The holiday season represents a very lucrative time period for retailers, small businesses and corporations alike. In the United States, trillions of dollars are spent each year in the fourth quarter for the holidays. The key to maximizing holidays sales is preparation and planning. We believe there are some preliminary things that you must do to prepare your small business for holiday sales.

Here are 4 preliminary areas that must be addressed before you attempt to launch a holiday sales campaign.

1. Plan Strategically – Before attempting to launch any major sales offer, you must plan what you are offering, the call to action, the pricing, the promotional strategy and much so much more.
2. Prioritize Employee Satisfaction. Make sure to keep your staff happy so they can provide great customer service. Happy employees give great energy and create an environment for happy clients and customers.
2. Review Product Inventory. If you have a physical product, make sure to stock up on inventory so you don’t run out of necessary sales items. If you have a service-based product, make sure your sales funnel is working properly, especially the digital components to your funnel.
3. Brand Strategically. Make sure you have properly branded your offers so that they are unique to your business. Don’t make the mistake of offering something to your audience that sounds and looks like the same thing your competitors offer. Be unique and different.

With the holiday season upon us, it is expected that retail sales and ecommerce sales are going to grow despite the fact that inflation has hit the U.S. economy in 2023. Looking back, in 2022, shoppers spent more than $1 trillion on holiday purchases according to a report from Insider Intelligence. And in 2022, holiday season retail sales grew by 4.8% YoY, following two years of surging retail and ecommerce growth. The expectation of a similar gain is the prediction for the 2023 holiday season. Considering this prediction, it stands to reason that small business owners should seize every opportunity to boost their holiday sales by using all available options just as the major retailers do.

Want to increase revenue for the holiday season? Check out my 7 expert tips.

  1. Connect with your Customers/Clients in Meaningful Ways – Do something that says you took the time to reach out and show them how much you care about them and appreciate their business. Connecting is simply staying in touch. There are many ways to connect including but not limited to, a simple email, text, or thank you card.
  2. Review Your Audience Habits – Learn the ways your customers consume your marketing messages, content and general communications. You simply need to study the data that is available at your fingertips. Data such as Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel are great for learning about your audience. When you study the data, it will lead to dollars i.e., sales.  You should know your audience so well that you don’t have to guess about what they like or dislike. You should know your audience so well that you can describe their common features and characteristics. Being armed with this information properly prepares you for knowing how to effectively market to your target audience.
  3. Evaluate Your Marketing Strategies – You must look at every marketing strategy you are currently using to promote your business. You should know which strategies work best. For example, does social media work well to bring you leads or do events work better for your brand? Does your audience respond to internet ads or radio ads? Which marketing mediums have you tried that worked well and which ones fell flat? You should be able to analyze which strategies are yielding the best results for your brand and business in general.
  4. Optimize and Update Your Website – Make sure your company website is updated and optimized with key words pertinent to your industry. Add meta tags on appropriate pages so they can rank high in Google and other major search engines.
  5. Post Holiday Sales, Discounts, Special Offers BEFORE, DURING and AFTER – You must understand that billions and trillions of dollars are spent on major holidays in the USA. However, the holiday season from Thanksgiving to News Year’s Day is typically considered THE HOLIDAY SEASON including some pretty big shopping days like Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Eve, Day After Christmas and New Year’s Eve…all of these days are huge for retailers across the country. Therefore, as a small business owner, you too can take advantage of the holiday season by offering special sales during this timeframe. Don’t miss out on after Christmas sales as this is a huge opportunity to position your business for a big pay days before the new year.
  6.  Utilize Referral Discounts – Giving people an incentive to talk about your business is a no-brainer. Word of Mouth is one of the oldest if not the oldest form of marketing. In order to give your friends and colleagues an incentive to drop your name when the appropriate time comes, you should consider offer referral discounts. People love getting a deal and they especially love getting discounts. However, the biggest flex is when your friends can say to their friends, that they can get a discount for you if you buy XYZ item or service from someone they know. The power of referral marketing is real. Why not use it at the holidays to make it pay off for your business?
  7. Donate Proceeds to a Charity. – We live in a day and age where social responsibility matters. If you donate a portion of your proceeds over the month of December to a charity, you can promote that you care about your community and therefore garner some loyalty from your customer base as well as your network and community at large.

Any of the above tips and strategies will assist you in boosting your sales if executed properly. However, it’s about making sure you’ve studied your target audience and your niche and industry, as well as the market to get an idea as to what will work best for you.

In summary, if you’d like to boost your business and increase sales not only during the holiday season but also after the season, you must plan properly and execute smart strategies that will help you achieve your goals.

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© 2023 Quality Media Consultant Group LLC – All Rights Reserved

This article was written by Lori A. Manns. President of Quality Media Consultant Group. Lori is a multi-award-winning marketing mentor, sales coach, and trailblazing business strategist who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs to help them grow and scale their businesses. She specializes in sales and marketing strategies that result in her clients attracting their target market, gaining brand visibility, and growing revenue. Lori is the President of Quality Media Consultant Group, a consultancy firm specializing in media, advertising, marketing, and sales. She is the founder of the Trailblazer Business Academy. where advancing entrepreneurs go to learn growth strategies and how to run a profitable business the soulful way. Lori is also the creator of the Sponsorship Sales Secrets.