The holiday season usually provides a big sales boost for a lot of small business. But after the presents have been exchanged and the parties have come to an end, those sales often slow down significantly as well.
Still small businesses don’t have to just accept that post-holiday slump. There are plenty of ways you can take advantage of that extra time after the holidays have wrapped up to boost your sales throughout the year. Here are 15 tips for boosting your sales after the holiday season.
How to Boost Post Holiday Sales
Include Post-Holiday Coupons
Since more customers make purchases during the holidays, that offers businesses a unique opportunity to get more sales after the holidays as well. To leverage those holiday shoppers, you can include coupons with holiday purchases that people can only use after Christmas or the New Year. And if you didn’t start that type of promotion during the holidays, you could potentially send out a coupon or discount code via email.
Be Ready for Returns
The post-holiday season is also usually full of returns or exchanges. And you can potentially turn some of those returns into extra purchases if you handle them correctly. You can offer a discount for customers who make extra purchases when returning or exchanging items. You can arrange your store so that people are likely to come across some potential impulse purchases. And you can also just provide people with a good experience when making returns so that they’re more likely to come back throughout the year.
Show Your Appreciation
Since the holidays are so busy for many businesses, you might not have had a chance to properly thank your most loyal customers or clients. But when sales slow down, it can be a perfect time to host a thank you event for loyal customers, offer an exclusive deal via email or do something really special for those who helped your business a lot over the past year.
Follow Up With Holiday Shoppers
You can also simply follow up with anyone who made purchases with you throughout the holidays. Send out an email asking about their experience and then include any new products or promotions as well.
Improve Your Online Reviews
When following up with those holiday shoppers, you could also use it as an opportunity to improve your online reviews on sites like Yelp and Facebook. Simply remind those who shopped with you that they have the opportunity to share their experience, and then provide them with links. Then if you get more positive reviews from those holiday shoppers, you can potentially benefit from that throughout the rest of the year.
Keep Holiday Campaigns Going
In addition, your actual holiday campaigns don’t have to stop just because Christmas is over. There are plenty of people who might have some last-minute purchases to make or who want to spend some of those holiday gift cards. So keeping the holiday promotions going for an extra week or so can potentially help you squeeze even more sales out of the holiday season.
Host a Fun Contest
Your business isn’t the only one feeling the post-holiday blues. Consumers could also use a bit of fun after the season. So hosting a fun contest where you ask people to submit holiday photos or plans for the new year could be a great way to increase engagement or even sales.
Put Extra Profits to Good Use
You could also use those extra dollars you made during the holidays to good use. If you have extra money, you could run some advertising campaigns or invest in other marketing activities to keep your sales up throughout the rest of the year.
Start a Retargeting Campaign
For online businesses, one way you can really take advantage of the increased holiday traffic after the fact by launching a remarketing campaign. So you can target those who made purchases or visited your website at some point throughout the holidays.
Stock Up on Content
You can also take the opportunity to simply tackle some marketing activities that you might not have time for throughout the rest of the year. For example, you can spend time creating social media and blog posts that you can stockpile while business is slow so that you don’t have to rush to create that content when you’re busy later in the year.
Create Unique Visuals
Or you could focus on creating a series of unique visuals for your marketing campaigns throughout the new year. That way you can make sure they’re all cohesive and set toward your main business goals for the year.
Start a New Social Media Campaign
The new year is also a perfect time for you to try something new. Since many people see it as a fresh start, it will seem natural for you to introduce new branding or a new style for your social media posts. You could even launch a new campaign aimed at increasing your engagement or followers so you can continually boost your sales throughout the year.
Launch a New Product or Service
It’s also the perfect time to work on launching new products or services. Since you’re not likely to be as busy during this time, it can be easier to work on new product launches. And those new offerings can also lead to sales increases.
Think About New Year’s Resolutions
During this time of year, many individuals also decide to try new things or set new goals. And for some businesses, there’s an opportunity to market products or services to those customers who are focused on specific new year’s resolutions. For example, if you sell an app or product that could be used for tracking fitness activities, the new year is a perfect time to market to goal setters to increase sales.
Budget for the Year Ahead
You can also use the end of the year as an opportunity to look back at your finances throughout the past year and then make plans for the year ahead. Creating a budget for the year might not increase your sales notably right away. But it’s an essential activity that can help you optimize your marketing efforts throughout the whole year.
Christmas Shopper Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “15 Small Business Tips for After the Holiday Season” was first published on Small Business Trends