Whether you made a hefty profit or experienced a holiday sales slump, there are ways to increase sales in January and beat the post-holiday fatigue many businesses face by utilizing a little planning and creativity.
Your Business Guide on Beating Post-Holiday Fatigue
It’s no surprise that people shop more doing the holiday season. A report by Adobe Analytics found that consumers spent $80.3 billion—and that was just online—from November 1 to December 6 in 2018.
If you were fortunate, your business enjoyed great seasonal success.
But whether you made a hefty profit or experienced a holiday sales slump, there are ways to increase sales in January. I’m sharing 6 of my favourites:
1. Throw another sale.
While customers may feel post-holiday fatigue after an overwhelming number of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas and Boxing Day deals, you can still reach your target audience with a tempting winter clearance.
Here’s a good example: Clothing and home retailer Anthropologie has a winter clearance on all sale items. By taking another 40% off items that are already at a reduced price, they’re appealing to customers and clearing out old stock to make room for new spring inventory.
Remember that your fans are savvy, so be authentic rather than just slapping a sale sign on a poorly selling product or calling a small discount a “winter clearance.”
2. Tie in New Year’s resolutions.
No matter what product or service you’re selling, there’s probably a way to tie in the “New Year, New You” angle.
A 2018 survey by Tangerine found that nearly 70% of Canadians have made resolutions. Over half of respondents focused on improving their physical health, and almost a third wanted to get better at managing their finances.
So, start by thinking about how your product or service improves someone’s:
- Financial, personal or professional success
- Health or wellness
- Confidence or self-esteem
- Productivity
- Relationships
Then, brainstorm ways that you could incorporate New Year’s resolutions and goals into your sales program to prevent a post-holiday sales slump. For instance, we created a post for one of our clients using personal success in 2020 to drive sales of her Small Business HR Crash Course book.
3. Create a buying guide or blog.
While we tend to give Xmas most of the attention, don’t forget that people want gift ideas year-round.
According to the 2019 Holiday Season Shopping Report, 47% of gift shoppers surveyed didn’t know what to buy. To turn browsers into customers any time of year, help guide your visitors. For example, you could create a top 10 list of popular gifts for teens or Moms, or highlight the hottest gifts for Father’s Day.
People will feel less overwhelmed and will be more likely to add an item to their cart with a little guidance, which can really help you increase sales after the holidays.
4. Update your newsletter signup.
With so much going on in a small business owner’s life, it can be easy to overlook this important marketing tool. Are you offering an eBook that’s been up for years with a newsletter signup, or pushing an outdated promo?
Take a look at your eNewsletter signup page and think about the year ahead. Is there a way you can make it more appealing to attract leads and sales?
Maybe you could create some fresh content like an eBook or a video tutorial, or offer a free consultation.
5. Spruce up your social media.
If you gave your social media accounts a holiday touch, now’s the time to take down the decorations, so to speak. Even if you didn’t add any holiday flair, now is a great opportunity to reflect on what messaging you’re putting out there.
While you shouldn’t update your logo or branding just because it’s a new year, at least do a sweep of your social media to see if you need to change/add:
- Your operating hours and location on Facebook and Google My Business.
- Old pinned tweets on your Twitter account.
- Images for Google My Business and Instagram.
- Profile photos for all of your social media accounts.
While you might argue that this isn’t directly a way to increase sales after the holidays, you’d be surprised! If you have old assets collecting dust or you can’t be bothered to change out a Christmas banner on a social media platform, people are going to wonder how efficient and trustworthy your small business is.
Over time your business will grow and evolve. You may offer new services or products, enter different markets or target another demographic. If this happens, you might need to consider changing your marketing graphics.
However, you need to be careful you’re not undoing all the hard marketing and branding work that you’ve done and that you fully understand how to rebrand for the most effective results.
6. Get creative with celebrations throughout the year.
There’s a long list of January “holidays” you can check out here that will get you started. By making a note of relevant dates throughout the year, there are surely some fun ways that you can incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
You could offer a discount, freebie or promo that relates to what you sell. Here’s a delicious example: The Italian chain Carrabba’s Italian Grill celebrated National Pasta Day last year with a $10 pasta deal.
One of my favourite examples is what WWF did for World Penguin Day (it’s coming up on April 25!). They shared an informative article ‘Top 10 facts about emperor penguins’, with a call to action to “adopt” one of these adorable waddling birds.
We were so much captivated by this campaign, we adopted a few ourselves! Since the Emperor Penguin is our official mascot, how could we not!
No, we didn’t get our very own penguin, but we did get a cuddly toy, regular updates, stickers and other cool stuff for supporting the initiative.
There’s no reason why you have to expect and accept a post-holiday sales slump. While we tend to focus a lot of our marketing (and personal) energy on the festive season, we must remember that our customers are still out there! They want to hear from us in a meaningful and relevant way.
With a little planning and creativity
, you can break through the post-holiday fatigue and set up your small business for a prosperous 2020.
