Tweak Your Biz » Management » Are You Set Up To Properly Market Your Small Business Over The Holidays?

Are You Set Up To Properly Market Your Small Business Over The Holidays?

by davethomas on November 18th, 2011
23 Comments



With the holiday shopping season under way and about to get in full swing very soon, small business retailers better have had their marketing plans written, gift wrapped and delivered long before now.

For those, however, who are like some of us who wait until Christmas Eve to do the bulk of our holiday shopping, there is still time to wrap up some ideas to pull off a winning 2011 holiday retail season.

With 2011 having been a difficult year for many small businesses when it comes to their return on investment (ROI), ending the year with a bang when it comes to holiday sales can cushion the blow or even save a difficult financial year.

If your business is looking for some assistance from Santa’s helpers to make your marketing efforts even better, keep these things in mind:

  • Don’t get caught up in the political correctness game – First and foremost, you may be wondering whether you should market the season as Christmas or the holidays. Plain and simple, there is no requirement either way. You are not being offensive if you stick with the old standby of Christmas despite what some may say. If you feel more comfortable using the generic “holidays” term, by all means go that route. Either way, don’t spend hours and countless dollars trying to appease everyone;
  • Stand out from the crowd – Everyone and their brother has Black Friday sales and specials, almost to the point where it gets too cluttered. Put your marketing hat on and come up with something that will make you different from the competition;
  • Put social media to work for you – With the various social networking sites at your disposal like Facebook, Twitter and others, make sure you use them to the hilt. While it does take some effort, using social media is essentially free and the rewards can be quite beneficial. Make sure you tweet and share with customers and potential customers the different sales you have available over the holiday season;
  • Go mobile – More and more consumers are using their web-enabled phones to shop these days, so that means you need to have a presence there. While the individual may not actually purchase something right then and there, you can influence their decision if you have specials and sales streaming to them over their phones;
  • Remember your customers – Hopefully by now you have already ordered whatever correspondence or little gifts you had planned for your favorite clients. By taking just a few minutes to send a card and/or gift, you’re reminding them how much their business means to you throughout the year;
  • Work with the local media – If your marketing events are really newsworthy, make sure the local press gets wind of them. While making contributions to a local charity during the holidays may not seem like big news to most, it will put you in a better light with the local community. Make sure, however, to schedule out such events weeks in advance as the media will not just drop everything if you’re doing a local charitable event that day;
  • Market with the past in mind – As you market over the holidays, think back to recent campaigns over the years and what did and did not work. If you keep trying to market something that has failed to pick up steam in previous attempts, you will be left spinning your wheels again this year. Hopefully you have carefully crafted a holiday marketing campaign that will bring you some gifts in terms of a positive ROI heading into 2012.

As the owner of a small business, the holidays can oftentimes make or break your year.

Make sure your marketing efforts this time around are geared to keep your current customers happy, bring in some new customers, and give you the momentum you need to make 2012 an even better year.

“Image from Polushkina Svetlana /Shutterstock.”



Category: Social Media

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The Author:

With 23 years of experience as a writer, Dave covers a wide array of financial topics, including discussing SafeAuto and its auto insurance offerings, along with internet reputation management and payroll companies.

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  • http://www.tweakyourbiz.com Niall Devitt

    Hi Dave, thanks for another great post! I think your point about going mobile is one that most businesses should be considering right now. Mobile is already big and about to get bigger!

  • http://twitter.com/newstouse Dave

    Hi Niall,
    Given all the technology that keeps getting thrown at us, yes, mobile is the biggie now. It seems like just about the time a business has one area of marketing down, a new area opens up. Always have to be thinking ahead in today’s business world.

  • http://www.bloggertone.com Niall Devitt

    Hi Daniel, this is a great piece! I think you have identified that there are pretty much two types of people when it comes to considering LI recommendations. Those that are more skeptical and those that are not so skeptical. I think you’re suggestion around getting recommendations from 
    well-known or influential figures within your industry has a lot of merit, in that these recommendations are less likely to be seen as so constructed.   

  • Mary Crowley

    Hi Daniel,

     I was also at that seminar last week and definitely agree with you that having too many recommendations can look unreal on someones profile. I think it’s an attitude that BNI tend to promote as part of their ‘Givers Gain’ theory. Yes, it’s nice to be recommended by someone, but I’d prefer it to be less of a popularity contest and a more genuine practice.

  • Daniel O’Carroll

    Hi Mary,
    Sorry that I didn’t get to meet you there.
    I actually really enjoyed the workshop (for the most part), but this (the recommendations aspect) is just a practice that I sort of take issue with — so thought I’d air my thoughts!
    I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with recommendations per se (if there is, couldn’t we say the same about paper recommendations, referrals, etc?), but as I’ve tried to explain above (maybe not very clearly) the ease with which LinkedIn operates, and the fact that so many of your friends, occasional business contacts, etc, are likely to be on the network, makes it particularly vulnerable to abuse. Thanks for your comment.

  • Daniel O’Carroll

    Thanks, Niall.
    Yes, some people are naturally more skeptical than others, but I think that it’s also unfair to tar all ‘recommenders’ with the same brush.
    Some people’s profiles strike me as very genuine – and there’s nothing wrong with exhibiting a recommendation if it’s been fairly earned.
    I was just questioning whether the ‘grab as many as you can’ approach was really the one to take.
    Thanks for the comment and reading the post.

  • Daniel O’Carroll

    Cheers, Peter.
    Bear in mind that regular references often have to be ‘asked for’ (ie not necessarily volunteered) as well, but it’s a bit more underhand when it’s online isn’t it? Especially considering that what the referrer receives is a semi-automatically generated message from LinkedIN rather than a personal request.
    Your recommendation would be a good idea, but I wonder how many people would be happy with having ‘asked for’ plastered over their recommendations section.

  • DonnaGilliland

    What an interesting post and a host of varied perspectives on the value or lack of value of Recommendations on one’s LinkedIn Profile. 

    An ethical person will not request friends and/or colleagues to write ingenious recommendations for them, nor will the ethical person do so for another. For those who follow this practice, it will become evident over time and result in a damaged reputation. If the person is not what they appear to be,
    then you will know it when you do business with them for the first or second time.

    I don’t start with skepticism, although some recommendations are easy to read between the lines and detect insincerity.

    It is my belief that recommendations (like testimonials on your website) are valuable. If you know
    that you are truly good at what you do and others concur, reach out to those who you have done business with for a while and have built a reputation with and ask for a recommendation.

    When I look at the profiles of business connections on LinkedIn, I do want to read their recommendations. I want to know what others think of their work. I know of a few in my own network who do have around 100 recommendations. I also know their professional reputation for quality and know these recommendations are sincere.  

    My closing suggestions are: 1) dismiss the worry of obtaining recommendations because of the skeptical nature of others; 2) Do the right thing and the right things will come your way; 3) never give a
    recommendation of anyone’s work if you have not witnessed their work first hand. I have had to decline giving recommendations because I didn’t know anything about the person’s work in order to do so.

    To your continued success,

    ~ Donna

  • Daniel O’Carroll

    Donna,
    Thanks for the comment — you’ve the beginnings of a post of you’re own there!

    I agree wholeheartedly with what you’ve said above — I know a lot of fantastic business contacts too, including some who post on this website, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be construed as objecting to them, or others, having recommendations on their pages!

    I’ve also had a few recommendation requests myself, and was only too happy to write them for people.I think what I was trying to object to above (re-reading the post I think I could have made this a lot clearer) was people writing references for each other, etc, as a kind of business favour.

    Besides the fact that this is misleading, as you’ve said, it’s also a disservice to the many others who have garnered deserved references the hard way – the system loses out as a whole.

    Thanks again for commenting; I hope to write another post on LI here soon,
    ~ D

  • http://www.garybembridge.com/ Gary Bembridge

    Interesting thoughts and analysis. I have have always come more from the sceptical side of the argument as I ahem found that in almost all cases the recommendation on any profile is matched by them writing an equally glowing recommendation on the person that recommended them. So it always feels to me to be doubtful. Saying that, I do like the glowing recommendations on my profile – but they come at the cost of writing one for them usually. So have generally ignored requests from people I did not rate – as think also you reduce your credibility. 

  • DonnaGilliland

    Daniel, see what happens when I am passionate about something – it results in a lengthy post instead of a comment. I probably need to work on that :) ). 

    I enjoyed reading your post Daniel and you make very valid points for people to think about. I look forward to reading your next LI post. 

    ~ Donna

  • DonnaGilliland

    Greetings Gary, my experience has been the reverse. :) ).

    In my case, I absolutely will not return a recommendation if; 1) I don’t know what your work is like and 2) I know what it is like and cannot recommend you. However, the latter has not occurred for me yet.

  • Greg Canty

    like every other reference(ignore the platform) you have to read them carefully and decipher the “language” and content. Its clear only references you are happy with are displayed and often on LinkedIn they behave in a reciprocal manner.

    As a means of using LinkedIn it makes total sense to ask credible sources to recommend your work. If they are authentic you should be able to spot them.

    I have heard of business being conducted as a result of positive recommendations (in one case the person reading knew the person who gave the recommendation & verified it by phone – clever)

    Great topic

  • DanOCarroll

    Greg,

    It’s great to hear your viewpoint given your background in communications, and a nice idea about verifying references to be sure they’re legit.

  • Mary

    Hi Daniel,

     you’re dead right. It’s just a case of sussing out the genuine recommendations from the not so genuine ones. And just like written ones, we all like to get them ourselves, so we must keep an open mind I suppose!

     Mary.

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    Thanks Sian, love em, or hate em we need computers more and more these days so hopefully this helps some people.

  • http://www.facebook.com/writerlyderv Derbhile Graham

    Thanks for this. It’s great to have advice close at hands. I’ve also found that the Restore button has helped. It’s like you can turn back time and erase all your mistakes!

  • charlesharper

    I opt for keeping a spare computer, daily automatic backups and paying to “retain” an expert. If you ended up going through all 10 of these steps, you will have burned an enormous amount of time, only to have to ask the expert in the end.

    It really isn’t that expensive.

    These days a good spare computer (NEW) can cost as little as $400 (not the $2-$3,000 we used to have to pay), and we would be well served to take those savings and invest in a system that will keep us going when we get jammed up.

    A $1,000 with a service plan is deceptive, because you can pay that for a solution that will still leave you paralyzed as indicated by your article.

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    Yes that sounds like what we computer people would call a a warm disaster recovery. Duplicate hardware but you need to keep the data independent so that you can cutover with a small amount of down-time.

    But what to you do when some new problem pops up? What happens if someone sends you and attachement that you can’t open? Problem solving skills are always good to have.

  • http://twitter.com/perfect_richard Richard Perfect

    Yes that’s good too. Thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.callboxinc.com/ Julie Dawn Harris

    You were right Richard, there is no exact answer in computer troubleshooting. Everything is just an educated guess. This is where the quote ‘try and try until you succeed’ should be applied. I have used some of the tips above on my own and these are just simple tips that even a newbie can do. Google really helps. Great post Richard, this is a quite a wakening call for those who have computer phobia. :)

  • http://twitter.com/FurnFairIRL Furniture Fair IRL

    one word : priceless common sense in a nutshell

  • ObjectOriented

    Everything is provided in the Internet. There is no problem that cannot be fixed unless it’s component is damaged/useless.

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