If you’re a small business owner or side hustler who doesn’t have an obvious holiday-friendly product, you can still see an increase in sales in Q4. You just may need to tweak your marketing tactics and your offerings to develop more holiday-specific language or purchase options. Here, we’re looking at a few ways that small businesses using Payable can easily get ready for the holiday rush and take advantage of the season!
Offer gift cards for your services
Many services, from personal training to dog walking to babysitting, make great gifts (and let’s be honest, the gift of a 10-pack for dog-walking is way more personal than yet another scented candle!). Can you make a gift card option to offer your pre-existing customers (or new customers) where they can buy your services as a gift for a friend or family member?
Create holiday basket options
For CSAs or other subscription box delivery services, you may assume that the holidays will be business as usual. But can you offer a bigger ‘holiday bundle’ that contains more festive foods or goodies, or simply increases the quantity as people get ready to host parties and family gatherings? You may not offer holiday themed goodies, but even a basket of produce can be super-sized so your customers have enough salad and roasted veggie supplies to feed their extended family and impress the in-laws.
Offer holiday promos
Here’s the thing: A lot of holiday shopping includes a bit of ‘buy one, get one’ mentality, meaning as you buy gifts for others, you tend to end up buying more for yourself at the same time. BankRate notes that 57 percent of people admit to treating themselves while shopping for others during the holidays. Take advantage of this, and even if what you sell doesn’t lend itself to being purchased as a gift, know that people are on the lookout for a good deal this time of year. (Admit it: How much did you buy for yourself versus others on Black Friday last year?) Buy one, get one half off; discounts on days like Cyber Tuesday or end of year clearances are all easy options.
Think about ways to make your business holiday-friendly
Think laterally about how your product or service can tie in or be tweaked to be more holiday-friendly. Can you repackage your services or products to make them feel more festive? Cleaning services, for example, could add a ‘holiday party cleanup’ option to their roster, or a ‘pre-in-law visit quick clean’ that can ensure a house is ready for guests. There’s nothing new or different that you’re doing within the business, necessarily, you’re just framing it in a way that’s more holiday-friendly.
Use Payable to make holiday parties easier
If you’re hosting a potluck or planning a catered evening with friends, you may be trying to get RSVPs and split the bill. Consider yourself a mini-event planner in this case, and make a Google Form to gather food restriction info and RSVPs, and use the Payable Add-On to actually collect the cash so you’re not shelling out big bucks for catering and then chasing your friends for payments later. (Here’s a step by step guide to making that event Form!)
And no matter what your offering will look like this season, make sure you’ve done an audit of your social media, website and of course, your Payable Google Form to make sure that everything is running smoothly, especially if you haven’t had a high sales volume lately!