secure and more eco-friendly and makes paper work easier to monitor, thanks to various platforms that will inform you of the status, and remind your customers to sign. It's also more affordable. Keep Solid Sign is the platform I use to keep my digital paperwork organized. It is currently free and makes the whole process smooth and secure.
6. Do not analyze your own and the trends of your competitors in recent years
Look at what your competitors were doing last year. What content did they publish? What holiday campaigns have they launched and what has worked for them? What worked for you and what did not work?
Try searching for Buzzsumo Facebook Analyzer to find Facebook business updates on your subject. Facebook Analyzer is a newer tool, but it goes back to October 2016, which gives you a solid archive for the end of the year holidays.
Be sure to record your own tactics and conclusions for years to come.
A useful tool to start using now (if you have not done so yet) is Cyfe. It records the archives of all mentions on Twitter that you collect, allowing you to analyze years later. It will store your competitors' entries for this holiday season to give you plenty of data to inspire you for the upcoming holiday season.
7. Start sales too late
Of course, you can push up a sale three weeks before Christmas. But the closer you get to the holidays, the less people will have to spend. They are also more likely to go to a big chain to get a last minute gift. Starting a little earlier, for example before Black Friday, means that you get people when they have more time and money to spend.
Use Google Trends to research the trend and time of your vacation marketing effectively. Search for your specific topic as trends may vary. For example, trends in "Christmas safety" begin to rise on November 6th.
While the trends of "Christmas decorations" begin to occur as early as the end of October.
8. Start sales too steep
You might think that offering insane discounts will bring you people, but it will also make you lose your profits. Yes, big chains can offer 40 percent off and more without flinching. You are smaller and do not want to cut yourself.
In addition, people are willing to spend more in small businesses because they see the quality as being higher. Work with it and keep your discounts and sales moderate.
9. Just let people come to you
Commitment! This is not just something you do before getting married. You should interact with people on social networks, on critical sites, wherever you can get your brand name and cultivate an image.
As the holidays get closer, make sure you really do it.
10. Do Not Make Holiday-Specific Email Marketing Campaigns
E-mail marketing campaigns are one of those incredible, immutable and immutable forms of content that always seem to work.
If you have a list of subscribers, start sending these specific campaigns. Also use these landing pages and social media accounts to get more emails to add to the list.
Do you have any other common mistakes to name? Let us know in the comments!
Broken decoration photo via Shutterstock