Three of the biggest shopping days for businesses are quickly approaching: Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. If you are a small business, you may not be able to offer huge discounts like the bigger branded stores, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your fair share of love and return on investment.
Now is the time to start thinking of ways your brand can attract attention from others amidst the chaos. By combining a unique marketing campaign and an offer that sticks out from the competition, your business can drive revenue and traffic. To help, we’ve created a list of actionable marketing ideas you can use to bring in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday bucks.
- Create a Gift Guide. Many shoppers searching for great gift ideas will look to gift guides and buying guides for inspiration. Get creative. For retailers, pick your top products and create a digital flyer showcasing each of the products with items at a discount. For service-based businesses, highlight your best service or maintenance packages that have sold well throughout the year. Find your niche and create your gift guide that ties back to core products or seasonal trends.
- Grab attention with social media. This holiday season, turn to your social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) where you already have an audience full of shoppers waiting to see what deals you’re going to offer. Perhaps you want to promote a sneak peak of a product. This will get consumers engaged before the sale happens — either lined up at your store waiting to purchase the product or waiting online once the product is released. Maybe your business is having a great sale that customers won’t want to miss. Promote that sale with visuals on social media to keep potential buyers in the loop so they won’t miss out.
- Offer Loyal Customer-only Discounts and Offers. While acquiring new customers is a good thing, it usually requires more time and money than getting repeat customers to come back. Offering highly personalized discounts and promotions to existing customers can be extremely effective to encourage holiday purchases. Give perks such as double rewards points for purchases on that special day or promote 10% off their entire purchase. The holidays are the best time to show customers how much they mean to you, so be sure to make them a priority.
- Email your lists. Do you have a list of customers who might be ready to come back and use your services again? The holiday season is a great time to reach out to them. Remember that little thing called a gift guide that we pointed out in ‘actionable marketing idea #1?’ Email marketing is a great opportunity to leverage this, as well as any offers, coupons or discounts you’re promoting for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Be sure to link your products to clickable product pages to make their purchases seamless. And don’t forget to use a catchy subject line and holiday-related content to entice people to shop!
- Make an experience for the customer. Going that extra mile to ensure that the customer feels special will make you stand out from your competition. Maybe you close your shop at 5:00 p.m. but choose to stay open late for Black Friday. This makes it more convenient for a shopper who wants to avoid the madness of Black Friday earlier in the day. If you switch up your hours, be sure to let your customers know in one of your marketing emails, on social media and on your website. You can also offer something special such as complimentary hot chocolate or free gift wrapping in your store. If your customers feel valued, they will be more likely to return and give you more business in the future.
With proper planning and a comprehensive game plan in place, your business can take full advantage of maximizing profits during the busiest shopping season of the year. To learn more about online opportunities that exist for your business, give us a call – we’d love to talk about your marketing ideas and how we can help you achieve them.