7 CREATIVE WAYS TO INCREASE HOLIDAY SALES

As winter approaches most businesses are eagerly looking for creative ways to increase holiday sales. It’s the time of year that can make or break a business. So what are you doing to make sure you stay in touch, stay top of mind, and stay on top of sales this holiday season?

Increase sales with these creative ways to increase holiday sales:

1. Display Holiday Cheer

Display holiday cheer with commercial Christmas light installation. Christmas lights are a fantastic way to spread holiday cheer and attract customers to your business. The Small Business Administration includes creating a festive atmosphere at your business as one of the top 5 ways to attract customers during and after Christmas. Your business, of course, won’t be the only business dressing up with Christmas décor. Many other businesses will be doing the same – including many of your direct competitors. So while Christmas decorations can help to give you an edge in your marketing efforts, they can also help prevent you simply from losing ground to competitors.

2. Thank Them

Send a thank you message for Thanksgiving. This will not only show your appreciation, but will also say “hello, I’m still here”. It may also remind them that the year is almost up and they need to buy your product or use your services before the end of the year. Or it will remind them to include your business in their plans for next year.

3. Be Giving

You can offer a dollar amount or percentage from sales to be donated to someone else’s needs (i.e. low income families, the homeless population, etc.) for a day, a week, or a month. Or you can invite a guest to appear at the business that will be a treat for the kids, mom or the whole family to see when they visit (i.e. Santa, author, TV or Sports celebrity, etc.).

4. Start Early

Email, direct mail and promotional campaigns must start early and persist. Set a need to buy now with a one day sale promotion, followed by your direct mail and more email promotions to your customers.

5. Offer Gift Cards

It never fails, there will be procrastinators and there will be that one person that was left out of the gift shopping list. Offering gift cards that can be bought online means that your store is open, even on Christmas morning, for those last minute sales.

6. Send gift ideas.

How many times have you been stumped on a gift for that hard-to-buy for person on your list? We’ve all been there! So help your customers by sending an email full of gift ideas tailored to the people on their list with headings like: “gifts for mom”, “great gifts for  co-workers, neighbors, or mail carriers”. What are your most popular items and who buys them? Share that info with the people on your mailing list and they’ll be grateful for it!

7. Run Time-Sensitive Promotions

Looking to score big with the promotions you setup earlier in this blog post? Run time-sensitive promotions. This works because it creates a sense of urgency – a fear of missing out – on your best deals. “One Day Only” and “Ends in Two Hours” are great ways to let your customers know they better jump on it.

Tis the season for businesses to rake in the dough with these creative ways to increase holiday sales.