The holidays are right around the corner. If you have a business that traditionally sells more products and services over the holiday season, it’s time to prepare for and capitalize on your business’s holiday growth.
How to take advantage of seasonal growth
Every year many businesses count on the time between Black Friday and Christmas to get into the black. However, business during this period is incredibly competitive, from hiring seasonal workers to buying ads to capturing new clients. Many of these actions are done in a rush and opportunities to capitalize on new connections are missed during this season.
So, before you jump into the holiday rush, we wanted to lay out some strategic actions you can take to ensure your business thrives during the holidays – and continues to grow in 2020.
Put organizational systems in place before the holidays.
When the holiday rush hits, your business needs to meet demand. The best way to accomplish this is to set organizational systems in motion now to support growth and provide structure. Systems set up in advance ensure each orders are processed and fulfilled rapidly.
Your holiday organizational system may be complicated or straightforward, but it’s essential to have it structured an in place before the holiday rush begins.
Set up a contact capture system that works no matter how busy your company gets.
Often, as soon as a business gets busy, they stop focussing on capturing new clients or on new client follow up. This is damaging in two ways. First, it stops your salespeople from following up with potential customers or those who may want to purchase more of your product. Second, it hinders customer service from being effective in their follow up after a product is purchased. Be sure to set up a foolproof contact capture system on your website and in your store or office to ensure no customer is left out in the cold.
Start with an early marketing campaign to beat the ad cost increases that occur from November through December.
Marketing during the holidays is more expensive than ads placed during the rest of the year. Platforms like Facebook know that more businesses will want to advertise during these months, so they charge more money per click. Get your name out early and often, and avoid cost increases as much as possible by gathering customers through an October marketing campaign.
Hire and train new employees before your anticipated increase in traffic.
Hiring temporary employees for the holidays is always a challenge. You have to hire competent people for seasonal work, in time for the traffic increase. We suggest hiring at least a week or two early. Not only are you likely to get access to a wider variety of interviewees, but you can train them in your best practices and systems before the rush hits your stores.
Gather inventory and strategize to sell out.
Strategically promote and sell all of your inventory as much as possible over the holidays. This may include placing older items on sale or displaying them on your site’s home page, while also promoting newer products that attract customers. This can be a difficult balance, but you can utilize several tools to improve sales, including:
- Customer surveys
- Restarting past successful marketing campaigns
- Direct email campaigns
- Product placement in-store or online
Set up systems that monitor how you are doing – and which notify you at regular intervals throughout the holiday season.
No business owner wants to fly by the seat of their pants during this vital season. Instead of stressing about how you are doing, choose the top five metrics that indicate business growth and automate notifications of their status. For example, if one of your metrics is sales, your system may be able to create an automatic report at the end of each day to tell you how your sales are doing.
Finally, be willing to change tactics if a plan or strategy isn’t working.
Every business can take advantage of the holidays for increased sales and production. If your marketing or sales tactics are not working, be flexible and make changes as soon as possible. This is a short season and it’s vital that you take advantage of it before the year is over.
Whether your company depends on holiday traffic or you hope for increased sales during this time of year, you need to begin organizing for this season right away. Contact Business Success Consulting Group today to develop a holiday organizational strategy that will capture leads and help support business growth all year round.
