For small business owners, January is often a blessing and a curse. While you get to (hopefully) relax a bit after the Christmas rush (a blessing), you don’t want to have too much downtime, i.e., a big drop-off in sales (the post-Christmas curse). So how do you keep customers coming to your ecommerce or bricks-and-mortar store — and keep the cash register ringing — after Christmas and avoid the January doldrums?
I put that question to dozens of small business owners, ecommerce, and marketing experts. Following are their 12 best tips for boosting post-holiday sales — some of which you should start implementing NOW (as in before Christmas or Kwanzaa).
1. Include a discount coupon or gift card for a January purchase with items sold in December.
2. Keep holiday marketing efforts going until the end of the year.
3. Thank holiday shoppers and loyal customers with post-holiday special deals or savings.
4. Run a fun post-holiday contest.
5. Follow up with customers who have clicked on “this is a gift.”
6. Recoup sales from abandoned shopping carts.
7. Keep the deals coming with special January promotions and discounts.
8. Use social media.
9. Bump up your remarketing efforts.
10. Launch a new product or service.
11. Target and reward mobile shoppers.
12. Think globally.
For a detailed explanation of each tip, click on my article, “12 Tips to Boost Post-Holiday Sales.”
Wishing all my fellow small business owners a prosperous new year…