Get Holiday Ready - 6 Quick Things You Can Do Now

The holidays are going to be here before we know it so what better time to start planning for them than the present. It may seem early, but we're hearing a lot of our customers starting to get ready now. So here are six things you should be doing in October to get the holidays started for your business.

Plan Now - Plan your email campaign dates NOW using a calendar. Take an hour over the weekend or weeknight and plan out what you'll want to start offering and put that stake in the ground now! You can always change it later based on what you learn but it's a great starting point to keep you on the right track.

Spend a Little - Beef up your Google Adwords spend, yes even in this economy. You'll still need to capitalize on any new customers you can get so what better way than one that you can cap daily spending limits on. If you need help with swimming your way through Google's waters, tap into our partner MerchEngines who will guarantee traffic flowing for you through the crazy holiday season.

Create Now - Check out our Holiday Pre-designed layouts for your email campaigns in our Email Canvas tool. They're ready for you to input your own copy and images and away you go. It's a real time saver. While you're at it, create a bunch of campaigns by using our "Copy" campaign functionality in the Actions menu. If you don't use our layouts talk to your web designer or get yourself going now. Time can be of the essence and no one wants to wait until the last minute.

Confirm Confirmations - Take a glance at any confirmation emails you send to people who have purchased from you and make sure they're up to date. Make sure links still work and information is correct.

Staff Up - Will you be ready for the flux inbound emails and calls that you'll generate from your site or your email campaigns? If you ship a product do you have the bodies you'll need to pack and ship?  Here's an idea; there are a lot of college kids home on break that need some cash so you might want to start asking around now or advertising it in your email marketing campaigns and on your website.

Get Shipping Ready - You'll obviously need to know when the last date you can take orders for guaranteed holiday shipping will be so make sure you include this all over your website and emails.

If you do this now, you'll be in great shape for the holiday season so start planning now!

 

Comments

[Jason Hicks]

Yeah, thanks for this. I just got back from SMX East and have one that you should add to your list. Zvents' marketing guy gave a talk on their search engine and how you can list/promote sales and holiday events at no cost (Yay!). Why is that such a big deal? (who are they? I thought). Apparently they run MSN City Guides and my local newspapers' event calendar. They are my new best friend :)

[NCS]

Thank you so much for posting this! Great tips and information. I am definitely going to follow this to insure I have a good holiday selling season!

[GRGifts]

Thanks for sharing such great tips. Planning now for the holidays is very important, especially for a gift business like the one I am running. Thanks again.