“It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” This sentence is a heavy cultural engrainment that your small business can capture and develop into a limitless opportunity. The holiday season is known for its festivity and happiness, two intangible elements that push millions to engage with their local businesses. Even in a pandemic, it is essential to leverage the “season’s greetings” and develop unique marketing strategies for the promotion of your products and services. Doing so will create and strengthen long lasting connections with your customers, and perpetuate the successful continuation of a thriving business model.

The Holiday Flare

Influencing consumer perception through creative product alterations is a primary way to take advantage of the holiday season. According to Business News Daily, holiday sales often make up the largest amount of a business’s overall revenue. With this notion in mind, we recommend making changes as small as modifying your packaging to include elements of holiday festivity. This low-cost modification may seem unnecessary at first glance, but doing so conveys a message of holiday cheer and creates a lasting impression of your business. Developing a physical representation of the holiday flare can go a long way in bringing your business to light during the holiday season. On the other hand, if your company is engaged in seasonal offers, create marketing materials that highlight them! Whether it be e-mail newsletters, push notifications, or circulars, any form of communication that is holiday-themed will be successful in showing the public what you have to offer. Similarly, allocating funding towards holiday-themed promotional advertising can evoke emotions and humor that engage your audience. At the end of the day, captivating your consumer base with warmth and cheer is the first step to taking advantage of the holiday season.

A Firm Online Presence

Currently, consumers are much more interested and passionate about shopping local and small. In a study conducted by Sprout Social, the top Twitter hashtags relating to small businesses in 2020 were “#ShopLocal” and “#ShopSmall”. Your company’s online presence should utilize and respond to this support swiftly; marketers should focus on responding to Tweet threads with high visibility for increased awareness, especially during the holiday season. A more general takeaway from this approach is to increase focus on your social media platforms, website performance, and online interaction. Social media accounts should be enhanced during the holiday season to show your holiday deals or specials. Facebook Live is an extremely innovative streaming service that can put your consumer in direct contact with your employees. Similarly, Instagram and Facebook can be utilized for holiday contests among your consumers, which will result in heightened entertainment, ideas, and engagement. Lastly, we recommend having a thoroughly optimized website for the holiday season. It is important to provide a quick and seamless web experience to attract and retain traffic, especially in a time where a small business may be experiencing more online sales than normal.

Cheers to a New Year

We know that this year has been one like no other; the arrival of a new year is optimistic and hopeful for a better road ahead. We hope that some of our tips to capitalize on the holiday season are helpful and dynamic, and wish you warm and happy holidays!