Marketing around the Christmas Tree

With five fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, small business owners everywhere are tasked with marketing holiday promotions more effectively to get customers into businesses during these high traffic, holiday-driven peaks.

From even before Black Friday to after the New Year, there are many channels and many methods to reach customers and familiarize them with your business, creating a flurry of considerations when planning your marketing strategy.

Is there a special time-related holiday bundle that you can do with your products or services that people have to redeem in a certain time period? Or, simply, a discount for people who purchase or come into the store during the holidays? Think of those key moments and strategically center your promotions around them.

Here are a few considerations when planning communications for any upcoming holiday:

1. Create a trifecta email approach:

• Awareness: Inform and excite your customers about your offer. Capitalize on the timely holiday message to create a personal connection with your customers.
• Reminder: An additional communication with your customers to ensure they remembered to take advantage of the incentive.
• Thank you: Show customers you acknowledge their patronage. Keep your email lists and follow up with an offer for next year’s holiday to retain your customer base.

2. Design with mobile in mind: Is your website optimized for mobile? Be ready to deliver easy-to-find information for those customers on-the-go. According to a nationwide survey commissioned by Ink from Chase, 27% of small businesses anticipated an increase in mobile commerce this holiday season. And don’t forget, email often drives mobile leads. Make sure your communications are mobile optimized and reflect a similar experience as your website.

3. Amplify with social: Share your business’ holiday deals, coupons and gift suggestions on social media channels such as Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. According to a Twitter commissioned survey from research firm DB5, 64% of respondents said they have bought a product because of something they saw on Twitter, while 57% of respondents use Twitter to determine which stores to visit.

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Thanks for taking our quiz. Watch for our follow-up blog featuring the results from our survey, in addition to more tips and trends for maximizing your marketing strategy in the New Year!