Holiday Marketing Tips - Put a Jingle in Your Bottom Line - WAHM Marketing

Every WAHM needs good holiday marketing tips! Some holidays don't tend to draw in many Internet sales such as St. Patrick's Day and Thanksgiving, but others that can bring a drastic rise in site traffic and purchases, such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Halloween.

Similarly, some products that are particularly hot during the holiday season and others tend to drop in sales over the holidays. The following holiday marketing tips will help you navigate the holidays and pull in your share of the profits no matter what products you might be offering.

It Starts Before You Think

The best holiday marketing tips you will ever receive focus not on how to market for the holidays, but when to do so. Think about how you put things together for the holidays in your home. You don't wait until December 15th to start purchasing presents, wrapping, and planning the big meal, do you? Of course not!

It's the same thing with holiday planning for your business campaigns. People start thinking about the holidays and preparing their gifts much earlier than you might think, so you need to start your holiday marketing earlier as well.

Most holiday marketing tips suggest you start at least a few months before a big holiday, though smaller campaigns for less important holidays can be thrown together in less time. By the time holiday shoppers start browsing the Internet for products you should have compelling PPC ads developed and should have tested them to know which ones are draw in the most attention.

Watch the Deals

More WAHMs should be reading holiday marketing tips about how to plan effective discounts and deals. Far too many are smacked by giving too much of a great deal to far too many people. Everyone is searching for deals at given times of the year, such as the few weeks before and after Christmas and the "black Friday" weekend. Many people will make purchases that they have been waiting to make or that they wouldn't normally make if they were presented with a deal that is too good to pass up.

Yet, give too many of those deals and you can easily give up far too much of your profit. When you read holiday marketing tips suggesting you give out free gifts, the point is to offer holiday discounts that bring in more sales and earn more money. What you don't want to do is bring in more sales and barely break even.

One effective strategy is to offer sale prices that still protect your bottom line to everyone while offering a select group of customers the great discounts.

For instance, you can use an email campaign to extend a special deal to previous customers who purchased a particular product in the recent past. Give them a deal they just can't pass up on a related product. They may take advantage of some of the other deals you are offering while they are at it.

One form of deal that many people overlook is the bundle. Combine two or more of your best products and give a small discount. People will purchase a higher priced item feeling as if they are getting a great deal, even if they only needed one of the items included!

Gift Giving

Take advantage of the holiday season to give gifts to your most valued customers. You will probably want to reserve these gifts to a select group, such as those who make a purchase of a given dollar amount during a particular period of time or those who have made substantial purchases in the past.

Another great idea is to send a special holiday gift to those who have purchased a combined dollar amount of product over the course of the previous year. You can add notes about this program on all of your receipts throughout the year so customers are encouraged to place repeat orders in order to get the gift at the end of the year.

Some gifts that can be given out include coupon codes for free product or packages of products that you select and send to them by mail. You can use products that aren't selling well that you would be taking a loss on regardless.

While these gifts should be something they can really use with no strings attached, you can also use them as marketing campaigns. For instance, a gift certificate can come with special promotions for other products or a product gift can include a special container with your company logo on it.

I hope that they will continue using the plastic container in their home that will keep your business fresh in their minds.

Go Heavy

Whatever holiday marketing tips you make use of for your holiday sales, make sure that you are consistently refreshing your efforts. Just sending out one round of emails or one press release isn't going to cut it. If there were ever a time to go all out and repeat your campaigns on a consistent basis, the major holiday season would be it.

This is especially true if there is a holiday that corresponds closely to your niche. The time surrounding that holiday should be allotted a big percentage of your marketing budget so you can get as many sales as possible while the season is in your favor.

For instance, if your business deals with gourmet chocolates you will want to take full advantage of Valentine's Day and Christmas. When someone thinks of sending an elaborate box of high quality chocolate they should think of you!

Combine Interests

Holiday marketing tips often focus exclusively on one business, but if you are working with several different streams of income at once you can use them to compliment one another over the holidays.

For instance, if you sell eBooks from one website but have nutritional supplements and health products on another, offer a free eBook download with purchase from the supplement store and the customer's choice of select items from the health store with the purchase of particular eBooks.

All of these holiday marketing tips will help you pull in more sales through the holidays without taking away from the profits you rightfully deserve. They should also help you take full advantage of the holidays that are closely related to the niche in which you are selling.