Small Business Owners, are you ready for the Holidays? Your customers have already begun their research and their shopping, but there’s still time to improve your marketing for the Holidays. Here’s some practical advice, tools and tips so you can make the most of this holiday season!
Remember, one-third of shoppers start their holiday purchases by Halloween1, so if you haven’t already started, you don’t have a moment to waste.
Here’s your check list to attract more new customers and increase store traffic:
- Google My Business Listing – Get found when people search for your company online. Make sure your Google My Business listing is correct and up to date. Stand out even more on Google search and Maps by adding a Google Virtual Tour. This is a 360 degree look inside your location and it will help you attract more new customers. Digital Savvy has Google Trusted Photographers to get this done for you. Finally, you can now add posts to your Google listing for free to promote products, services and events. Check the status of your Google My Business Listing now at https://www.gybo.com/business
- Website – Your new prospects will probably check out your website before they call or visit your store, so you need to make a great first impression. Your website must be mobile responsive, load quickly, have a modern design and be easy to navigate. Consumers expect a great website experience, otherwise they will leave in under 7 seconds. Next, your content has to be current, accurate and engaging. So, update your website to reflect your current offerings, latest information, news, and testimonials. Make sure your hours, address and phone number are correct and that your contact forms are working properly. You don’t want to miss any customer inquiries. Digital Savvy builds amazing websites and e-commerce sites. It’s probably too late to build a new website before the holidays, but we can certainly update your current website with new content to get you through the season. Let us know if you need some help with your website.
- Email – If you have an email list send out relevant emails. Do it and do it often during this time of year. Promote your holiday deals, special offers and new products to people who already know you and are interested in your products/services. You want top of mind awareness during this time. If people haven’t heard from you in a while, it’s easy to forget you. If you haven’t told them about all the products and services you offer, they won’t remember.
NO EMAIL LIST? No problem! If you don’t have an email list there’s 2 things you can do. First, start your own email list now and get permission from everyone who comes into your store this season. Second, you can advertise your business in email lists owned by others, but who have permission to send offers that will reach your target customers. It’s like renting a mailing list and sending a piece of direct mail, but it is an email list instead. Ask us for an email count of your ideal customers if you would like to explore this opportunity.
- Social Media Advertising – 79% of people that use the internet also use Facebook! If you sell to consumers, Facebook advertising allows you to target your ideal prospects and customers with incredible accuracy, frequency, reach and cost effectiveness. Ask us to develop an effective and highly targeted social media advertising campaign for your business to bring in your ideal customers during the holidays! Contact us here right now to get started.
- Social Media Content Creation – Remember, it’s a social season, so it’s time to socialize, both in person and online. Now’s the time to step up your social media activities and get in on the conversations around holiday shopping. Suggest cute or unique gifts or holiday survival tips. If customers have liked you on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, make sure you’re busy posting throughout the holidays.
If you want or need help with creating content to post, we have an unbeatable NEW social media content creation service available! Let us handle this incredible time-consuming activity so you can focus more on serving your customers!
- Search Engine Marketing – Everyone uses search engines to find local businesses on their mobile phones, tablets and personal computers. So, be visible at the exact moment someone is searching for your product or service. If you aren’t visible in search engines across all devices, you don’t exist. To fix this situation, you can use two different tactics.
1) The Fast way is to purchase text ads that appear at the top of the search results page. We can get this setup and working for you in a few days.
2) The Slow way is to convince the search engines that they should display your website in the top 3 listings of the local map or the next 10 organic results shown below them. This is called search engine optimization. This timeframe is unknown and has a lot of variables. It can take weeks or months or longer depending on your budget and the competition for your keywords. Again, we can do all the work necessary to get your business to rank higher as quickly as possible.
- Digital Display Ads and Retargeting Ads – We can put an advertisement for your business directly in front of your ideal customers on any website or mobile app that accepts advertising! Think about that for a moment. You can target your exact ideal customer anywhere they go online. Now, we can even target all your competition’s customers! We can target your customers by specific location (like your top competitors), zip code, age, gender, income, occupation, interests, online behaviors, industry, job title and more. You name it, we can identify them, serve your display ads, and bring them into your store so they can make a purchase.
- Events To Remember This Season:
November 1st – Digital Savvy is hosting a live simulcast at the CEP from 12:00pm until 2:00pm. Get ready for the holidays with advice from Google, Facebook, Constant Contact and Square. Reserve your seat: Register For FREE now
November 24: Black Friday – Local businesses are competing against the big box retailers and other companies with huge ad budgets. So, if you participate, be strategic and super creative, then promote the heck out of your offers using some or all of the tools we discuss in this article.
November 25: Small Business Saturday – This is now one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Your family, friends, and neighbors direct their attention towards the small and local businesses that are such an important part of their community – and they’re ready to spend money. Small Business Saturday is also a fun shopping day for many families, so make sure you’re an active part of it. You can get free promotional marketing materials for your store, website and social media properties here: ShopSmall.com/GetReady.
November 27: Cyber Monday – Promote your website and use it to attract new customers, grow your audience and promote some of your products with exclusive online only deals during this shopping day. Want to sell online but don’t have an ecommerce website? We have some incredible solutions specifically for you! Call us to discuss your options right away.
November & December: Host Your Own In-store Events – Your event doesn’t have to be huge to be super effective. But, you should plan to have fun and be creative. Throw a party, have a Customer Appreciation event, feature a new product, offer a free class or demonstration, or something unique to your business that will bring in your loyal customers and some new ones.
- Direct Mail – So many options here too. Send a postcard or mailer to your customer and prospect list first. Then consider reaching new prospects by renting a mailing list, or sending it to residences or businesses within certain mail routes.
- Traditional Media. Be visible with the traditional media that your best prospects and customers rely on and that has historically proven cost effective. That means select, TV, Radio, Print (especially “hyper-local” publications serving local communities and neighborhoods), and Outdoor. These typically require longer lead times, so act quickly to include these options if you haven’t started already.
As you can see, there are way more options than your business can probably handle. So, you have to decide which tools are right for your business, your clients, and your budget. Digital Savvy can help! Call us for a FREE Holiday Marketing Review at 352-364-4445 or email us at support@digitalsavvy.com. You’ll receive a 1-hour consultation that will get you moving in the right direction.
1National Retail Federation’s 2017 Retail Holiday Planning Playbook
