It is hard to believe that we are nearing the end of September 2024. The holidays are just around the corner, and while it is just the beginning of Fall, businesses need to start thinking about marketing and promoting their products and services related to this festive time of year. We always see the big box stores promoting Halloween in the summer months and then quickly putting out the Thanksgiving and Christmas promotions before we even get to October 31.
Planning should be underway if you plan to run any campaigns for service or product deals during the holiday season. Here are some tips to help you prepare a successful campaign for your holiday deals or end-of-year reminders.
- Determine what you plan to promote for the holidays. Will it be a discount on the services you provide? Or will it be lowering prices on products that you sell? Making sure you clearly know what you plan to promote is step one. This includes if you plan to offer a tiered system of promotions as well. For example, will you offer 10% off for two weeks and then increase the discount to 15% for the duration of the promotion?
- Create goals for what these promotions are meant to achieve. Don’t just run a sale or discount because it is the holiday, and other companies will also be doing campaigns. Set a goal for what you want to accomplish, whether bringing in new clients and customers or increasing sales revenue before the end of the year. Know why you are doing the campaign and what you want the end to provide for you and your business.
- Once you know what your campaign will be, create your timeline and your budget. Put pen to paper for this so you have clear direction on the plan. Make sure you include stopping points during your campaign to ensure that the goals you are working towards are on the right track. If they are not, you still have time to adjust.
- By having goals in place, you need to factor in how to measure your success towards those goals. For this, you need a baseline, basically your starting point. You can look at the sales and service numbers or client numbers for the previous month or the previous years during the same time frame. For example, if you sold 100 widgets in the holiday season last year, maybe you set a goal of 125 by the end of the year. Include a few ‘stopping’ points as you run the campaign so you can see if your tactics are working. This could mean that by the end of week two, you hope to have sold 40 widgets, and by the end of week three, you are up to 80, etc. If you are not hitting those set figures, look at your plan and readjust.
- And don’t forget your budget in all of this. Do you plan to advertise your promotion in paid publications or online? Are you printing anything to announce the promotions? Will you hire someone to help with graphics and promotions, or will you even hire an agency to implement the campaign? It is essential to know your budget in advance to determine what you need to make with the promotions to be profitable.
Conclusion
While it doesn’t seem that it is time to prepare your holiday campaigns, I assure you it is. Now is the time to determine your plans and take the steps needed to get the ball rolling. If you plan to have graphics created or hire someone to assist you with the campaign implementation, start those conversations ASAP.
I would love to help you prepare your holiday campaign! Contact me today for more information!