As we approach the festive season, small and medium-sized businesses must be preparing their marketing strategies for Christmas.
It’s the ideal time of year, as most businesses will have an influx of customers – some who are already loyal, but also some who may not normally visit your shop and are becoming first-time customers. These people are also likely to be looking to support small businesses at Christmas, and therefore you must be ready to receive their custom.
To ensure you are making the most of festive consumer habits, there are several marketing tips that are ideal for small businesses to follow. This includes making sure your storefront is tidy and approachable, keeping in contact with your customers to ensure your brand is at the forefront of their mind, and utilising digital tools to turn them from first-time buyers into repeat customers.
Outdoor marketing for small businesses
Small business marketing starts outside your premises.
Customers will form an opinion on your business within the first 7 second seconds of seeing your business. That means that if your business is on the high street, any passer-by will have an opinion on your shop almost instantly. To ensure their opinion is positive, you must take steps to provide an attractive appearance.
Investing in your shop’s appearance can take advantage of impulse purchases. During the festive period, consumers tend to browse the high streets without prior research into the shops they are visiting. This means that simply by having an attractive shopfront, you can draw customers into your business and encourage spend.
Firstly, you must ensure that the area outside your business is as clean as possible. Remove any litter from the pavement and touch up old paint on the exterior of your shop – this alone can make a dramatic improvement.
Once you have tidied up the appearance of your business premises, you can focus on levelling up your physical marketing.
Use every inch of the space outside your business to sell your products and promote your brand. That can be your window display, or if you’re lucky enough to have permission for an outdoor retail display, you can set up an attractive unit that promotes your products and draws customers in.
Your outdoor display should be as 3D as possible, as it creates a wider angle that potential customers can see – and they can see it from further away. It’s not only product displays that can help you market your business, but things like bright-coloured planters, sandwich boards, signage, and anything that lights up or moves will also catch the attention of passers-by.
Designing your window display is also crucial to drawing customers into your business. You can create displays based on your products – for example, if you sell homeware, you can create a themed design that showcases the products that you’re selling for the festive season.
There are some rules regarding window displays that are key to follow, including:
• Ensuring you have product(s) as a focal point
• Keeping your focal point at eye level
• Regularly clean your window display (including the glass itself and any props)
• Add display stickers if you sell gift cards or have a loyalty scheme
These tips are crucial to ensuring quality displays and have stood the test of time for small businesses at Christmas across all industries.
Email marketing strategies for small businesses
In the run-up to the festive period and beyond, you must keep in regular contact with your customers to ensure your brand stays at the forefront of their minds. If you have a database of your customers, you can use it to create email marketing campaigns.
Email marketing is an ideal method of marketing for a small business as it provides a high return on investment – and approximately 80% of small business owners believe that email marketing is their most effective form of customer retention.
With an ROI of up to 3800%, small and medium-sized businesses benefit from optimising their email marketing. This reduces any waste (in terms of cost and time) whilst maximising profits.
Although you may want to get a lot of information across to your customers, it is crucial to keep the text on your email limited. Use graphics to catch the eye and highlight your key messages, as most people will skim-read emails when they are doing something else – for example, on their commute or lunch break from work. You must also include a clear call to action, which encourages them to complete the purpose of the email (for example, buying a product).
If you’re aware that your customer base has a heavy gendered split, there are different things to consider when creating your emails. For example, men absorb information when it is presented to them in the form of facts and figures, whilst women prefer to only see one clear message at any time.
This is also true when it comes to the timing of your emails, as men and women are more likely to check their inboxes at different times during the day.
You can read more about how to optimise your marketing for your intended audience here.
Social media marketing for small businesses
With so many social media platforms offering so many different features, the way you market your business across each channel can be completely, entirely unique.
Ultimately, social media is a great way for small businesses to achieve low-cost marketing strategies. Free design apps will allow even the least experienced ‘graphic designers’ to create attractive images optimised for the social media platform you like to post on.
Videos are also becoming more important in the social media age. Instagram’s algorithm boosts reels more than photo posts, and TikTok has taken the world by storm since early 2020 and shows no sign of slowing down.
And with even more platforms taking a step towards video – such as Facebook now having a dedicated reels and videos area and Twitter introducing a full-screen, scrollable video player – it’s an easy way to gain a following.
Most platforms are now even providing templates for videos, meaning it’s simpler than ever.
Social media marketing doesn’t need to just be about your products, either – share important information such as your opening times, any sales, other ways your customers can purchase (such as online or for delivery), and more. Getting across your personality can be the key to unlocking the successes of your social media strategy.
Gift cards systems for small businesses
Perhaps the most universally popular product at Christmas is gift cards.
This is even more true in recent times, as consumers look to support small businesses at Christmas. Gift cards are an ideal way for customers to show their support, as they can provide you with the cash up front, and they will still return to enjoy your service or products – often spending more than the value of the gift card.
In fact, approximately 72% of people spend an average of 20% more than the original value of their gift card. That means you can earn an extra £16 for every £100 of gift cards spent.
And if any customers don’t spend their entire gift card before its expiry, that money can be counted as 100% profit.
Gift cards offer more benefits than just financial ones. During peak times such as Christmas, gift cards allow you to ease your stockholding capacity and ensure repeat custom from existing customers – or provide an avenue for consumers who haven’t visited your business to become loyal, repeat customers.
Reward-It’s gift card management software makes selling gift cards easy. You can offer your customers physical gift cards – custom printed with your branding – or digital QR codes, sent directly to their email inbox. Both physical and digital gift cards are managed on the same system, and you can view useful statistics such as transactions and more.
Loyalty systems for small businesses
Whilst you may have an influx of customers over the festive period, retail businesses tend to quieten down over January. You may have asked yourself if there is a way to increase footfall in the January slump – and the answer is yes.
Implementing a loyalty scheme in the run up to Christmas can help you to retain customers that visit over the festive period. All you need to do is sign them up for your loyalty scheme, and they will come back in the new year to collect more points.
With Reward-It’s loyalty system, you can offer physical or digital gift cards to your customers instantly. Collect important customer information, such as their birthday, email address, and any other customised information you need to know – such as which location they visit if you have multiple.
When you have this information, you can send out marketing emails using the built-in marketing platform. You can even include bonus points or personalised offers, such as when a customer signs up to your loyalty scheme. This encourages footfall and boosts your revenue.
For more information on how Reward-It can boost your profits over the festive period, please get in touch with a member of our expert team today. We’ll be happy to help.
