With the holiday season right around the corner, many small business owners are planning for the busiest time of the year, and it’s the perfect time to appreciate your current customers while gaining new ones.
Social media and the ubiquity of mobile devices make connecting with customers easier than ever. With this in mind, I offer the following tips to help small business owners prepare to maximize profit by connecting with customers.
A great platform for small businesses to grow their reach is Facebook. By establishing a Facebook page and teasing holiday promotions, they can begin to increase early awareness and build buzz ahead of the launch of these promotions. Small business owners can launch holiday promotions on Facebook and incentivize their customers to share the promotions on their personal walls to increase awareness and reach.
Another great platform to launch and increase awareness of promotions is Google Places for Business. Through this platform, small businesses can promote their business in their local market and share offers and promotions with relevant prospects.
Other ideas to help connect with customers and increase holiday sales are:
1. Include coupons for 10 per cent off in shipments going out to your customers now. This will give you customers a reason to come back and shop with you for the holidays.
2. Everyone needs help trying to find the perfect gift. Take advantage of this and post gift suggestions on your website and include them in your shipments that are going out to customers now.
3. Provide tips on what will be and how to score the hottest gifts this season and post this information to your Facebook page, Twitter account and webpages. You can do this for the holidays and throughout the year. This will give your customers a reason continue checking your website and social media pages.
4. Create a mobile strategy with QR codes or digital promotions.
5. Offer tips on saving time and money that don’t promote your business but create a reason for people to follow you on social media just because!
By taking steps like these to help promote your business now, small business owners can easily prepare for the holiday rush and possibly create customers for life.
Connie Certusi is the Executive Vice President and General Manager of Sage Small Business Accounting.
