Is Your Business Ready For Christmas?
Christmas is coming FAST.
We all feel it, and we all know it’s coming. Once summer ends, Halloween and Christmas always take centre stage. As we’re all very well aware, Christmas is a big time for business each year (it’s why you’re reading this, right?).
Some businesses are preparing, and some are not; and so, we present: “how to prepare your business online for Christmas”.
Late To The Party?
If you haven’t started already, things may be a little harder than usual, simply because the ideal time to begin mapping out your Christmas strategy is in August.
Ideally in August, you’d have begun an SEO, long-term plan (Search Engine Optimisation) and have had your website ranking up in Google by the time Christmas swang around. A new website isn’t an option either – leave that for the new year or spring – as a quality website will take much more than just a few months to construct, code, create, design, test, and all that malarkey.
However, don’t you concern yourself with missed opportunities, but instead let us focus on the possible actions you can take with these Christmas marketing tips.
Create A Newsletter
Creating a marketing campaign for Christmas is vital if you want to increase Christmas sales. Your business will thrive on returning customers, so focusing on your email lists is essential. Remarketing is essential at Christmas: people like building trust with the companies they purchase from. So, why don’t you construct a few new Christmas-themed emails, create an email list or use one you might already have, and get those emails flying!
Here’s a blog built entirely around this topic if you want to learn more:
“10 reasons you need to start email marketing”
Get In The Christmas Spirit!
It sounds like an obvious one.
But honestly, getting into the Christmas spirit is the right direction if you want to rake in all that Christmas-rush euphoria. People love Christmas, that’s why they spend so much on it each year.
Let’s put it this way: let’s imagine trickle treaters on Halloween as customers, and your house is, well, your company. It’s common knowledge that if you don’t have decorations on your home, the trickle treaters won’t come to your house.
This analogy is valid for business at Christmas too as customers will overlook your brand if you haven’t embraced the Christmas spirit as many bigger companies do each year perfectly. Yeah, you’ll get some sales, but to truly tap into that Christmas rush, you need to become apart of it.
Add a little extra to your website this Christmas, decorate your shop, create a themed event, post Christmas social media posts: whatever you do, the Christmas possibilities are endless!
Google Ads
It’s an effective way to get your business in the search engine almost instantly. It’s also a great remedy for a last-minute Christmas business plan, which is probably what you’re trying to concoct up now by reading this. The ads are fully customisable, can link to a phone number, your website, and more. This means you’ll be thrown straight to the top, if done correctly – almost right away!
This would be ideal for you and your business at Christmas, as you really don’t have time to implement strategies like SEO at this point in the year. So, if you still want to be apart of Google this Christmas, then Google Ads might suit you best.
This is especially the case when it comes to ecommerce websites. When it comes to Christmas, many more opportunities for keywords start to crop up.
When you have sales before Christmas, Google Ads becomes very important because it is a quick way to get people to click on your website.
This becomes essential when you are working within a limited time period and you want to ensure that you are appearing as high as possible in the search results.
Black Friday & Cyber Monday
It’s easy to focus on Christmas so much that you forget about the other great holidays for business in the season. Hop in on the discount wave this Black Friday and Cyber Monday; or, consider merging my last few tips back in the blog with Black Friday & Cyber Monday in mind too.
For example, make an email campaign to target these holidays. Google ads too? Prepare some ads to put out when Black Friday comes round the corner!
Anything we’ve already mentioned, apply it to these holidays too. This is when most people buy their Christmas presents in preparation, and you sure would be sorry if you missed out on that.
For some businesses, this is potentially the biggest day of the year so you should allocate enough capital into your marketing budget as possible.
Yes, it may cost more than you are used to spending on marketing, however, you can expect to make back that money easily if the fruits of your marketing efforts are successful.
This isn’t just dependent on the money you put in, but the time as well. By doing extensive research into your target marketing, you can ensure that this increased use of budget will not go to waste.
Customise Christmas To Your Market
It’s easy telling you how to do this all; however, you have to take all advice, including this blog, lightly. Apply what tips suit your market best and ignore that which may detriment you in dangerous ways.
For example, Google Ads may not be the best option for you in your industry at Christmas time, especially if your competition is plenty and your products are cheap. You may find yourself throwing your valuable money into Google Ads just to keep up with all your competition at Christmastime. You may even lose money.
Just do your market research, see how Christmas affects your particular industry and pick and mix whatever works best. You might be mistaken that Christmas means good business for every single sector, but you might even find yourself in an industry which might find little benefit from the Christmas rush.
In Conclusion,
In conclusion, the Christmas rush is a great time for business, including the smaller holidays that are included in the season like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
However, you need to find Christmas marketing tips that work for your business, and if you want to catch the rush this year, then consider the faster options like email campaigns and Google Ads.
Whatever you do, at Design Box Media, we hope you’ll have a prosperous and merry Christmas this year.
If you don’t feel ready this year, don’t rush either: there’s always next year.
