Everest Business Funding Highlights Mistakes to Avoid When Launching Holiday-Themed Promotions

Only once a year, businesses have the opportunity to boost sales as the gift-giving events of the holiday season start to unravel. This process to elevate cash flow at the end of the year often involves launching a holiday promotion, which many businesses plan for ahead of time as one of their annual objectives. Unfortunately, not all holiday promotions are successful, and Everest Business Funding is here to help businesses identify where past promotions might have gone wrong by highlighting these avoidable mistakes while planning a holiday-themed promotion:

1. Planning Too Late

One big mistake that could ruin a promotion for the holiday season is planning a campaign too late. Yes, many people have the habit of last-minute gift shopping for their family and friends. Still, to truly catch the entire wave of gift buying, promotions and preparations should be completed and ready to run around late October, when people start researching holiday gifts.

2. Not Budgeting Enough for Advertising

Even if a company has created the perfect holiday promotion, it means nothing until it reaches consumers. Budgeting enough for paid adverting helps get campaigns within the view of targeted consumers and new customers. The timing of when a paid advertisement runs matters, too, and can be best determined by marketing research and staying ahead of competitors.

3. Not Preparing for the Increase in Sales

Running a holiday-themed promotion and then crossing your fingers to hope for the best is a way to set a business up for sale failure. Promotions, when executed correctly, increase sales. If a company does not hire enough seasonal hands or have a process ready to tackle high-volume orders, the value of the promotion to the business’s success is decreased.

If sales are mainly made through an online platform, businesses should ensure their website is ready for increased traffic to avoid any website crashes leading to unhappy customers. Running out of inventory is also a recipe for unsatisfied consumers on gift-giving timelines, so companies should make sure they are well stocked for the holiday rush with product inventory as well as packaging needs.

4. Unavailable Customer Support

Sometimes even the most prepared run into problems, which is why having enough helping hands to handle readily available customer support after running a holiday-themed promotion is critical. Customers are typically in a rush to get holiday shopping nipped in the bud, so having a live chat or support line accessible to meet consumer needs boosts brand reputation and reliability.

5. Assuming Customers Celebrate the Same Holiday

Businesses need to know their consumers before running a specific holiday-themed ad. Rather than assuming that everyone only celebrates the two major holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, an organization should do in-depth marketing research to determine what their consumers celebrate and how they can incorporate more sensitivity in promotional messaging.

6. Infusing Guilt into Marketing

Holiday-themed campaigns should not involve guilt-tripping consumers into buying a brand’s goods. A brand’s reputation can greatly suffer long-term if guilty marketing heavily influences a holiday promotion. On the other hand, a slam-dunk promotion draws in sales by clearly showing consumers the uniqueness of a product and adding positive value to the purchase.

About Everest Business Funding

Everest Business Funding is a small business owner’s trusted partner. They support entrepreneurs by providing them with working capital to expand their business and operations. The entire application, approval, and funding process is completed in record time. When you need cash for equipment, staff, renovations, inventory, marketing, or anything else, Everest Business Funding can help.