Marketing and Business 101

Seasonal Marketing Ideas

OK, this is coming out after the seasons, so you'll just have to save it for a year.  You can do that, Right?

Send Thanksgiving Day cards, not Christmas cards. 

 First, not all your customers celebrate Christmas but they most likely do honor Thanksgiving, so you avoid any religious faux pas. Second, people don't get many Thanksgiving cards so a card sent then will stand out much more than a Christmas card. This way you let people know you are thinking of them without as much likelihood of being overlooked in a pile of Christmas cards.

I would like to suggest a different type of marketing for you this coming Holiday Season. Close to either Thanksgiving or Christmas have an Open House and invite all your customers – especially business customers – in to see your operation. Actually, I would also invite some non-customers as well: the major business prospects you'd like to have; network consultants; web developers; vendors; reporters; your accountant; and your banker.  (Those were the people I invited to my first open house.)

It is a great way to humanize your business. Your customers and prospects may never get a chance to see you, all they might get is just a voice on the other end of the phone, but with an Open House they get to see the faces behind the service. 

That's very important to many individuals.

Have the event on a Friday from 1:00 to 6:00, that way people are more apt to attend. They can leave work a little early, stop by for some free snacks, say hello and then go about their business. Invite everyone, only a small percentage will actually show up. Those that do come by should be given the royal treatment and made to feel very special. After all, they could generate a lot of good will and business for you, so make nice with everyone. Give them a tour of your facility and introduce them to staff.

Yes, it is going to cost you a little money, but all marketing costs something. You can buy party platters from the grocery, pick up several different kinds of soda, plenty of ice, cups, plates, plastic eating utensils, and napkins.

Gifts for those individuals or businesses that are your very best customers or who refer a lot of business to you might be appropriate, but should be personally delivered by you to the recipient.  If you give it at the open house those who don't get a gift will feel slighted.

Once you start the practice of giving gifts you can never stop the gift-giving practice without looking like a no-good jerk.  So only give it to those who generate the most business, (80%), for your firm.

Also, next years gift must be of equal or higher perceived value. Great emphasis on the concept of perceived value. It doesn't matter that you spend as much next year, but it must look like you spent as much as this year.

Order the gifts early, you never know what can happen.  One year a major earthquake hit a supplier I was using, and he was down for about two weeks.  Fortunately, it wasn't for a Christmas present and the delay didn't impact me.