How do you get ahead over the holidays? Many companies in different industries make this a central part of their annual strategy, and some of the following ideas can help you to bring in more money as the holiday season approaches.
Seasonal Promotions
Seasonal promotions are one of the best ways to take advantage of the holiday retail season. Seasonal discounts help attract customers, but so do new seasonally themed products and services. Microbreweries bring out holiday-themed beers. Garment makers design ugly sweaters. Coffee shops sell peppermint lattes. Take a page from the playbook and create products and services that engage your customers’ Holiday Cheer. You’ll find you get a lot out of one of these moves, in terms of purchases, but also in terms of “soft value” as people join you to celebrate.
Seasonal Events
Retailers can also benefit by hosting seasonal events on a business property. Maybe it’s a holiday themed charity drive or a Christmas tree lighting or some celebration related to the many different cultural holidays like Hannukah and Kwanza. Either way, this is an opportunity to get visibility for the business, grow your mailing list, and generally get more foot traffic if you’re selling products in a central location. But although events work well for a “bricks and mortar” business, you can get a lot of the positive effects even if you don’t operate a store where you hold the event. Pop-up retail is a big trend now – partly because with remote payment options through merchant vendors, you can easily sell goods from wherever you are. If it’s a service business, use the event to show off what you can do for a local audience.
Staff Up – Prepare for Demand
Some of the above initiatives aren’t going to be completely successful unless you have the people to handle any increased demand that does happen. Early on, make sure you do all the necessary hiring, or contract some people to help out, to make sure that your workforce isn’t the weakest link when the orders flood in.
Incentivize Productivity and Creativity
If your business is complex enough to have multiple departments, you know that delegating is important. Make sure that your people have the incentives to develop their own great ideas and make changes according to what works. The more you develop a team culture, the more firepower you have to compete during the holiday season or any other time.
Think about these interesting ways to reach out to customers and make more money during this very important time in the retail calendar.