With the holiday sales season just around the corner, don’t delay preparing for the biggest shopping days of the year. If you leverage Black Friday or Small Business Saturday to boost sales this quarter (and you should), it’s time to get cracking with your preparations.
Decide What You Want to Promote
Defining your promotions strategy up front will help all the rest of your efforts fall into place. Will you offer a lump discount on all products? Or will you highlight certain products or services with special pricing? The second strategy is a great way to drive traffic in the door for highly sought-after items. Once they’re shopping, customers will likely buy other items as well.
- Sale on Future Services: If you’re a Service Business could you offer a 10% – 15 discount of 2016 service orders.
- Bundle it: If you have products that haven’t sold well, bundle them with other more popular items, or offering them as free gifts with purchase.
- Create Shipping Offer: If you sell products online, consider offering free shipping on Black Friday, sales over $50 or even throughout the shopping season as a way to attract more online customers.
Stock Up on Inventory
If you’re planning to push more promotions on certain items, you need to ensure you’ve got plenty of inventory so you’re not scrambling at the last minute, desperate to restock. The earlier you order your supplies and products, the less stress you’ll have once the shopping season hits.
Get Your Staffing Needs Filled
November and December are the busiest times of year for many companies. If in past years you’ve been swamped, you know you need to hire extra hands to help take care of the overflow of customers. You can hire temporary workers that only stay for the holiday season and then send them on their merry little way.
Train Early
Make sure to take the time to train your temp workers before the shopping season hits so that they know how to greet a customer, find inventory, package your product and ring up sales. You’ll be too busy to help much, once the holiday rush starts so make sure they’re confident in their roles while there’s time to train them.
Leverage Marketing Resources
Did you know Small Business Saturday first launched in 2010? It was officially recognized as a holiday in 2011 by the US Senate, and now millions of shoppers turn out in droves the day after Black Friday to support small local businesses. Don’t miss out on this marketing opportunity.
There are some great free resources that can let shoppers in your community know you’re participating. Sign up to participate, and you can get access to free store signs and social media updates to share, cutting your marketing efforts in half.
Spread the Word
About two weeks before Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, start amping your customers up with teasers about your sales. Send out emails with highlights and coupons. Share some of the promotions on social media. If you buy advertising, update your visuals to reflect the upcoming sales. This will prime the pump and help customers plan their frenzy of shopping.
Because these two days are so important in the holiday sales season, it’s important that you start planning as soon as possible. Having everything in place will reduce your stress and make the season go more smoothly.
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