Don't Take the Holidays Off! 8 Tips for Effective Marketing During the Holidays

Summary: In this month's episode of the MegaMarketer Coachcast, Justin Jacobs is talking about one of the biggest holidays of the year and how you can leverage the holiday season to better connect with your customers while also growing your business.  Key Lessons Learned: Marketing During the Holidays You may have noticed that many businesses started preparing for the Christmas holidays well before Halloween was even done with. Even before we've carved up the turkey, we are already planning for what is going to go under the tree. During the winter holiday season, more money will change hands than during any other time of the year. The trouble is this money is not typically spent on preventative maintenance. Emergency calls will come just like always but just because your market is distracted, that doesn't mean you can take time off from your marketing. The most effective tactic for service businesses to get their customer's attention is to get into the holiday spirit with them. You have to be a little more creative but the goal is to stand out from your competition and connect with your customer. If you can do that, you win. Holiday Marketing Tactics  Create a holiday themed offer. Package your services into a holiday offer where you defer the payments. Give them a little bit of breathing room because finances are typically pretty stretched after the holidays.  Zig Ziglar once said "You can have everything in life that you want, if you'll simply help others get what they want." You want to sell more products and services, your prospects what to find more cash for the holidays while keeping their home efficiently run. If you make it make sense and let the customer justify the move in their own mind, their answer is much more likely to be yes. Be santa's helper. For mature homeowners a gift certificate for a home service can be very valuable. You can offer them to your existing customer base and let them do the marketing for you. You can be as aggressive as you like with the offers, but be careful because you don't want your existing customers to feel slighted. Sponsoring local holiday events is another great way to get your message into the market. There are huge crowds involved with these kinds of events and they will see you as linked in to the community. Be PR savvy during the holiday season. Find new ways to get your ideas into the hands of the news outlets. Most local news stations or newspapers would love for an expert to give weekly content that is relevant to homeowners in their area.  Don't be too pushy or salesy, this isn't advertising. It's a long term strategy and the more homeowners that see you as an authority on their home's comfort, the better. Have a float in the local Christmas parade or donate some presents to kids in need. We deal with our customers on some pretty rough days in their life, is that how you want homeowners to remember you? We decide our customer's perception more than we think we do. Decorate your website for the holidays. Look festive and join in the spirit of things. Web traffic jumped a 150% on Black Friday and 210% on Cyber Monday last year. Join in the fun by adding a few holiday elements like a wreath to your website. Contractors are typically seen as cold and industrial, break that tendency by decorating your site and social media. If you're having trouble building your social media, tag your friends and family in holiday photos. Their friends and family will see those pictures more often and will be more likely to share them as well. Consider recording a holiday greeting video for your site. Be warm and personal and let customers see into the real people in your business. When a prospect sees happy employees and people they know from the community, they are more likely to do business with you. If your website is not optimized for local traffic it's time to do something about that. More searches and web traffic is being conducted on mobile than ever before. Mobile traffic is increasing 20% to 30% each year, and if your site isn't optimized you are losing that traffic. Change up your phone greeting and include a quick "happy holidays" or "Merry Christmas". Even if it's someone calling to complain, it will be a quick reminder that you are dealing with real people that want the best for their customers. It's kind of ironic that the biggest sales day of the year is the day after Thanksgiving. True thankfulness is a lost idea for most of us. Make it a point to reach out to your customers with a heartfelt gesture and tell them how much it means that they chose you for their business. To many contractors, this seems like a wasted effort, but we've seen this investment pay back the following year in added activity and referrals. Doing something different and unexpected is a good thing and will set you apart. When people feel a connection with you and feel appreciated, they will pay you back with their wallets. It's eight times more expensive to get a new customer or buy one back than it does to simply keep the ones you have active and engaged. Not many contractors will make these adjustments and take the time to create a seasonal offer, because they take added effort. Not many contractors are willing to do what it takes to be as successful as they could be. Long term success doesn't come from doing one big thing right one time, it comes from committing yourself to doing all the little things right on a consistent basis. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a 5-star rating and review in iTunes! Links to Resources Mentioned [email protected] hudsonink.com/holidaycards 800-489-9099