Regardless of the type of business you’re in, lets face it, the holidays are the times when consumers actually LIKE spending money. We need to take that sentiment, roll with it, and capitalize on the trend.
Here are some down and dirty tips for the various types of business:
Retail:
You guys (and gals) have the upper hand. Consumers are still obsessed with physically visiting stores during the holiday season. Your first objective must be getting these customers into your stores. How do you do that? By enticing the heck out of them. Check out all the pre-black Friday deals. Ipods for $50, Laptops for $199, jackets for $10. Throw some amazing deals out on the table, knowing you’re going to lose some money on those products (loss leaders) but that you will make it up in the end.
Another key point for retail stores is to have tons of extra help on hand. You don’t want customers leaving because they need assistance and can’t find anyone. Beef up your staff for the holidays.
Last but not least, remember that you will make more of your money on the back end and the lifetime value of these customers. Many of these people may be visiting your store for the first time. Capture their email, their name and their mobile number (at the least) so you can market to them in the future (with their permission of course)
Service Businesses:
Just because you are not selling a physical product doesn’t mean you can’t reap the rewards of the holiday season. The key is to figure out how you can tie in your service with the holidays. One of the best ways is by offering gift certificates along with some other item of value to get people to buy the certificates. Here are some gift certificate examples:
- 1 Free Dog Grooming Sessions
- 4, 30 Minute Marketing Strategy Sessions
- 1 Month of Free Lawn Service
The other thing you want to be doing during this holiday season is getting ready for the next year. While things tend to slow down a bit (for some service businesses) take the extra time to plan your marketing calendar for next year.
E-Commerce:
The trend continues to shift to more and more transactions happening online.
Here are four key tips:
- Offer Free Shipping. All the big stores are doing it and you will get clobbered if your products can be found at other stores that are offering free shipping.
- Invest in something like Mcafee to show that your web site is secure.
- Figure out a way to get them coming to your site on a frequent basis during the holidays. My favorite way is to offer a deal of the day with limited quantities
- Similar to retail, beef up your customer support and your staff that is manning the Live Chat Feature on your site (if you don’t have live chat, get it). You don’t want them on hold for more than 15 seconds
I hope you have a highly profitable holiday season!

