Simple Steps to Prepare Your Business for the Holidays

The holiday season is here! For many businesses, you'll face an influx of customers, orders, and opportunities to make your brand stand out. But it can also be a stressful time if you don't plan ahead. To succeed at selling your products during the holidays, it's essential to develop a clear marketing strategy before December begins—and then follow through on that strategy throughout December until January arrives. Here are some simple steps to get prepared for the most wonderful time of the year. 

Create a holiday marketing plan.

The holidays are a necessary time of year for your business, so it's essential to have a plan in place for how you'll be promoting your brand and products during this period. Your holiday marketing plan should include the following:

• A list of goals for the season (for example, gaining new customers or increasing online sales)
• An overview of how much money you want to spend on each type of marketing activity (such as advertising) and how many hours per week you can devote to each task, such as creating social media posts or blogging about seasonal trends

Create a social media campaign.

Tis the season to stand out.  The end of the year holiday season is a vital time to promote your business and get in front of new customers. Here are some ideas for creating a social media campaign that will resonate with your audience:

• Create a hashtag for the campaign. This will allow people to easily find all the content related to it, whether they're searching for it or not!
• Give customers reasons to engage with your brand--you can do this by offering discounts, gift cards/codes, or other types of prizes (e.g., "receive $10 off your next purchase by posting on Facebook").

Create gift guides.

Have you seen the latest Target holiday shopping mailer? It's a gift guide helping parents like me and you determine what's hot on the market.  And guess what? You can do one too! Create gift guides that include a variety of price points and products, from small items like jewelry or candles to large-ticket items like furniture or appliances. You can even have some basic information about the product or service and why it's a good gift for someone in your audience (for example: "This quilt is perfect for anyone who loves dogs!").

The key here is ensuring you cover all categories for the products and services you offer! And yes, a gift guide can be applied to service-based industries as well.  The more varied the types of things on your list, the more likely people will be able to find something they know their friends and family will love (or at least something they feel comfortable buying).

Create opportunities to connect to customers throughout the holiday season.

The winter hustle and bustle can be joyous yet incredibly hectic for business owners. If you want to make it through the season without burning out, it's essential to stay close to your customers --and that means doing more than just sending out holiday cards or brochures.

For example, if one of your customers is looking for a gift for his wife who just launched a business or likes certain types of products, help him find exactly what she wants! You can do this by asking questions about her interests and hobbies so that when he ready to spend money on something special for her, there's no doubt about what kind of item would make her happy.

There are probably 1000 different ways to get ready for the holiday bliss but who wants to be overwhelmed when there is lots of shopping to do, right? Try one thing from this list or two. Grab your Wake-Pray-Slay bundle to plan for a successful fa-la-la-la holiday season.