Businesses of nearly all sizes and industries share one common denominator: the holiday season is often the busiest, most bustling time of the year for sales and conversions.
Learning how to maximize your company’s sales potential during the holiday season can help you yield tremendous returns at the end of each year. For some types of business, success during the holiday season can make or break their bottom line; in fact, many retailers don’t reach annual profitability until early or mid-December.
Improving Seasonal Sales
Positioning your company to make the most of the holiday shopping season requires a substantive amount of forethought. Ideally, you should begin strategizing for the holidays as early as June or July. With proper preparation, there are a number of ways that you can work with your team and your marketing department to drive increased traffic through your storefront and digital channels well in advance of late November and early December.
How to Boost Your Sales
While some hard-and-fast rules about holiday shopping habits do remain consistent throughout the ages, there are a number of factors that change from year-to-year, particularly with increasing competition from e-commerce entities threatening traditional brick-and-mortar establishments.
With that being said, here are some of the most dependable strategies you and your company can use to improve your sales in the 2018 holiday season:
- Start emailing: Email campaigns are an effective way to let your customer base know about any promotions or sales you may have during the holiday season. Emailing your list frequently and strategically leading up to the sale can drastically improve its performance.
- Invest in mailers: During the holiday season, consumers’ email inboxes are over saturated with marketing messages. While it’s still a good idea to reach out through digital channels, investing in old-school direct mail campaigns can help you set your company apart, and catch the eye of your target audience.
- Get festive: Decorating your store, website or social media presence with festive lights, banners and more will help customers feel welcome and comfortable in your store or while browsing your digital content. Additionally, decorating helps remind consumers about the reason they’re visiting your store or site—holiday shopping!
- Engage your team: The holiday season can be particularly challenging for employees, who may be asked to work extra hours, miss out on time with family members and serve rushed customers. Engaging your team during the holiday rush will go a long way toward improving your customers’ experiences.
- Offer extra incentives: Because there are lots of customers and prospective customers willing to open up their wallets in the holiday season, there are also plenty of businesses hoping to attract those customers to shop in their stores. Offering extra incentives, like buy-one-get-one deals and free shipping specials, can set you apart from the competition.
Following these simple steps can help you improve the effectiveness of your holiday
marketing strategy and allow you to maximize your sales throughout the holiday season. Whether your business relies heavily on the holidays for its annual success or you’re simply hoping to bolster your bottom line prior to the end of the year, the holidays represent an excellent opportunity for savvy business owners of all industries.