“Australia spend $25 billion during the holiday season”
Australians collectively spend an estimated $25 billion during the holiday season, making it a massive sales opportunity for some businesses. Capitalising on these opportunities can be especially hard for small businesses. How do you ensure your limited marketing budget is being well spent? How can you promote your unique point of difference in a hyper-competitive environment? Here are some tips on how to drive sales during the holiday season.
These challenges are especially apparent for SMES’s who operate in ‘non-traditional’ marketing spaces, such as tradies, health and wellness, financial broking and legal services – Collappor8 love working in this space to help business drive sales and keep there staff working. If your business falls into one of these categories, you might think a Christmas marketing campaign would not be useful.
“There are two weeks of holiday selling left, are you selling or are you on holidays”
The right online marketing approach, you can boost sales over the holiday season and even grow next years customer base. Here’s how.
1. Know your customer.
The first step in any marketing or business activity is knowing your target audience – this will most definitely help drive sales. What types of consumers are looking for your products or services you’re focusing on? What are their wants and what are their needs? How can your business, services or products help solve their problems?
Think about your existing customer base – as well as the ones that you would like to attract, especially those over the holiday season. Put together a profile of your target customer, including details such as:
- Age range
- Gender identity
- Location
- Job
- Interests
- Marital status, and
- Family Sitiuation
What messages will be most appealing to your high value target customers. For example, if your typical customers are other businesses, you might want to highlight how your business can help them complete tasks or projects when their not busy. It’s all about fulfilling a need or solving a problem at a convenience time with an appropriate budget.
2. Understand the foundations of a successful marketing campaign.
No matter the industry your business operates or what time of year it is – understanding what makes a successful marketing campaign is key to getting it right. This includes:
- Positioning. What do people think of your brand in the marketplace? Consider your competitors and how you can showcase your unique offering in direct competition with them.
- Competitive analysis. What do your competitors’ typical holiday marketing efforts look like? Try to do better than them.
- Incentives. What sort of holiday discounts and deals will your customers be looking for? Think about what you can offer to incentivise sales.
- A timeline. When will you start and finish your holiday marketing campaign? Have a clear plan for all your marketing activities.
- A budget. Have a clear budget broken down by specific activities.
- Goals and metrics. Define clear objectives for your holiday marketing strategy and how you’ll measure success. For example, you might set a goal to improve sales by X% compared to the same period last year.
3. Be imaginative with content ideas.
Don’t think only ‘fun’ businesses get to have great holiday content to drive sales. Your content marketing should be useful to your audience and relevant to your business. It’s really only limited by your own imagination – so brainstorm and collaborate with your team to transform ideas into campaigns or outsource to a business like Collappor8.
Here are a few ways to attract and engage your audience, no matter what industry you’re in:
4. Run a special offer.
Customers are eager for discounts and special offers at any time of year, but especially during the Christmas and New Year period. To stand out from the rest and drive clicks on your ad, you’ll need an engaging offer. Some ideas include:
- A limited time discount on services
- A discount promo code with email sign-up
- A “spend $1,000 get 20% off” deal
- A two-for-one offer or package deal
- A giveaway with a purchase
5. Create festive branded imagery.
Your images should always represent your brand’s personality & values, with splashes of festive symbols showing that you’re approachable and in the spirit of the season, and be mindful of other cultures, religions and traditions if that is part of your target market. You can create a subtle but effective Christmas mood by adding symbols of Christmas to your logo.
6. Share the Christmas spirit.
Social media is social, so ask your audience questions to get them in the spirit of things. Start is by asking people about their favourite Christmas memory, best or worst presents they’ve ever received, or what food they’re most looking forward to over the holidays.
7. Grant a wish.
A creative way to encourage engagement is to run a Christmas competition offering to make one person’s Christmas wish come true. This could be in the form of a free makeover, kitchen renovation, garden overhaul or anything that relates to what your business does.
8. Give back.
Consumers respond more positively to marketing that relates to charitable activities than other marketing strategies and, with Christmas being the season of giving, why not use the opportunity to show your business’ charitable side? Consider making a donation to a charity and posting about it on social media, or offering to match donations from followers.
9. Experiment with different approaches.
From content marketing to SEO, paid advertising and more, there’s a wealth of options out there for boosting your brand visibility and driving sales over the festive season. Even the world’s biggest brands test different marketing tactics and learn from the results – so don’t be afraid to do the same for your own business. Prices starting from $495.
Want to get your holiday marketing campaign underway but not sure where to start? Give Collappor8 a call on 02 9774 2682 to discuss the best products for your business, or get in touch with us via email manageme@collappor8.com.au.
