If you’re like most business owners, the holiday season tends to be an overly busy one and can leave you rushing around and sometimes even behind on orders and projects. Try these four simple steps to not only lighten up your holiday season, but maximize on sales too!
- Encourage Pre-orders – If your business sells products, why not offer incentives for your customers to pre-order their holiday gifts? Perhaps offer free shipping if they order by a certain date or even an “Early-Bird” Discount. By encouraging and providing incentives to your customers, you are getting them to purchase their products sooner and you’ll avoid having last-minute hustle-and-bustle trying to get all your orders fulfilled during an already busy season.
- Say or Do Something Different – I don’t know about you, but around November 1st my email box is inundated with all kinds of holiday and Black Friday sales – 99.9% of which are trying to get me to buy something. What if you decided to give something away instead of telling people to buy something? It could be something simple like a 4 pack of those koozies all your customers love! What about a drawing for a small gift card to anyone who comments on one of your holiday posts about a new product? Whatever you decide to do, chances are you’ll stand out amongst the clutter of your customers’ emails and newsfeeds.
- Offer a Refer-A-Friend Promotion – This is one of my favorite ways to maximize your sales. Why? Because it’s FREE! What better way to spread the word about your company than have your raving fans give you a shout-out or plug to their friends? It could be a discount that you give your customer when their friend mentions you when they make their first purchase. Or you could encourage them to tag a friend in the comments of one of your posts and enter them in a drawing for a prize. Since you already have a great product or service, why not let your customers brag on you?
- Start Building Relationships – If you implement one of the above strategies, make sure you have a plan on how to build a relationship with those new customers you meet. Maybe it’s getting their birthday and email address. Then you can send them a coupon or birthday greeting so you can keep your company in front of them. By doing something like this, you’ll be able to carry that new relationship into the new year when the busyness of the holidays dies down.