Prepping Your Small Business for the Holidays!

We know it might seem a little early to already be prepping for the holidays, but it's always best to get a head start on planning. From prepping your decorations to your ad campaign, take the time to make this year the best year yet! 

Hello everyone! We hope you had a wonderful September, and that you are so excited for October and the fall season to take over. For everyone in the small business world, stepping closer into fall also means starting to prepare for all of your holiday sales, offers, decorations, ads, images, and products. It's A LOT to plan for. Believe me we can relate. We have already started to plan for our fourth quarter, which also happens to be the busiest part of the year. If there is one thing we can recommend right away, it's to start early. That is a huge headache saved, believe me! No matter the size of your small business, you deserve a strong plan and marketing agenda for the holidays. Smart planning for the holidays isn't just for the big box stores or giant corporations. If you employ 1 or 1000, it's time to get started. 

We are so excited to share these few tips of the trade with you. Each of these tips can be used for any holiday, but with everything from Halloween to the New Year approaching, we will be focusing on those holidays and each in between. These tips span everything from social media to your digital footprint on Google. You won't want to miss out on these! 

• Give your website and social media platforms (and the content you're posting) a holiday look for every holiday you're choosing to participate in! Festive happy websites will make for a festive happy audience! Tie in seasonal twists that are fun for you and your marketing department to create together. 
• Your marketing campaigns do not need to be cheesy or full of gimmicks. Fill them with what's at the heart of your company and what makes you stand out among your competitors. 
• Create a successful money-making campaign that will end your year nicely and get your new year off to a good start. Give your follows and audnece a great deal of some kind. Good promotions, sales, deals, and of course - free stuff - are always a good start! 
• Call in the influencers! Let them do some of the hard leg work for you. It can be easy to get listed on their holiday gift lists or written about in their blogs. Do some research and reach out to some of the most influential influencers and bloggers in the world of your business. Ask if they would be willing to test your products or services. Offer them a small sample of your product services. Then in return, if they do like it, have them spread the word via their social media platforms. Have them blog about it, make an Instagram Story about it, post about it on their top ten best holiday gift list, etc. This can be a great and easy way to spread your name to new markets as the holiday's approach! 
• Use social media to your advantage! Don't just try and sell things. Try and give back too. Have fun giveaways online, and use this as a promotional tool! Have followers tag their friends to get entered in giveaways so more people know about your company. Pair up with influencers and do a joint giveaway and have followers follow all of the accounts included in the giveaway and tag more friends! Your following will grow and you will have more eyes and foot traffic on your platforms. This shows off your company in a positive non-pushy way. Plus, someone is winning something! The key to this though is that you MUST be very specific in exactly what the contest rules and outcomes are for legal reasons. Make sure to cover all of your bases. 
• You've spent a whole year collecting those email addresses and information of clients and interested clients. It's time to put them to use! There is an art to the email chain. How to craft a perfect email chain could be a whole blog in itself. But spend the time to craft a good tag line, deciding what the wording and graphics will be on the inside, what your offers will be, add a call to action, and maybe even offer a freebie or two. Make sure you are connecting with your audience, 
•  Make sure you have a strong, reliable, supported, and well represent presence on Google, Yelp, the Better Business Bureau, and even in the Yellow Pages (yep, they still exist!). Make sure you stand out in the search engine world and beyond. Don't limit yourself. Think ahead of the competition. 

Like we mentioned - there is A LOT to think about when it comes to successfully running a business during the holiday season. But we hope these tips help ease some of your stress and kick off the best quarter of the year for you and your small business! We will see you next time!