Holiday Planning

It’s November, y’all! That means a month of thankful posts all over Facebook and Instagram and about 8 weeks until Christmas! So, what have you got in the works for the holidays? If you haven’t yet, now is the time to start putting this together. Now is the time to plan and get things ready so you’re not flailing around trying to throw something together last minute and missing out on one of the biggest spending times of the year in our industry. 

Obviously, this year is going to be a bit different, but that may also work to your advantage. So, first, let’s treat it like any other year. Take a look at what you’ve done in the past, what’s worked and what hasn’t. That’s always the best starting point. Then we can use that to decide what to do moving forward. 

Considering how hard small businesses have been hit this year, many people are making the concerted effort to shop small. Use that to your advantage.  

 

Put some big pushes into the shop small movement. 

Have some big small Business Saturday promotions. 

Send out regular reminders across all your platforms to shop small. 

Do some cross-promotions for other local small businesses. 

Have limited time offers for consigned retail from local artisans. 

Sell gift baskets with purely local or small business products and services. 

Have packages and promotions centered on fellow small businesses. 

Have an open house event. 

 

Now is the time to increase your marketing budget (time and money) and strategically invest into what’s going to make the biggest impact for your business this holiday season. 

Once you’ve put together some basic ideas of what you want to do, then comes the time to actually lay this out in a detailed plan. What kind of contacts do you need to make? What sort of products do you need to purchase? What print or digital materials do you need to work up? What can you go ahead and schedule to go out automatically when the time comes? Start piecing together the very minute details of these promotions and start putting the pieces into place. When the busy holiday season approaches, you’ll be glad you did this ahead of time!