Episode 91: How to Increase Your End-of-Year Sales
Welcome back to Making Good, the podcast for small businesses who want to make a big impact. I'm your host, Lauren Tilden, and this is episode 91. It's December and I have a holiday gift for you. If you've been listening to Making Good for a while you might know what's coming. My holiday gift to you last year was double the episodes in December and it was such a hit last year, I've decided to bring it back. That means that instead of releasing four episodes in December, I will be releasing eight. This is my way of saying thank you and that I so so appreciate you for being a part of my community and supporting this podcast. And of course, happy holidays.
And speaking of holidays, today's episode is about making the most of your last few weeks of the year to finish 2021 on a high note, this is an updated and expanded version of Episode 33, which I will also link to in the show notes. That was an episode I released last December about increasing your holiday sales. So before we get into all the good stuff, one more big update for me. The doors to Making Good Happen are officially open. And I am so excited. I've had such amazing business owners sign up from all kinds of business categories. And I absolutely cannot wait to work with those of you who have signed up already. If you haven't, and you're wondering what is Making Good Happen? Well, let me tell you. One thing that I know all too well is that it's one thing to learn the things that will help our businesses thrive and it's another thing entirely to actually take the actions we need to take to make that happen. It's the action that changes things for us, not the learning by itself. And that's what Making Good Happen is all about.
Making Good Happen is a monthly membership designed to help you custom build a marketing plan for your business and more importantly take the actions you plan to take month in and month out. Making Good Happen includes a private members only podcast called you guessed it Making Good Happen. There will be short and sweet episodes every weekday ranging from mini pep talks to journaling prompts to action items. It also includes deep work sessions. So these are kind of like co working on Zoom but with no video or audio to minimize distractions, guided monthly marketing plan creation and online community of other like minded small business owners. Accountability, tracking of your most important deadlines, guest expert presentations each month and more stuff that is a surprise and so that we can all kick off 2022 with a bang. Making Good Happen is officially launching the first Monday in January, January 3rd 2022. If you want to start 2022 with an intentional strategic marketing plan that you actually execute, join us in Making Good Happen. If you're interested in joining, head to makinggoodpodcast.com/happen and sign up for an email with all of the juicy details. Because this is the first time this program has ever been offered, you can join and get this monthly price for as long as you remember at the lowest rate it will ever be available at if you sign up by December 18. This is a ridiculously good deal. And I would so love to have you join. Again, you can get all of the details at makinggoodpodcast.com/happen.
Okay, so let's talk about the holidays. This is a super important time of year for a lot of small businesses, especially product based small businesses. At Station Seven, my retail shop in Seattle, we do about 25 to 30% of our annual sales in a single month of December. So if you're anything like me, the holiday season is an important time for your business. So how can we make sure that we see the best results possible in these final few weeks of the year? Well, I'm so glad you asked. And I am so excited to share some tips that I hope will help you close 2021 on a high note. I want to suggest that you view this list as simply a list of ideas to pick and choose from and do whatever makes most sense for you in your business given the time you have available and your marketing style overall.
This is definitely not a checklist and to suggest that you have to do everything. So let's get into these ideas for upping our end of year sales. Here are the holiday and end of your marketing ideas we're going to talk about today. Number one is to talk about shipping. Number two is to tap into your network, number three is to consistently show up, number four is to put together gift guides or gift suggestions. Number five is to be social, number six is to get festive. Number seven is to give your audience a gift, number eight is don't forget email. Number nine is to offer solutions for last minute shoppers. Number 10 is to send a holiday card and number 11 is to not disappear after December 25.
Okay, so let's jump into the first suggestion here which is to talk about shipping. If you sell physical products, it's time to be talking about shipping right now. There's a lot of conversation about expected shipping delays and shipping deadlines are earlier this year than ever before. Make sure that you're communicating very frequently with your audience about the fact that the earlier the better when it comes to any gifts that need to be shipped. One message that I think will be very effective when it comes to incentivizing people to place their order soon, rather than waiting until it's too late, is to remind them of all of the good things that come out of shopping small, shopping small is for all year round, especially over the holidays. But sometimes shopping small could be a little bit less convenient than to shop at the big box stores are open and available until the very last minute. All in all, make sure that you're talking about your holiday shipping recommendations and deadlines early and often and everywhere. You might even consider changing your social media profiles to include the shipping deadline, it's that important to err on the side of over communicating about this, don't assume that people saw it the first time or processed it fully, talk about it until you feel annoying.
Tip number two is to tap into your network. This can be uncomfortable, but Invite your family and friends to support your business. You can send out an email to your nearest and dearest letting them know how much you appreciate their support, and to let them know about any holiday bestsellers or gift recommendations you might have. And if you like to offer a friends and family discount, if they'd like to make a purchase. I would also recommend that you include a PS in your email that is a request to share your email with any of their friends or family who might enjoy your work. Our friends and family generally want to support us but life gets busy and our business isn't necessarily top of mind for them the way that it is for us every day. So finding a way to pop into their inbox with a personal note rather than quote unquote marketing is a great way to invite them to consider your business for their gifting needs.
Tip number three is to show up consistently. So this isn't the most exciting suggestion on the list. And it's definitely not a suggestion that I personally like the most. But it may be the most important. Showing up consistently reminding your audience that you're there and putting your products top of mind is important all of the time. But it's especially important this time of year when there is so much marketing that everyone's getting hit with. This time of year people are receiving advertisements and seeing promotional posts and opening an inbox full of marketing emails every single day. This is not the time of year to take your foot off the gas pedal if you can avoid it, because we need to stay top of mind. However, you're thoughtful and intentional about your marketing. This is also a great time to stand out. Think about your ideal customer and what they're experiencing right now and find ways to show up with your brand and products, but also offer some value to the people on the other end of your marketing. Maybe you share a mantra for self care in a super busy time. Maybe you share a tutorial about wrapping a beautiful present. Maybe you offer tips on how to choose the right piece of jewelry for your partner. Whatever it is, if you focus on adding value, you'll stand out amongst everyone else.
Tip number four is to round up gift suggestions or recommend bestsellers. We talked about this a little bit in Episode 89, where we discussed holiday and end of year marketing. But the truth is that buying gifts is super hard. Whatever you can do to make this easier, the better. You can make it easier for your customers because you know your customers and you know your products better than anyone. There are a couple of great ways to do this, one is with a gift guide. So for example gifts for the busy parent, self care gifts or gifts for your favorite feminist. This gift guide could be a list of your products that are relevant, or it could include some of your products and also some other makers products. Another way you can make it easier for your customers to choose gifts is to share what your best sellers are indicating what your best sellers are is a good way of sending the message to your audience that says lots of people like this item. So there's a good chance that whoever you're buying it for will too. And finally, you could do a roundup of your personal favorites or if you have a team, your staff favorites.
Tip number five is to be social, prioritize showing up to be social on your social media platforms. Don't just post your content and then disappear to move on for the rest of your day. actually engage with your followers. So what does this mean? It means having one on one conversations in your DMS, your direct messages as much as possible. But how do you get these conversations started? Well, one great way if you're not getting them automatically is to use engagement tools offered on platforms like Instagram. You can include a poll and your stories. Ask people to vote on topics large and small. You can invite your audience to ask you questions, you can ask them for suggestions, tips, etc. Anyway that you can start a conversation is a good thing. And then the important thing is that when someone responds to your content, you can use that as an invitation to start a longer conversation. Even when someone does something as simple as vote on a poll, you can go look at who voted and send a direct message to every single person. This is really an extension of my third tip about showing up consistently. And both of these are about staying top of mind, but also humanizing your brand and products by actually engaging one on one with your audience members. If you let it, this could take over your life, so you might want to allot 20 minutes once or twice a day to do this. But trust me it pays off to build these relationships.
Tip number six is to get festive. There is most definitely a feeling to this time of year, many of us have memories, feelings, traditions, and a whole lifetime associated with a winter holidays. You can tap into this in your marketing, and I like to try to do it as inclusively as I can. So rather than talking about any religious beliefs or specific holidays, I like to tap into the more universal things about this time of year that more people can relate to. Things like snow and fuzzy blankets and sipping cocoa by that fire will resonate with anyone in the northern hemisphere. And I'm sure there's other holiday type messaging that you could share. If you're not infusing some winter and holiday spirit into your marketing on things like your website, email marketing, social media is just one more way to connect with your customers who likely have the holidays on their mind.
Tip number seven is to give a gift. This is the season of gift giving, and we give gifts to the people we care about. So surely your audience counts as that. A gift doesn't have to be something that costs you money, you can offer a gift of a discount or a free item with purchase. But you can also get creative when you think about what to give as a gift. Think about what your ideal customer wants and means and figure out what you could do to give them to that for free. Maybe it's a mini ebook or a workbook, maybe it's a tutorial of some kind or resource. As an example, my gift to you My community is that I'm doubling up on my good episodes for all of December to help you finish 2021 with a bang and start the new year strong. This is when really knowing your ideal customer well comes in handy because you'll be able to answer this question. What is something that my ideal customer would benefit from right now that I could easily provide them? Do you spend 10 or 20 minutes thinking about this question, I really believe that you'll come up with something great. Or if you want some help send me a DM over on Instagram at @LaurenTilden. I love a great brainstorm session.
Tip number eight. Don't forget email. This time of year is busy. You're running your business trying to end the year on a high note fulfilling orders trying to keep your business marketing going. Thinking about the year that's about to come. Not to mention all of the stuff you probably have going on in your life outside of work. It's understandable that this is a time of year when sometimes we have to let something slip we can't get to everything. And that totally makes sense. Even though this episode is full of ideas, I know that most everyone is not going to be able to do everything. This is more a list of ideas, not a checklist as I mentioned up front. However, if you do need to ease up on some of your marketing activities or platforms, I have one request for you. Don't drop the ball on your email marketing. I love email marketing because I know how powerful it is. And that's not an opinion that's heavily supported by the data. Time and money invested into email marketing is more effective by several times than the same money and time invested in other platforms.
Make sure you prioritize your email marketing this time of year because emails generate sales. If you're newer to email marketing, I've done a bunch of episodes on this that I think would be a great resource for you. They're linked in the show notes. Tip number nine is to offer solutions for last minute shoppers. We kicked off this episode by talking about how important it is to emphasize your shipping recommendations to encourage your community to place their orders in time to receive them. But it's inevitable a lot of people won't get around to their holiday shopping until way past your shipping deadline. However, this doesn't mean that you can't still be a great option for their gift giving means. After your shipping deadline for December 25 arrival has passed, I will shift your focus in your marketing to start talking about things that don't need to be physically shipped in time. The most obvious solution is a gift card or gift certificate that can be digitally delivered. Just about every website platform has a way that you can do this. In addition to gift cards, there are other products and services that lend themselves very well to this last minute gifting category. If you sell a subscription box you can make it possible for people to give to subscription if you sell a service anything from photography to facials to teaching cooking classes, you can make it easy for someone to purchase this experience for someone else in their life. An extra credit is if you can help them to deliver the gift in a nice way. For example, maybe they can print out a cute little certificate that they can include in their card as a gift. You can get creative here.
Tip 10 is to Send a holiday card. Whether it's handwritten or digital, why not send your customers or community a holiday card. And I don't mean something overly branded that looks like a flyer or an advertisement, I mean, an honest genuine holiday card, the kind you get in the mail from someone important to you. This is a great way to further connect with your customers and audience on a personal human level.
And tip number 11 is don't disappear after December 25. It can be tempting to totally disappear after December 25. But I think you'll really stand out if you don't. First of all, people still buy things after December 25. Whether it's the last minute or belated gift, or something unrelated to the holidays, continuing to show up when many brands are going totally quiet will help you stand out. Now, I'm not suggesting that you need to work every single day in the month of December. No, I think you should take some time off to rest and take care of yourself. And I'm going to try to do the same. But the beauty of technology is that even if you take half of the month of December off with enough planning and preparation, you can absolutely still be showing up with scheduled emails, social content and more.
This is another great opportunity to connect with your audience on a personal level. Think about what life might be like for them after the holidays, how they're feeling about the new year and find a way to deliver marketing content that's helpful, valuable and or uplifting about the year to come. Okay, so that is my roundup of ideas to help you have the best end of year sales you possibly can. I hope you've got an idea or two from this episode. And if you did, I would love to hear what you're going to try. Send me a message on Instagram at @LaurenTilden. That's La u r e n t i l d e n. Details from this episode can be found on the show notes page at makinggoodpodcast.com/91. And finally, I would so love to work with you inside of Making Good Happen, my brand new membership kicking off in January to reserve your spot and lock in the lowest monthly rate that will ever be available. You can get the details at makinggoodpodcasts.com/happen to lock those prices. Be sure to sign up before December 18. Thank you for being here and for focusing on making a difference with your small business. Talk to you next time.