Three steps to a great holiday season!

If you’re wondering where to begin your planning this holiday season, here are 3 steps to help you get ready to succeed in this unusual time!

1.       Decide what you’re going to sell

2.       Decide how you’re going to sell it

3.       Let people know

Decide what you’re going to sell

I’ve been talking a lot about re-thinking your product and menu selection to meet the new needs and priorities of today’s post-quarantine consumer.  There’s a good chance what worked last year won’t resonate this year.  Take some time to thoughtfully consider what you need to offer to be relevant this year.

One strategy is to repackage and bundle your offerings in ways that strike a cord with today’s consumer and also generate increased average sale and possibly recurring revenue if offered as a subscription or membership.

Here are a few ideas

Babysitter in a box
Anything to keep kids entertained and happy are sure to be a priority for parents this year.  How can you creatively bundle products or virtual services (i.e. kid’s cooking classes) in a way that will appeal to parents?  By the way, since parents are going to be doing some guilt shopping this season, every category of store and restaurant should consider stocking kid-friendly goods.

Other box or subscription ideas include Happiness in a box, Serenity in a box, etc. that appeal to the sentiments of the day.

Zoom ready looks
Don’t just sell tops, jewelry, makeup or salon services. Promote them as being good choices for all the video conferences we’ve been doing.  Which makeup works best?  What tops are too bold? What kind of jewelry is too much or too little? Which hair styles t enhance your video image? You get the picture.  Even better, why not collaborate with your neighboring businesses to sell complete “waist up” look packages.

Virtual vacations
Restaurants can tap into people’s desire to travel by offering virtual vacation packages including the food, posters, movies, music, virtual tours and décor of a particular country in a complete at home dining experience. This type of package will sell at a premium price and can be sold as a subscription, featuring different countries and cuisines.

Finally, examine your product mix in context of today’s  at-home and socially distanced lifestyle, including the need for home office, home entertainment and unique gifts that express love and thoughtfulness in a world where personal contact cannot.

If you’re wondering what products and services are tops in online search queries in your state, try Thing with Google, a free service that posts tops searches by week, month and year and then even breaks it down by state. It’s free!

https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/feature/category-trends/us/month/en

Decide how you’re going to sell it

Once you figure out how to package your products, the next step is to find new ways to sell it. Typically, retail and restaurant owners have relied on foot traffic as the defining success metric for their businesses. I encourage you to shift that thinking and focus on the sales themselves…understanding they can come from many different places and in many different ways.

Today, you have a variety of channels to enhance your sales and while you don’t have to necessarily become a traditional ecommerce seller, you must explore online sales options and I challenge you to test at least one of these options:

Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS)

Social media flash sales

Facebook/Instagram Shops

E-bay /Amazon

Virtual shows/sales

You can also look to add pop ups, offer co-retailing space and fine tune your curbside pick up program.

3.  Let people know

Step 3 is all about marketing. How can you effectively let people know what you’re doing?”

Think of marketing as the global impact of all the touchpoints of your business. From interior merchandising to high impact windows to outreach through email, social media and any other channels available to you.

With new and exciting offerings, your marketing has to match in tone. Think about Instagram-worthy merchandising, windows that “sell” using QR codes that link to merchandise or menus and high impact social media ads and posts.  We’ll be offering more hints and tips to up your marketing game in future blogs.

This is no time for business as usual. Consumers have been shopping online for 6 months now and it is our job to give them a reason to leave the house and shop local.

Until next time remember,
You can do this!

Angel