I stopped by Hobby Lobby the other day looking for a very specific cookie cutter for a Halloween-themed charcuterie cup. Aisle after aisle after aisle was filled with Christmas decor.
Gnomes. Garlands. Gift boxes. The Grinch.
It was October 17th.
And no, I didn’t find the cookie cutter. I had to go to Michael’s – which had it in the tiny space still allocated for Halloween decorations that wasn’t being taken up by Christmas stuff.
If you haven’t started thinking about Holiday sales for your business yet, it’s time.
If you’ve already got a plan and feel confident about how you’re going to tackle the Holiday season, awesome! You’ve no doubt done this before and I hope you have the best season of sales yet!
If you’ve begun to panic because you don’t have a plan in place, don’t worry. There’s still plenty of time to approach Holiday sales intentionally and end the year strong for your business.
Here’s how:
1. Write down your goal
There’s power in writing out your goals. But more than that, if you don’t know what you’re aiming for, it’s hard to make a plan to get there.
So what’s your holiday sales goal? Write it down and post it where you’ll see it on the regular.
Don’t let “out of sight, out of mind,” derail you from your goals.
2. Decide what promotions you’ll be doing
There are so many opportunities to increase your holiday sales from now until the end of the year. Which ones will you participate in?
- Black Friday
- Small Business Saturday
- Cyber Monday
- Sip and Shop/Pop-up events
- Holiday vendor fairs
- Website/online only sales (if you don’t have a website yet, you need one)
- In-person/retail space sales
If you’ll be doing special promotions or sales, just know that you don’t have to go crazy and mark everything 50% off – you still need to make a profit here.
But it definitely helps to have some kind of promotion that is good for you and your customers. You can always give a free gift with purchase. Or heavily discount one item. Or do a special on gift certificates.
I’ll be writing more on this soon so make sure you sign up for my updates.
3. Know your cutoff
Knowing in advance what your cutoff dates are will help you in your planning, especially when it comes to marketing your business.
If you ship items, when is the last day people can order to make sure they get it in time?
If you have a retail store, will you have special holiday hours? Will you be open Christmas Eve for last minute shoppers or will you be closed for your own plans?
Is your big push going to be for Christmas only? Or will you have a post-Christmas promotion? Or will you close your business for the last week of the year?
Decide this now so you can tailor your marketing appropriately.
Hint: there is no right or wrong answer here. It’s your business and you get to decide what will work best for you.
4. Make a marketing plan
This is the most important part. Well, following through with your plan is. It doesn’t matter if you do all the promotions in the world if nobody knows about it.
You. Must. Market. Your. Business. REGULARLY.
This is the time to be all over your chosen online marketing outlets. (If you need some guidance there, check out my class).
Create a plan to post multiple times a week on social media (helpful stuff – not just sales).
And don’t forget to email your list and let them know what’s going on. Hell, they should get their own special deal just for being on the list.
You do have a list, right? (Get on that ASAP if you don’t.)
Okay, that’s all for now. Grab your drink of choice, a pen and paper, and get to work. You need to figure this out before you move forward.
I’ll be diving into this more in the coming weeks, so make sure you sign up for updates so you don’t miss the tips!
