Your Small Business Checklist for Holiday Success
Many small businesses earn the bulk of their profits in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, making it essential to have a strong plan for holiday success. Use this checklist so your shop is primed for peak year-end revenues.
1. Start Early
It’s never too soon to start your holiday preparations. Orders for inventory and supplies are usually placed in spring; once you know the quantity and design elements of your merchandise, you can plan your floor setup and storefront decorations.
In the summer, you may need to organize a blowout sale to clear space for holiday merchandise or secure off-site storage for overstock. In October, get a jump on hiring seasonal staff so they are trained ahead of the first rush. Then, it’s time to prepare your promotional strategy so you can focus solely on selling once the season is underway.
2. Maximize Your Marketing
The trendiest merchandise, the prettiest storefront, and the best-trained staff get you nowhere without enough buyers. The holidays are the perfect time to upgrade your marketing program. Start by giving your business a fresh look with a new logo that makes a great first impression on customers, builds brand awareness, and helps you stand out from your competitors. There’s no need to pay a design service to develop a creative and appealing logo; try an online logo maker. You can pick a style and icon, add your text, and then tweak it by trying out an assortment of font and color options.
In the same way, you needn’t be a design expert to create a new logo, you also don’t have to be skilled in marketing to put together the right holiday promotional program. Turn to a freelance TikTok marketing agency to promote your seasonal products, deals, and events through regular web and social media updates. It’s easy to find the right agency by searching online job boards and evaluating reviews and rates.
Small business owners may also consider strategically hiring professionals to help with their seasonal marketing efforts, like graphic designers to create holiday-themed visuals and web designers to enhance their website's festive appearance. When discussing design ideas with these pros, converting a PDF to a JPG file for easy sharing or printing of web images can be beneficial. Using a PDF-to-JPG converter ensures that image quality is preserved, allowing for attractive and consistent holiday marketing materials both online and in print. This approach can help small businesses stand out and attract customers during the holiday season. You can utilize this tool to PDF to JPG-adjust your files as needed.
Addressing the needs of last-minute holiday shoppers is another way to boost your marketing impact. Build a social media frenzy around your hottest products and provide expedited shipping to attract latecomers. Be clear and direct in your messages about what you are offering. Design a gift guide that makes picking perfect presents a no-brainer for those pressed for time, and offer last-minute deals for dawdlers who missed Black Friday or Cyber Monday savings. Be sure to extend your business hours so procrastinators don’t have any excuse not to shop with you.
3. Give Back to Boost Business
Beyond direct promotion, giving back to the community is a smart way to attract new business while doing good. Research shows that consumers strongly favor companies that back charitable interests, so increasing your donations during the season of giving can help both your business and the causes it supports.
Ideas for giving back include contributing a portion of a day’s sales to a community fundraiser, donating inventory to a local shelter, or helping a local family with expenses. Acts like these create opportunities to publicize your business and reflect your commitment to your community.
Without a plan in place, the opportunity to maximize seasonal sales could pass you by. By getting a jump-start on tasks, upgrading your marketing, and giving back to show your community support, you’ll be on your way to boosting profits this holiday season.
