With Halloween now behind us, the holiday season is officially here – whether we’re ready for it or not! As a business owner, this means time is of the essence. Smart Warehousing has compiled a list of ten steps to help prepare your business for the approaching seasonal sales and guarantee your holiday success.
1.) Winning Website
Anymore, shoppers want the convenience of doing their holiday shopping online, while avoiding the cold and the crowds. In order to take full advantage of this, you must ensure that your website is optimized before web traffic increases. Ensure that your website is easy-to-navigate with quick load times so that customers can easily find their product and complete their purchase, or else they will go looking for it somewhere else.
2.) Mobile-Friendly
Once you have your website ready to go, shift your focus to making it mobile-friendly. Many holiday purchases are made on mobile devices, so make it easy on your customers and keep them focused on your product.
3.)Product Promotion
I know you’ve seen them – gift guides created by magazines, websites and bloggers each year. List your product in one of these gift guides by asking the bloggers and journalists to be included. This is a great way to increase your company’s visibility during the holiday season.
4.) Information Accuracy
Look over your company information, including phone number, address and email address posted on your website, social media accounts and other business listings to ensure accuracy before things get too busy. Similar to your website, you want customers to be focused on your product, while allowing easy access to your company if needed. If not, you run the risk of shoppers moving on to a competitor.
5.) Seasonal Sales
Plan ahead and put together your company’s holiday sales, discounts and giveaways to encourage shoppers throughout the season. Utilize email campaigns and social media to advertise your sales and drive customers to your website over the next several months.
6.) Stand Out from the Crowd
One of the greatest struggles during this time of year is standing out from the rest of the holiday products and sales. Analyze your company and find what sets yours apart. Use this to promote what makes your store, brand or product better than others when advertising to your shoppers.
7.) Festive Displays
Review your company’s holiday decorations and displays to ensure it is easy for shoppers to access product and navigate your store. The same applies to your website in regards to adding some seasonal touches and featuring your holiday promotions, all while keeping it easy for shoppers to move throughout your site.
8.) Social Strategy
You may currently be using social media to promote your company, which is an especially great tool during the holidays. It can be used to showcase new product, holiday deals, and many other countless options. While the content can be flexible, you should make sure to post consistently. Building a social media marketing plan can help you remain active on your accounts.
9.) Build Awareness
Show off how great your product is while enhancing your brand’s visibility with the help of an advertising campaign. This will build awareness and spread the word about your company. Use both digital and print media to advertise a promotion, product, or your company as a whole to shoppers during the holiday season.
10.) Customize to Your Company
Understand that your company is different from the next, so what works for them may not be the best strategy for you. It is imperative that you test out the above recommendations ahead of time to make sure that your company achieves success through the busy holiday season.
Now that you are armed with the knowledge to make the most of your holiday season, we encourage you to start planning right away! In addition to the above, Smart Warehousing is another great tool, and partner, to have throughout this busy time. See how we can help your company win the holidays with ease – you can reach us at (913) 888-3222, info@smartwarehousing.com or request a quote here.