Is Your Business Ready for 2011?

Planning ahead is a great practice for your small business design. It’s never too early to start thinking about the fiscal year. You’re starting over again, so why not make 2011 the biggest year for your business yet? Get your marketing calendar up and running.

Holiday time for ecommerce websites can mean big sales. With one major spending holiday a little less than a month away, is your small business ready to cater to the needs of your clients? We talked last year about preparing newsletters for your business to let potential customers know what you’ll be offering, and there is no better time to get those sent out than before a holiday. How do you know when you need to get these promotional deals and newsletters sent out in time? A lot of it depends on the holiday in question. Valentine’s Day is the next big holiday in the United States. Typically, people are buying Valentine’s gifts for their loved ones within two weeks of the holiday. This usually isn’t great for businesses looking sell their products online, because customers feel rushed and often don’t want to pay top dollar for express shipping to make sure they get their packages on time. What you can do as a business is get a newsletter to your client list as soon as you can. This gets the holiday in their mind, so they’re likely to start shopping sooner. Prepare smaller holiday deals and newsletters about a 3-4 weeks ahead of the event. How do you know what constitutes a smaller holiday? It’s basically everything except Christmas and Hanukah.

Also, for those who order their online gifts within two weeks of the event, guarantee on-time delivery if you can. It’s going to make them feel more comfortable if they know they’ll get their purchase on time. As mentioned before, people don’t like paying extra for express shipping, but you can sweeten the deal by offering free shipping (guaranteed to arrive by the holiday) if a patron purchases over a certain amount. People love that option. They’ll order extra goods that appease them if they know it will save them on shipping.

As for the big holiday shopping season….start getting ready in summer. People are taking their money online more than ever as soon as Black Friday arrives. People no longer wish to deal with early hours, traffic and chaos in the stores to get deals. Multiple newsletters advertising the holiday deals by your small business will keep your company in the minds of online shoppers. You can send a holiday newsletter as early as October. Just remember to send reminders a few times before your sale closes out. You don’t need to send an email out every week until Christmas, but consider making an email to send out in the first week of October, November and December. Be sure to send a small reminder email out during the last week customers can take advantage of your sales.

More and more people are turning to their internet to help them with all of their shopping needs. 2010 had record numbers for internet spending and now in addition to Black Friday deals, they’ve introduced Cyber Monday. Get your marketing calendar ahead of time so you can be prepared to make the most out of your small business during the various holiday seasons.

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