How to Thrive During a Challenging Holiday Season
December 1, 2008 by OA Group · Leave a Comment
Ahhh, the holiday season is here. From the exuberant faces packed into the malls during ‘Black Friday’ to the hopefulness of New Years, this is traditionally the best time of year for brands and retailers. However the current market uncertainty has frightened the everyday consumer, and scared shoppers into frugal individuals. Essentially every major research agency is projecting the worst retail season in years, and these reports will most likely come to fruition. So am I saying to pack it in? Of course not.
Even though the season may offer several obstacles not seen in previous years, there is still plenty of opportunity for brands to emerge victorious over the next thirty days. Below are my three tips for having a successful holiday marketing campaign:
- Take a lesson in logic and live by Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest answer to a problem is usually the best option. In other words, do not try to take drastic branding action over the Holidays in order to drive consumer awareness. When considering where and how your advertisements will be shown, live by the phrase: keep it simple stupid.
- If you have an established presence in the marketplace, continue to build deeper relationships with preexisting clients. Strong market research has shown that it is ten times as expensive to capture a new customer as to retain a previous client. So RIGHT NOW is the time to start hitting your email list, you very well may have a goldmine at your disposal of new sales from old clients.
- Cut all unnecessary spending and reevaluate all existing vendor relationships. You may be paying four services that have cheap of even free alternatives. A good example of this principle in action is CRM software. I have worked with organizations that pay thousands of dollars on services like Salesforce when web applications such as Zoho are completely free for small businesses and extremely cost effective for large enterprises.
It may not be easy, but if you stay smart this Holiday season your business can still flourish.
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