The holiday season is undoubtedly the time for deals. All kinds of businesses, from traditional retailers to small online businesses, use this time of year as a springboard to find new clients or customers, generate new interest in their products and services, and sell more.
Whether you focus on special discounts, limited-time offers, giveaways or holiday sweepstakes, you can benefit from taking advantage of the holiday season to promote your business. But, if you don’t employ a well thought out and relevant promotional campaign, you can hurt your business and lose out on big opportunities.
Here is the rundown of five common holiday promotion mistakes you will certainly want to avoid.
Undervaluing Your Services
While a discount can be a great way to draw in prospects and make your services more appealing, it’s possible that offering too much of a rate reduction will cheapen your services and strip way some of the unique value you offer to clients. Discounts and special offers can work, but they should correlate with the value of your paid services and be kept at a level that doesn’t make you resentful and regretful down the road.
Ignoring Current Clients
Special promotions typically target new potential clients since you are hoping to land new business from your special offers. But don’t ignore the possibility of increased work and additional sales from current clients. The people you are already working with are the ones who know how good you are at what you do and already have an established level of trust in you.
Consider creating a promotion just for existing clients, acknowledging your established relationship and expressing your appreciation for their trust in you. You can also use your special client promotion to invite referrals by offering service discount for all new clients sent your way.
Bombarding Your Mailing List
Email blasts are a great way to get the word out about your holiday promotions, but sending too many messages can be a turn off, costing you subscribers. Keep your messages short, to the point and well-timed for the biggest impact. For more email marketing tips, see: 5 Crucial Email Marketing Tips.
Not Preparing for the Demand
While it may be unrealistic to anticipate an influx in new business from your holiday promotions, if you’re not prepared to respond quickly to new requests, you can lose any possible benefit from your promotions. Create a system that allows you to respond to questions, send out general information and schedule consultations without having to recreate the wheel each time someone contacts you. You should also be sure you have the availability and capacity to take on new work before investing time and effort into marketing your holiday promotions.
Giving It All Away
Giveaways can be great way to establish credibility and develop trust with your target audience, but free isn’t always better, especially when your giveaways cause you to lose potential paying clients and spend an inordinate amount of time creating your freebie. Keep your giveaway to a just a taste that shares your expertise without costing you future paid work.
Do you use holiday promotions in your business? What has been most successful for you?
Image credit: ba1969
Alyssa GregoryAlyssa Gregory is a digital and content marketer, small business consultant, and the founder of the Small Business Bonfire — a social, educational and collaborative community for entrepreneurs.
