If you are a business owner you know there are specific times throughout the year when sales go through the roof. This usually happens around holidays: Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day and so on. Those are times when consumers are more inclined to buy and bring you a lot of profits with smaller efforts than usual on your part. Those are good times indeed, but what happens once the holiday spike ends? It is like with everything else in life: where there’s an up, there’s also a down, where there’s a high, there’ll always going to be a low.
Busy times are usually followed by numbed periods during which consumers strive to replenish their wallets and recover from the shopping madness. Your business starts to plummet, your number of customers drops and so do your sales.
Here are a few tips that might help you keep your sales up even after the holidays:
- Make another sale. Announce and launch another sale and attract customers by offering significant discounts, bonuses and so on. You can wrap the sale any way you want: winter clearance, freebies, bulk purchases that come with a discount, etc. You can label it anyway you want, as long as you find a way to attract customers
- Take advantage of the ‘New Year resolution’ concept. After all the partying, drinking, gulping and letting ourselves go, we all enter the New Year more resolute, willing to better ourselves and make productive changes. Market that information and attract customers with items that will help them start working on their resolutions. For instance: fitness equipment, books on traveling, organic food to clean their body, etc.
- Reward your loyal customers with coupons, gifts, special deals and so on. It is important to build a healthy brand image by connecting with your clients, showing them that you appreciate their loyalty. This way you will make sure they’ll stick with you and not run away to your competition
- Organize a contest to keep your customers engaged. It is best to do it through social media for a better response. Make them share something you posted or submit photos with how they spent their holidays for example. The more playful and fun, the better.
- Get as many positive reviews as you can and use them to boost your reputation. If you had a successful holiday campaign, encourage your buyers to write reviews and rate their experience with your company. Of course you should only do that if you are confident you’ll get a positive feedback. Good ratings will help you maintain on top the entire year, even after the holidays are gone
- Bring in new merchandise. Nobody wants leftovers from the holiday sale. Renew your stock with ‘new year products’ to stimulate your customers
- Keep your customers up to date. We know that holidays are exhausting for everybody, but don’t get lazy once the madness is over. Don’t let your subscribers/customers forget you. Keep them up to date and send them reminders and news about your business, products, events and so on. You can do that via social media and through email marketing, in order to get the best results.