Tips to Grow with Holiday Promotions

I can't believe August is here, which means if you haven't already, it's time to get busy putting together your holiday advertising. Why, you might ask?

The holidays that occur during 4th quarter are the biggest shopping holidays of the year.

The businesses that help their followers solve a universal problem during the holiday season will be the business that generates more leads and sales.

For some consumers, it's about saving money on the holidays, while the price of pretty much everything has skyrocketed. For others it's about finding high end, luxury goods for those on their lists. It's also about the changing of seasons, home decor and celebrations.

There are lots of opportunities to get your products and services in front of the right people. People who want what you're promoting.

Are you taking advantage of this special time? Or are you letting it pass you by?

Ideas for Holiday Promotions

Here are some very powerful ways to create brand awareness and get some holidays sales under your belt.

These are tried and true ways that the biggest brands use to generate millions in revenue each year.

These methods work best with products you make yourself because with products you make yourself, you control the pricing.

For example, handmade items or digital products are excellent candidates for the methods described below. In both cases, you control the pricing and can experiment with different price points until you find the right ones.  

• Google My Business Offers - Did you know you can create offers using the Google My Business app? Here are the steps you can take to get started:

1. On your mobile device, open the Google My Business app.
2. At the bottom of your screen, tap Profile.
3. On your profile page under “Turn followers into customers,” tap Create welcome offer
4. Enter the following information
5. Tap Preview
6. Preview your offer

• Buy one, get one deals - Offering two of an in-demand product at a reduced price and for a short time creates a sense of urgency that can boost sales.
• Lifestyle discounts - Offering a discount that applies to a particular profession, age group, or demographic. For example, at the end of summer offering a back to school promotion, National Senior Citizen's day, items for vets, etc. 
• Flash sales and discounts - A flash sale creates a sense of urgency among your customer base to buy now. One approach may be to do a flash sale once or twice a year. Or hold a flash sale on a set schedule each month so that people anticipate the event and are prepared to make purchases on short notice.
• Social media contest and giveaways - A contest or giveaway can be announced on Facebook, Instagram or your target audience's social platform of choice. This is a great way to get new customers interested in your business and gain more quality followers. For example one common method is to require followers to tag a certain number of people in the comment or post to their stories to be entered to win.
• Vouchers and Coupons - Offer vouchers and coupons via email, your website, or print materials such as product packaging, catalogs and so on. They are a great way to thank you current customers and encourage them to continue doing business with you.
• Fair Trade Offers - Fair trade and Made in the USA promotions can be effect and can help humanize your brand at the same time. The same goes for those that are related to charitable causes.
• Referral offers - Bringing new customers and clients into the fold should always be on your radar. One way to keep the new customers rolling in is to offer discounts when current customers refer a friend or promote you on social media. 

The holidays will present lots of opportunities to get your business out there top of mind with potential customers.

Here are a few tips that will help you grow your business during this season. 

Set Goals for Your Holiday Promotions

What do you want to accomplish with your business during the holidays? What goals do you want to reach?

Would you like to create brand awareness, generate leads or sell more products and services during the holidays?  Do you have a plan to make these wishes a reality? If not it's time to start thinking about your goals and how you will reach them this year.  

If you need help setting goals, check out our article on How to Set SMART goals.

What steps should you take to ensure that you reach your goals? 

Here is where you can lay out your plan and outline the steps and tasks you'll need, to accomplish the goals you established above. 

For example, if you want to generate more leads you'll need a platform (possibly a blog), as well as lead generation pages that visitors can use to get more information about your products and services.  

You'll also need to drive traffic to your lead generation pages and measure the results.

Our Most Recent Podcast Episode

This is the podcast episode that outlines the steps you should take to promote your products and services this holiday season.

Get Out Your Calendar

Select the holidays and products you want to promote this year.  Don't forget about promoting observances or life events like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and showers if they are related to your niche. 

Here are some popular holidays and observances through the end of 2023:

If you're promoting a product you've created, you have more control over pricing and the amount you will earn minus expenses.  If you have a blog or other platform, you can add more to your earnings by promoting affiliate products that compliment or are related to the products you have created. 

If you're providing a service, you can also add complimentary affiliate products to your services. For example if you're a hair stylist, add recommended products to your website that will help your clients look great during the holidays.

Use social media and refer in person customers to your website to view product demos and purchase products for their holiday activities with appropriate hashtags.

Did you know that over 500 million people (that’s half a BILLION) are watching video on Facebook every day? According to Hootsuite, more than 1.25 billion people visit Facebook Watch every month.

If you're an affiliate and you're promoting other people's products, a good strategy would be to add them as complements to products you've created. 

Schedule dates for your promotions on the calendar that will help you stay accountable to hit those deadlines.  Another benefit to using a calendar is that the major holidays are already printed in the calendar for you to see. 

You can add any observances or other events you want to promote as needed.  

Timing is Everything

You also want to allow enough time for your promotions to run. For example, now is the time to schedule promotions for Halloween. Allow your promotions to run for at least a few weeks before the holiday. 

Don't make the mistake of waiting until a week before a holiday to start promoting. By doing that, you will have missed the people who shop and plan early.  After the holiday is over, you'll have to wait until next year. 

Here are a few ideas for things you can promote and ways your business can participate in the Halloween festivities this year. 

Try to squeeze in promotions for most major holidays onto your promotional calendar.

Create Your Visuals

Use tools like Canva, Procreate (iPad users) and Photoshop to create visuals for your promotions.  Here are some of the visuals we created for Halloween using Canva. 

Feel free to use them as a starting point for your promotions. Download a free copy of these images here. 

If you're short on time or you don't know how to create visuals, consider hiring this task out to professionals on Fiverr, Upwork and other freelancer platforms. 

Schedule Your Content

Determine where you will post your content. Include social media, your mailing list and another other relevant forums, groups, etc.

Review your calendar and the schedule you've laid out to promote your products and services well in advance of the holiday.

How often will you post or email your list each week? Where will you post? Will you buy paid ads? Include answers to these questions in your plan. 

Don't Spend All Day Posting Online

Schedule posts on autopilot with tools like Hootsuite, PostPlanner, Tailwind, Buffer and more.

• Hootsuite - Works with most popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest.
• PostPlanner - Post Planner, available on desktop, helps you find & schedule top-performing content on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest & Twitter.
• Tailwind - Save time scheduling to Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Post at the best times for engagement, grow together with Communities, get more actionable analytics that will tell you what's working. You can also schedule posts and emails at the time of your choosing. Plan for a day, week or month in advance to drive tons of free traffic to your business. 
• Buffer - Buffer says they are the most intuitive, affordable, and authentic way to reach more people on social media.
• Facebook Business Suite - If you have a Facebook page, you can use their business suite to schedule Facebook and Instagram posts.
  

These tools will enable you to schedule out your posts for the entire week or month, according to your promotion schedule. Use the tool that best fits your needs, and works with the social media platforms you normally use to promote your content. 

Where Will You Send Potential Customers?

The goal is to have users interact with your brand to find solutions that make their lives better.  When creating your holiday promotions, it's important to have a place (that you control) to send prospective customers.

Once you have set up your platform, there is a right way and a counterproductive way to send prospects to your offers, especially affiliate offers. 

Before sending potential buyers to a merchant's site to place an order, take look at a quick video that will explain how to best structure your affiliate offers.

For a complete explanation of why you need a platform that you own and control, read the article, Why Your Company Supplied Website Could be Failing You. 

A self hosted WordPress blog is in my opinion, the best way to promote your offers during the holidays. Setting up a self hosted blog (renting space on a server that you own and control), ensures that your site is not shut down or limited during the busiest shopping season of the year.

Having a blog will help you quickly create the educational content, lead generation forms, landing pages, funnels, product pages and sales pages needed to launch a successful promotion.

These elements are important when promoting your products and services during the holidays.

In addition to providing a great way to showcase and create brand awareness, having your own blog enables you to track results and make changes on the fly.  You can see what works, and what doesn't work. 

How to Promote If You Don't Have a Blog

If you don't have a blog and you want to sell products and services during the holidays, consider setting up landing pages and online stores using Mailchimp.  With these tools, you will be able to get your products online and generate leads that will hopefully help you get more sales.  

In my opinion this should be a second choice and not your primary way of earning all year long. But it's a great way to earn on a temporary basis so that you don't miss out on the holiday season. 

Mailchimp landing pages and stores will also enable you to set up lead generation forms and build your business while promoting during the holidays.  

They will also provide you with analytics that will allow you see what is working.  But keep in mind that you don't own or control Mailchimp. If you do something they don't like they can shut you down. 

Use Your Autoresponder to Follow up with New Leads

Be sure to schedule content on your autoresponder (Mailchimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, etc) that helps you build relationships with potential customers during the holidays. You can schedule a series of emails that are distributed over time, versus creating them one by one. 

These tips will provide a few things you can do to make sure this holiday season is fun and profitable for your business. If you have any questions or need help crafting your promotions, contact me at your convenience.

Resources

• Article: Are You Setting SMART Goals for Your Business?
• Are Your Landing Pages Helping You or Holding You Back?
• Profitable Email List Building Just Got a Lot Easier!
• If You Don't Have a Blog: Create a Landing Page
• If You Don't Have a Blog: Create an Online Store
• Video: Set Up Your Classic Automation (Autoresponder) in Mailchimp
• Video: Get Started with Mailchimp's Free Plan
  
• How to Structure Your Affiliate Offers