Is your business ready for a holiday frenzy?
Thinking of turkey and cranberry sauce? You’re right, it’s that time of the year. Strategizing for the upcoming craze of holidays is a must if you want your business to achieve an edge on the market. The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is a record-breaking buying event that you’ll want to jump on board.
Previous years, Adobe Analytics reported that Black Friday acquired nearly 23 billion dollars in sales. That’s a lot of potential customers and more importantly, potential sales for your business. Let’s cover some steps in how to adequately prepare your business for the upcoming holidays.
Plan out your sales and promotions
It’s hard to believe but most of the consumers are researching products and looking for deals well ahead of time – like now. So it’s crucial to take time to get organized by brainstorming sales that you’re going to offer for Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend.
Plan to bypass any messy last-minute sale scrambles and inadequate promotions. A simple Excel sheet works well for highlighting planned sales and to identify products. Some additional info you may include is sale prices, timelines and how to anticipate promoting a sale.
For instance, if you own a restaurant, another great example is creating a special menu for Thanksgiving customers to enjoy. By doing these planned promotions you will ensure you meet any challenges regarding service with ease.
Plan how to spread the word
Now that you have an idea of what kind of sales you’re going to offer, you need to spread the word effectively to consumers. Advertise well ahead of time and prepare your customers for buying.
Email marketing
Email is truly a star of online advertisement and a healthy growing email list is invaluable for your small business or e-commerce site. Creating email marketing campaigns to those who have chosen to be engaged with your business opens a door for more personalized messages that have the most impact when buying time comes.
Social Media Marketing
Social media often casts a wider net in terms of marketing, these platforms will help you tease upcoming promotions and provide creative ways of deal distribution. You can additionally boost your posts to target specific audiences or reach a larger crowd for mere pennies.
Create a calendar to help you determine and plan out the ideal times to distribute marketing content – then stick to it! Consistency is the key.
Keep an eye out on the competition
With a huge wave of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals flooding every square of the web, your small business needs to set itself apart against other small and big scale retailers.
There are many effective options to include on your e-commerce websites for extra sales. These touches can help distinguish your site from others. Watch your industry competitors and work to have the upper leg in the game!
Be available
While shopping, your customers sometimes may have an urgent question about sizing or shipping or any other thing that can ultimately decide on the purchase.
If possible, be available to answer their up-to-minute queries during the holiday shopping weekend. If you expect heavy crowds, assemble a team to help address consumers’ needs, and leave them with a positive and impactful customer service experience.
Test, test, and test
The best way to meet with any potential glitches or problems with your site during the holiday shopping e-rush is to constantly test it.
Let’s think about it. You wouldn’t turn in your class’s final paper without reading through it, editing grammar mistakes and using spell checks. And the way your site looks is just as important for your business, so perform necessary checks. Some tools can help you with just that.
Concluding
Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday are a big deal for your business, and the time to prepare is, well to be honest yesterday. If you haven’t already started preparing your site and strategy, start now!
With a website prepared for handling e-crowds and a profitable marketing strategy, you’ll be able to conquer upcoming holidays and turn those seasonal shoppers into loyal customers.