Promoting a little bit of holiday spirit
It is hard to believe that we only have four more months and then a new year will start. It seems like 2009 just began only weeks ago. With the end of the year upon us, I see the same thing year in and year out. Business owners wait until the month of or just a few weeks before to promote their holiday services. By that time, either a corporation or individual may have found some other company to do it for them or they just find a way to do it on their own. Now is the time to get your end of the year to end on a high note.
Here are three steps you need to make this year a success:
1. Marketing calendar
Whether you set up a spreadsheet or a real calendar, go through the next four months and look at all of the holidays that you can market, such as Labor Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving, to name a few. I include a calendar in each newsletter that lists all kinds of occasions, not just holidays, that you can use to put together a campaign.
For example, April is Stress Awareness Month. You can put together a campaign that involves visiting all of your local gyms, doctor’s offices, and fitness trainers and offering special packages for their members, patients, and clients that gives you the chance to run errands for them, which in turn can help create less stress in their lives.
Look at how much time you have in between holidays or occasions, as you may find that some of your campaigns will overlap by a few days or few weeks. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, you are going to want a bigger head start than you might with a football season campaign. Create a specific timeline with start and stop dates and dates for goals or specific tasks that you want to complete.
2. Marketing campaign
Now you need to decide what types of things you are going to include as part of your campaign. This might include social networking, a promotion, a contest, advertising, or a radio spot. Once you have decided what you are including, you need to take each aspect of your campaign and break it down into manageable steps.
For example, if you will be including social networking as one method, what social networking sites will you use? How often do you plan on visiting these sites to promote your campaign? What will your message be? How often will you rotate it with another message? Are you offering a special?
You also need to decide what your budget is for each method. Social networking doesn’t cost anything except your time, but a radio spot may cost you a few hundred dollars. If you are doing teasers, you will have to pay for the products you are using as well as the paper to print out your teasers on.
3. Follow up
Once you have potential clients calling or emailing you to schedule or inquire about your services, ask them how they found you. If you have current clients contacting you, they may call you and say that they received your coupon in the mail and want to use it. Make sure that you have a marketing log to keep track of everything in regards to your campaign, from how many flyers you have handed out to how many phone calls you have received.
If they have scheduled services at the beginning of your campaign, make sure that you contact them halfway and almost at the end of your campaign to see if there is any other way that you can help them. Don’t think that the end of the campaign means the end of your communication with them. Continue throughout the year and you may find you have gained some new regular clients.
Take some stress out of your life by planning your holiday campaigns early. You have enough stress as a business owner, let alone all of the other hats you wear. Don’t let your end of the year campaigning become a last minute habit. As they say, “The early bird gets the worm.”
