The end of the year is always an important time for a business. First, there are only a few weeks left to reach his goal for the year. Besides, it is often the time of the year when sales are the most important. It is for these reasons that an entrepreneur needs to be well prepared at the end of the year. As an entrepreneur, you must put the odds on your side to boost your sales at the end of the year.
To do this, play the end-of-year holiday card. Adapt your marketing strategy to the period.
To help you meet this challenge, we have prepared 12 tips to boost your sales and increase your turnover at the end of the year.
1 – Anticipate the end of year celebrations
If all goes well – and we wish you all the bad – the holiday season will be lively.
You need to prepare well to face this period as best as possible. To do this, you have to anticipate the period well in advance, to avoid running into a lack of resources and personnel when the time comes.
Sales increased during the holidays. You have to adapt and plan for the necessary stock. If you need to source from one or more suppliers, place your orders well in advance. They too will be overwhelmed during the holidays and may have trouble delivering to you if you delay too long.
Likewise, plan for the right human resource for the workload. If you work alone, do as much work as possible before the holidays to free up time for customer service, and, if you run an e-commerce, for example, sending packages.
Keep one thing in mind: you must be prepared for any eventuality. It would be a shame to miss some sales because you don’t have the necessary stock, or to lose customers because you take too long to deliver them.
2 – Make gift cards
To boost your sales at the end of the year, we told you: the best strategy is to play during the holidays.
To increase your chances of making “Christmas gift” sales, plan for gift cards. Your customers who do not know what to give to a loved one will be able to choose a certain amount to put on this gift card, to allow the person to whom they will offer it to buy what they want in the store when the time comes.
Choose the design of your gift card and how it works.
Remember that the map will be at the foot of the tree. It must be pretty, well presented … In short, pleasant to look at. Search the Internet a bit, and find some inspiration. Use a graphic designer if possible.
3 – Make special promotions
Create sales opportunities by making promotional offers tailored to the holiday season. Among your products, choose those that sell the best, or those that you think are the most suitable for a Christmas gift. Promote your flagship products with promotional offers. These promotions must be attractive and adapted to the period. Make it clear that the offer is only valid within a certain limit. Play on the urgency and the ephemeral nature of the offer. Why not set up a countdown? Make your prospects feel that they shouldn’t miss out on these special end-of-the-year promotions.
4 – Boost your communication
To achieve your goals before the end of the year now is the perfect time to boost your communication.
Whatever platforms you are used to communicating on, redouble your efforts. If this is not already the case, be present as much as possible on social networks, for example.
Set up a communication campaign adapted to the end of year celebrations, with a follow-up theme. Take the opportunity to promote your sale items and highlight your special promotional offers.
5 – Engage your community
Boosting your communication also means engaging your community.
Create a dialogue with your customers. What better way to do this than social networks? Treat your social networks as best as you can to allow your customers to express themselves. They will be able to use this platform to create a link with you, but also to create a link between them. Your goal should be to create a bond of belonging to a group in your customers.
There are a bunch of effective ways to motivate your customers to engage on your social media. Here are some ideas you can take advantage of:
– Create contests on your social networks, with a prize in the key, and ask your customers to share your publications to participate;
– Make stories on Instagram to show behind the scenes and make yourself accessible to your community, of course playing on the Christmas spirit! Why not take your community with you during your boutique decorating activity, for example?
– Ask your community for their opinion: what products do they want to see on sale? What could you change to improve yourself?
– Organize events for the holidays.
The list can become as long as you want. Adapt your communication on the networks to your activity and your customers.
6 – Create partnerships
Creating partnerships is a very effective way to increase your visibility on the networks, and therefore, to boost your sales.
Creating a partnership, how does it work?
Find a professional, if possible with a larger community than yours, who has similar activity to yours. You have to target a professional whose community may potentially be interested in your products.
For example, if you sell sports equipment, you can partner with a company that sells sports supplements.
The principle of the partnership is win-win: each will advertise the other, citing the other’s brand in their posts, for example.
If you can afford it, you can also pay an influencer who can advertise your products. If there is a strategic moment for this kind of expenditure, it is the end of year holidays!
7 – Focus on customer service
During a key period like the end of the year, your customer service must be impeccable.
We can only advise you to take care of your customer service all year round: a pampered customer is a happy customer, and often a returning customer. But this is especially true during the holiday season.
Be always available to answer questions from your customers. If you run an e-commerce, set up a chat on your online store. Never leave an email or question hanging for too long. Respond to all comments left on your various networks.
When you deliver your products, slip a small card, or a small gift inside. Offer goodies! If you still don’t have any goodies in your business name, the holiday season may be a great time to get some done. You will be able to send your customers a small object that will remind them of your existence every time they see it …
Treating the customer with care is still the best way to build customer loyalty.
8 – Find ways to drive traffic to your site
The more traffic there is on your site, the more you will increase your chances of selling. Find ways to keep your customers coming back to your site as often as possible.
For this, there is a technique that works particularly at the end of the year: the advent calendar. But yes, you know: we open a box every day, and each time we find a little gift to help us wait until Christmas!
There are ways to adapt the tradition of the advent calendar to e-commerce. Create a game that will allow your customers to win a gift every day, from December 1st to 24th! You can also do even better: a game where you never lose, and where even the losers receive small prizes.
With this technique, you are guaranteed to have traffic to your site every day of December!
9 – Set up an emailing campaign
Use your customer database to set up an emailing campaign.
Highlight your end-of-year promotions through targeted emails. The advantage of email campaigns is that they only target customers who are already in your database because they have already bought from you.
Remember the good memories of your former customers through a well-studied emailing campaign, and in Christmas colors.
10 – Play on the Christmas spirit
As you can see, at the end of the year, we are playing on the Christmas spirit.
Whether in your store, on your website, in your publications on social networks, or your emails: we want glitter, stars, snowflakes, Santa Claus, ribbons, and trees.
But the Christmas spirit is not limited to graphic codes and visuals. It is also a state of mind. Take advantage of the holidays to spread positive messages in your community. Also, show generosity. Your customers will appreciate your promotions and donations at their true value and will thank you.
11 – Bet on Black Friday
This year, Black Friday takes place on Friday, November 27, 2020. In recent years, it has been the most important day for businesses, and in particular e-commerce, even in France.
The advantage of Black Friday is its strategic position during the year: just before December. It is a day marked with a black stone, which announces the entry into the hunt for gifts.
As the name suggests, Black Friday is generally limited to one day: a day of big, targeted, and very important promotions. You can however choose, like many businesses, to extend these promotions to the whole weekend, or the whole week.
To boost your year-end sales, we can only recommend that you bet big on Black Friday. Set up a countdown on your social networks. Make enticing promotional offers. Make people talk about you.
Symbolically, Black Friday corresponds to the entry into the end of the year for businesses. If you have a good Black Friday, you start this key period with a very positive point!
12 – Anticipate the winter sales
The end of the year is also the approach of the winter sales. Indeed, the winter sales take place during January.
Anticipate the sales during December. Start communicating about your winter sales in advance, so your customers can get organized and create their shopping cart.
Communicate especially about the winter sales once Christmas has passed to prevent your customers from losing track of your various promotions.