The holiday season is quickly approaching. It is time to start planning your travels, dinner parties, gift shopping and prepping the house for company. Most of us start holiday planning early in our personal life, but many of us neglect putting together a holiday marketing plan for our businesses.
A holiday marketing plan can be beneficial to both Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) businesses. For most B2C businesses a holiday marketing plan is critically important. The holiday season is when consumers notoriously spend the most money on food, retail items and travel. If you are one of these B2C businesses hopefully you have already started to implement a holiday marketing plan. But, if you are a Business to Business (B2B) the holiday season can also be a good time to set up some holiday marketing campaigns. The following are a few ideas to help get your creative juices flowing:
- End of Year Discounts
If your business has an overflow of inventory, or you want to boost sales before the end of the year it might just be a good time to create an “End of Year Discount” campaign. Consumers are incentivized to purchase during the holidays because of impending occasions, but sometimes businesses can also be incentivized this time of year to make a purchase. You may just find that some departments you are selling into have money left in the budget that needs to be used before the end of the year. Offering a discount, with an end of year expiration date, might just help incentivize them to make the sale happen before the end of the year. - Happy Holidays
Consider sending a holiday message to your clients and followers to show them that you appreciate their business. This is a great way to reach out and engage with your contacts in a positive communication. Be sure to focus on thanking them for their support and wishing them a happy holiday season; please don’t get this message mixed up with a sales pitch. In addition, to offering thanks and well wishes be sure to include any charitable items your business is participating in. For instance, if your business is participating in any local charity events it would be beneficial to include this in your communications to show that you are proactively helping the community. - 2012 Reflection
Let people know what you have achieved this past year as a business. Did you make any big product changes? Achieve major milestones? Do you provide better customer support? Put together items that will show how much your business has achieved in the past year. You want to prove to your clients why they should continue to put trust in your business, be proud of what you accomplished and show how you are adapting. I would also suggest wrapping in some content thanking your clients for their help in achieving these milestones, either by providing their valuable feedback or continued support. - 2013 Look Ahead
Inform your clients and followers of your business objectives for the next year. Provide a brief statement that on what your business is looking to accomplish for the next year. It doesn’t need to entail all your goals, simply choose the ones that are most important to your audience. Are there going to be new product/service enhancements? Is your company taking steps to be greener? Whatever you choose for your message I would suggest making it relevant to your audience and something that would make them proud, happy, or look forward to remaining a client. Letting people know that you want to achieve record sales for next year is probably not going to help keep people as clients, or make people want to do business with you.
These marketing campaigns can be implemented through a variety of channels. These are a few channels I recommend pursuing:
- Website
- Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc…
- Email/Newsletter
- Press Release
- Direct Mail
- Call Campaign
I recommend using a multi-channel approach to try and reach your clients, followers and prospects through as many outlets as your business has established.
Halloween is right around the corner, but fear not it is not too late to get your holiday marketing strategy rolling.
