5 Tips To Prep Your Marketing for the 2020 Holiday Season

The holidays are fast approaching and that means preparing your business for the crazy excitement that’s just around the corner. From Black Friday to Boxing Day, there’s so much preparation that goes into holiday marketing. 

In this blog post, we’ll discuss 5 major tips that will help you prepare for this wonderful time of year. 

What holidays are you considering doing specific marketing for?

First, it’s important to plan what holidays you want your business to have specific marketing for. Here are some important dates to consider:

• Black Friday - November 27th 

• Small Business Saturday - November 28th 

• Cyber Monday - November 30th 

• Pre-Christmas Sale /  - Boxing Week - December 20th to 27th 

• Boxing Day - December 26th 

Once you see all of the sale day options, decide which days are important for your business to show up for. Whether you’re a service based business or an e-commerce, there’s room for everyone because everyone has a credit card and is ready to spend!

The 5 tips to focus on

Now that you know when you’re going to show up as a business, it’s time to consider HOW. Here are the tips that will help prepare your marketing efforts for the 2020 holiday season. 

1. Get active on your social media platforms

People are spending their time at home, scrolling the internet. It’s critical that your business is showing up online for them. It’s not enough to just have a social media account and a handful of followers. You need to be super active on your accounts by posting, commenting, liking other accounts photos, engaging with followers and more. If you’re not sharing posts every single day leading up to Christmas, it’s likely your posts aren’t going to show up anywhere for your followers. 

To have an audience who will buy from you, you need to be active in front of them.

2. Grow your database

One reason you show up online and on social media is to gain leads. Gather emails from your customers and your leads so you can reach them in the future with deals, news and special offers just for them. You can add an email sign-up on your website or even ask for emails when preparing a receipt for their latest purchase. 

Having a database is an incredible way to market your holiday sales to people who are already loyal customers or leads who have shown interest in your company. 

3. Prepare, plan and promote

It’s important to spend time before the holidays preparing for your holiday deals. You know which holidays you’re going to be participating in, now it’s time to consider what your deals are going to be! Are you going to offer a percentage off your regular price? Will you do free shipping? Will there be any BOGO deals offered? This is for you to decide. 

Once you prepare and plan your deals, it’s time to promote them. Don’t be afraid to spend marketing dollars on Facebook ads, Google ads and Instagram ads showcasing what customers can expect to see for deals this holiday season. When you invest in marketing your own business, the results are ten fold.

4. Ensure your website is up to speed

E-commerce has been the big winner of 2020. 
71% of adults say they do the bulk of their shopping online and will continue with that for the 2020 holiday season. With this in mind, it’s important to ensure that your website is set up for e-commerce sales. 

Here are some things you can do: 

• Improve your website’s speed

• Optimize your website for mobile

• Test any promo codes through a test check out

• Ensure your SEO is a priority 

• Backup your data

• Ensure you have reliable web hosting  

You can even go further to ensure that your website is user-friendly. If you need a slight redesign, it’s best to know that now and speak to your web team to make that possible before the holidays hit. 

5. Promote local and show up locally

There is always a push at Christmas to shop locally, but we’ve been noticing it a lot more this year. With so many small businesses struggling in 2020 due to COVID-19, keeping money in the community is top of mind for many people. 

With this being said, promote your business locally. Ensure that you’re following locals on Instagram, be part of virtual Christmas markets, share local gift ideas, tag other local businesses to help get your business seen. 

There is no better time than to show up in your community and showcase how your business can help locals. 

Need more help? Hire a social media manager!

If all of these tips sound great, but you’re struggling to show up on social media, it may be time to consider a social media management company now or in the new year. At BNL, we work with businesses to help grow their businesses digitally through the use of social media. We write, schedule and post social media weekly as well as do the engagement that is often looked over but 100% necessary in 2020. 

If you’re interested in our services, send us a message and let’s chat about how we can help your business soar into 2021.