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Plan Your Holiday Promotions: What?

So now we want to start planning your holiday promotions, and we're going to work our way through what who, how and when, but I want to start with the what? And I think it's really important to remember that a confused mind always says no remember which book this came from, but it's a business book that I've read a million times, I can tell you that it confused mind always says no, so your holiday marketing should focus on promoting one specific thing at a time, not hey go shot my store for the holidays. That's too vague, it should focus on something really specific either a specific event, so a product launch a sale, a craft show you a new collection. Whatever it is, it should focus on a specific event, or it should focus on highlighting one specific idea great gift item the fact that you do gift cards your holiday shipping deadline, one thing at a time, and so what I want to d'oh is divide the what's of your holiday season, the what are you promoting into two different categories top...

tier promotions and second tier promotions, and the reason for this is that we want to avoid launch fatigue with our audience, so top tier promotions are going to use that awareness anticipation, action, launch cycle, they're going to guide people through but to do and the anticipation part right it's a heavy I usually do it and the serious anticipation phase for about a week and it's a serious week of promoting multiple posts on multiple social media platforms every day all with a clear called action in that this is coming and go join the list if you did that every single week of the year it would burn your audience out it would burn you out it would burn me out on I love market and he didn't burn me out so we want to sprinkle those through our holiday season but then we're also going to come up with our second tier promotions the things that don't need this whole cycle that we could just drop in so let me show you what I mean by that so some examples of top tier promotions a new product launch so someone asked in the previous thing can you launch a new collection or a new product during the holiday season and you can I would keep it earlier in the holiday season rather than later but that can absolutely be attacked your promotion a sale or a special event you're inventing your own holiday you might decide that you know what every year you might not have the advantage that I have of having that october twenty ninth birthday that fits so nicely into the start of the holiday season but you may decide that you I really like november eighth I don't know I just sounds good, so every year I'm gonna make my holiday sale november eighth that's fine I talked to your promotion can also be ah cracked show retail show something like that you know so many people goto a craft show during the holiday season without having done any pre marketing actually, if you wouldn't even outside of the holiday season who's guilty that you show up in a craft show and you figure out just sell stuff and it doesn't always work the same anticipation action cycle can work before a show, so you show sneak peeks you can drive people to your email list because maybe there's a special code that then if they bring it to the show, they get a little gift or free gift wrapping or something simple. You can talk up and get people excited about a retail or craft show the same way you would an online launch so you can use it in exactly the same way so that could be a top tier promotion, but you want to aim for no more than three top tier promotions in a holiday season to avoid that launch fatigue now I'm sure that some of you watching may have more than three crafter retail shows scheduled in the holiday season and that's fine, I would pick a couple of them to focus on for that anticipation tow action sequence don't tryto crazy promote all of them in the same way mention all of them let people know, but don't run through the launch cycle if you're doing a ton of retail shows, you pick the biggest ones and focus on those, but you want to choose no more than three top tier promotions in a holiday season, and if you're new to this and you're starting to feel overwhelmed, I think is happening one is fine pick one big thing that you want to focus on this holiday season and put all of your effort into that, because in addition to these top tier promotions, we're also going to map out your second tier promotions, and these just serve as timely reminders to customers who are already in the purchasing frame of mind. So these are things like here's, a featured product, maybe it's the best seller, maybe it's a great gift item, whatever it is, it might just be I really think this is cool, and I want you to see it. It might be that you have gift cards you don't realize, you know, they don't always know that a small independent maker offers gift cards that could be a second tier promotion, maybe your order deadline this is my shipping deadline, I'm going to promote it, and depending on how early you're shipping, deadline is you could actually make that into a top tier launch, so a shipping deadline could go either way. If you were like I don't want to run a sale, they don't have a new product launch, I need something really big to push and my shipping cut off his early maybe you want to be done on december first. I wouldn't push through that because I'm pretty sure that's pretty close to black friday weekend, but maybe like, I won't be done by december fifth. Make that your top to your promotion this is mike off yours you you're making art quotes years, maybe early you might have a ship a cut off its early if, you know you want to buy this for the holiday season, order has to be in by november first, so you could really make that a big kind of top to your promotion, you know? Maybe just be hey, I'm offering free shipping or we do free gift wrap. It may be something that you do all year. I package all of my jewelry in a gift box tied with a ribbon it's a beautiful box, I do it all year long, it's complementary during the holidays, I usually posed a couple of times on social media and do an email that says, this is what your jewelry comes packaged in over the holiday season. Actually that all year, but I want to remind you that you do not have to wrap it it is ready to go so your second tier promotions become your content for regular e mails if you have a blogger could also put them on blawg posts and you're gonna use these when you're not in the launch cycle so every week instead of being like I don't know what to dio we're gonna schedule one if you have a lot of ideas even two or even three e mails depending on the size of your list, we're just going to schedule these throughout your holiday season, so you always have something that you're promoting so again aimed for one two, three week if you're feeling overwhelmed your list of small if you're not sure one a week is perfect, you sent an email once a week to your list you're doing better than the majority of makers let's be honest, he did it every week for a year you would be doing better than me because even I am bad about it and I know you and I know the importance of it, but this is what we're going to schedule it in our calendar, so what I want you to do now is identify what it is you're going to promote this holiday season and we're gonna do it in two steps, so we're going to d'oh are one to three top tier promotions first and don't worry if you don't quite know when you're gonna pencil them and yet that's okay we're going to get to that I just want to do the what so I want to have you guys share for starters and we'll start with rnc audience in this way if you guys have questions about this process we can answer those as well what is one top tier promotion that you can do this holiday season with the top tier promotion that you khun d'oh sure where I'm going to go with a top tier promotion for the season so what's your focus revenue stream at the beginning we had talked about where you want to focus your energy I want to focus my energy and my online market the fire um so maybe offering um a small gift with purchase if their orders air in by a certain date so making your shipping deadline a really big deal that one could work I think it might be tricky and gift with purchase isn't always great especially here's I'm going to caution you maybe against gift with purchase everybody and their brother this year or maybe just everybody on their sister read the life changing magic of tidying up which is a book about de cluttering so getting an extra thing is actually something a lot of people probably don't want this year and another year to that I'll probably shift but right now that's a lot of people's frame of mind so there might be something else that you can do to incentivize people that's going to trigger them a little bit better kept drop yes ok very welcome just give her everything we have to wrap up up, up until it's great because I should two packages out until think I shipped the last express package out like the twenty second and to send the last year and I would rather not do that or military so when we get to go home with family if I'm shipping and we're trying to pack the car too silly the home just yeah that's right? It sounds miserable exactly so right pick a early ship date that works for you and then really make that you're huge promotional push thing that's perfect a new collection, a new collection great um I would say probably a sailor special event are you thinking like just kind of a nice one day? But if you came talk, invent your own holiday uh actually a bit of a question about that as well, because I also have ah late late mrs and my birthday's in mid september is that a little too little too early to make it a holiday promotion but not so you can't do it, but people aren't quite ready to buy for holiday yet and it could go online, it could go one of it could go one of two ways september I found his, at least for me, typically a slower sales month. I think for a lot of people it's back to school, and you're kind of saving your money as you come into the holidays, so you may find that it boosts your sales in september, but you may also find that doesn't quite give you as much traction as it would another time, so you may be better off waiting and just doing, you know, picking a day and doing an event if you wanted to really be about driving holiday sales so I could, like invent my cat's birthday exactly october and saying, yeah, you're the king of november, whatever is exactly or you could just say, look, this is our annual holiday sale. I think the other thing that's really important to emphasize for people doing a sail and a sale that's happening before black friday weekend is we don't run a sale on black friday or cyber monday, so this is your opportunity to get it and you really want to remind people you know what I don't I don't do this very often, it is a big deal that's really important remember as well. Tap here frio for on extra jar if you order three I don't really want to make a sale on george yeah and I would for a knee book of recipes for the holidays and I think yours so I'm gonna contradiction I told you because I think yours is a case because it's a consumable product where an extra by is that extra product is totally fine because they can either give it to somebody else really easily or they'll just use it themselves so that would make sense because it's something that gets used up um I had a question tio I like the idea of the sample sale could I use that now as a way to build awareness so that if I had in terms of bringing peace bringing people and I get in this summer sample sale maybe to clear inventory to that so because my high idea is a new collection okay? So to clear house so that I could you can absolutely do one now but keep in mind that it's not really actually an awareness building campaign it's more about getting the people that have already been paying attention to you to purchase it's those people who at love you but they've been a little price resistant and they haven't felt the time sensitivity so it it can work and if you're planning on doing another another promotion for holiday I think it's fine to run the sample sale now just know that it's not going to build awareness but it can give you cash flow so that's fine not everything has to be aware of this building, especially if you're looking at that new launch that's ok to do for sure. Uh, just going probably a new product, do you? And you have a target on our star but date yet, but do you have an idea of what the product is? Yeah, I have ah wallet with a little oh, um like a little thing on it so it can hold headphones or a lighter or usb stick. Yeah that's a perfect holiday gift items that's a great thing to launch I'm still trying to wrap my head around this a little different for you that's more service based eso I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to, um, shift my focus on sort of the new year's like you know, book it, book me for your new year's resolution to be more creative in the conference room or in the board room. And the other thing for you that's really important to keep in mind is that you because you've cell b two b and if you deal with businesses who have made a lot of money in fourth quarter, they want to spend some of that money before the year ends so you can get them to buy so they can spend the money in this calendar year to book the event for next calendar year because then it's one less thing they less money they have to pay taxes on so right so pushing a sale for this year for something that's happening in january per perfect thing for you I'm thinking in the launch of the adult coloring book would be great but juvenile hall design is that it's decor and space for kids site so a lot of my customers obviously her parents and I was trying to connect that to the email sign up and I thought maybe ahead of time to d'oh you know if you sign up for the e mails along with that you will get free colorable principles of gift tags which could be efficient because when people have kids and the kids go can I help you rob and you have five hundred extra you know like something for them to do so maybe like speak to that efficiency side of the parents so that can be a thing a good list driver for sure but then is that is that to those come with the sale like the purchase or they come from the left that's from the list just announcing they'll be the coloring book coming okay sort of hollering board itself is your launch exactly yeah andi I think I wonder too because you have such the strong kids tie in is there a way to do a companion product with the adult coloring books so whether that's a smaller kids book you know so it's oh mommy's coloring I want color to a really make it because I think that's something that I haven't seen a lot there's a lot of adult coloring books there's a lot of kids coloring books, who's doing something that actually gives you like a mommy and me coloring books situation that could be a really good article better than just doing gift tags were actually write something right? You give them something to do while you're mommy wants to color and relax your color and racks to wait we coordinate right? We're getting from our online audience that's I mean that's awesome like give me an image of mom and yeah and children sitting around the table doing it together that's it that's brilliant all right, so we have mary are who says I was already planning on a new item launch for mid september so I might push that back a week so that I can hype it up more so that's fantastic learning right here and and then let's see back up molly vanroekel says I get a lot of excitement about my bundles, so I'm thinking that I'll make a bundle for winter holiday items and announce it around the end of october just asking build of anticipation and then remind them by email twice and then release it yeah, I think that's great bill of that anticipation and then and you might do the bundles in a limited quantity so that's something else you know holidays do you build in time sensitivity but if you can dio holiday time sensitivity plus I'm only making so many bundles that could actually double the effectiveness of really getting people to buy fantastic I love us vienna hannah shadow thanks so much guys just change my plans based on the conversation in fear, right? Fantastic all right, so once you identify those one, two, three top tier promotions, then you khun d'oh sixty eight second tier promotions and these air again those very specific, you know, one kind of email one idea, one piece so I'm going to ask you guys to come up with one idea each of a second tier promotion, keeping in mind that really what I mean by second tier promotion is you're sending an email you might also do were related or post the same content on your blogger social media but really what you're doing is you're sending one actionable email eso for me that might be, you know, three necklaces that are perfect ascend to where to a holiday party that's an email that I might send to my list early in the holiday season so they still have time to buy or my favorite pair of earrings for gift giving that's it simple one one idea you know one thing or don't forget we offer gift cards so those are examples of those second tier promotions just to give you a few to start kicking around in your reins. So what is one second tier promotion that you can do this holiday season? Once start, I added, um ornaments my shop last year but they were on ly fiber related ornaments so they were packed with locks from sheep and this year I'm adding a completely like I'm going a completely different direction and I'm going to be doing glitter ornaments to but all of my ornaments are gonna be personalized so um the fiber ornaments will be personalized tio fiber related with a couple different phrases that I have but I plan on sitting um why planned on doing just social media but I really plan now on having an email list and emailing people about the ornaments so that they can get them early and get them on the trees well and it actually sounds to me like because you're launching something new that's a top tier promotion it almost seems like I would flip them for you. So the kind of shipping deadline you wantto keep notifying people about that but that may be more of your second tier promotion and this may become your first your promotion because there's so much to do in terms of anticipation building that one email may not sell it so you could build anticipation, release it, give a deadline because its customs so you have to come in early, so then you give a deadline, and so I think this could actually that could actually become your top tier promotion. Okay, so we'll flip flop you. How about a second here? Yeah, one email highlighting your get dropping. Yeah, gift wrapping with fine, great um, no hard time thinking, but I'm thinking of a custom dry rub. Well, so something like that. I still think it's kind of top tier promotion. You are so built for content marketing that you're because you're really selling one product. Your promotion every week could be a different recipe idea a different way to use it you know howto how to incorporate it into your holiday cooking, making quick order, right exactly so you can really just use content marketing every email is just a different way to use your product, but keep them related to either holiday gift gifting or holiday entertaining, and I don't make it really easy. I encourage people to buy, uh, online gift card code. Perfect. Um, I'm not sure I would think I was thinking of doing something like a email to show with my new product showing what could go inside of it, maybe so that's something that you want to do is part of the anticipation building up to that launch because that's a great idea I think it's fantastic but we want to put it in the right place so then you know you have some other products and you mentioned a product that you could use to hold it get card so that's a great example of something like you out and email is a second tier promotion order these and you could even encourage people to order multiples I know you're buying I know you always buy a lot of gift cards during the holiday season this is a great way to slightly personalize that gift I was thinking maybe doing like the twelve days of christmas but themed like twelve, twelve ways to make a meeting less boring with visuals and like senator that's fantastic yeah that's great um I'm thinking gift wrapped possibly against bag because I think with a coloring book when you get it you're gonna want to flip if you're giving it to someone so possibly like a simple gift bag or something that could go with you something that you could do and it may not be you know they may not feel like a gift bag is needed for that and I also wonder tio in your case if your angle is yes it's gift giving but you could also focus on de stress during the holidays so you know an email about how coloring can actually help relieve your stress, bring you more then and even if you're doing the mommy and me how calm your kids down because everyone knows the kids are crazier, like way more sugar and way more energy and so anything that you could do, I think to create calm for people is a really good holiday selling point, ok, what we're getting online share some from the folks at home we have actually, how about kind of a couple questions in regard to that? How about for digital products? Can we make a special bonus like a free short report or an extra month free on a service or a yearly subscription? What do you see works in that room? So I think any of those could actually work, you know, even things as simple as an extra if you're doing a class you an extra interview with someone of a bonus piece, any of those kind of bonuses can certainly work, but I think again, if you're selling something digital, that is an evergreen product that lasts all year than your second tier promotions to really be about figuring out how to tie it into the holidays, whether that's helping people with the stress, the entertaining, whatever it is or just doing something fun where you're tying it in, you know, the twelve days of, you know, that's great that's perfect, it ties in its nice, so they need about how you can play on the holiday idea a little bit more. It works as well. Great, we have some. This is nancy kaye says I'm in web design, and I think a second tier promotion might be a free holiday image that folks could use on their web site or on social media. It isn't a product, but it alerts to the style of this person. So one of the things that we want to keep in mind with both first year and second tier promotions is that our goal is to sell something so we don't want to give things away is our second tier promotion we want to put in a call to action that gets them to buy? So I think that is a great kind of awareness and anticipation piece, but then what are you selling them? So how can you use a second tier email to sell web design services? So, again, that same time idea of like book now, while you have the cash flow and schedule, you know, well, actually do the design and do the scheduling and do all the things that the higher your brain power in the new year when the holiday season is over. Great couple of questions that could be useful if you offer free shipping is a second tier promo would you recommend that people do something like a minimum order for that or you have you you absolutely can and you know one of the things that I dio is that I use free shipping as an incentive to sign up on my email list but if you spend one hundred twenty five dollars in my online store you automatically get free shipping it's a little bit contradictory but they're targeting two different people so I like to keep my sales order volume high so that's why I do automatic free shipping over soaring level so absolutely you could put that in there and say if you spend x amount then you get free shipping great another quick question from elizabeth berg anson should second tier promotions be completely independent and unrelated to your first year promotions? Yes, because your first hear promotions are all about building anticipation for the launch and the second tier promotions are things that you do when you're not in a launch cycle to drive traffic from your email s so there's always just those quick kind of called action emails and remember I mean I mean emphasize that so we all get the goal of both first and second tier promotions is to sell so what is the reason that they should go back to your shop and buy is there a limit? A question was, how many top tier for motions is too much? I would do no more than three in the holiday season. Yeah, because otherwise you get that launch fatigue, right?