How To Increase Sales Post The Holiday Season

A number of small business owners dread the months of February and March. Christmas and New Year spending is over and customers are trying to recover from their holiday splurging.

As a vigilant small business owner, can you look at these months in a different way? Can you look at these months as your opportunity to try out newer things? Like any other business, you may also have benefitted from the holiday season. Would you not want to be a little more aggressive and look at expanding your customer base? Can you use this as an occasion to play on the goodwill that you have created and convert your new customers into repeat clients?

Here are a few tips that can enable you to increase your sales during the traditionally slower months:

Nurture your brand

It does not matter whether you are a cafe, a jeweler or a network marketer; you need to cultivate your image and then nurture it as well. . Can you do something that enables you to capitalize on your growing brand awareness and also helps in creating your footprint? Can you become a little more active in your community? How about a little public service from the holiday revenue you have earned? Would you want to get more visible online by posting a fun video talking about your new business strategy, or better still doing an entire video series?

The way you deal with your customers and clients speaks volumes about the way your business will flourish!

You have always heard customers come first. Is it any different for you as a small business owner? Yes, it is! It is a greater opportunity! The big box stores that you see are generally perceived as faceless organizations, because they would hardly personalize stuff for their customers. Can you beat them as a small business even if they have a more competitive pricing strategy? Well, definitely yes. Focus on relationship building. Figure out through your conversation what is the customer really looking for: for example, for retail sales, would he want to give the item he is purchasing as a gift?

You could offer a gift wrapping opportunity at this point! Is this purchase going to be for his little child’s theme party? Probably, you have more stuff that can be given away in this party. Can you offer a deal on the purchase, if not complimentary purchase? The idea here is not to think about how to increase sales at this point; the only thing you should be thinking about is how your products can benefit your customers. Your genuineness will be evident from your speech and actions. Customers can make out if you are being truly authentic or are just trying to boost your sales.

Advertising is important, but more important is the right kind of advertising:

True! This is the time when you can ditch the more costly modes of advertising for something that is more impactful and gets you enough coverage. How about offering some deals through partnering with Groupon? You do have enough coverage on the social media. How about building in some more innovation there? Can you generate some referrals through your Facebook page? You can learn how to build business on Facebook here. Can you offer a discount coupon to an existing customer who gets another referral? Wouldn’t that help you maximize your impact? Your existing customer gets a discount coupon on his next purchase – you have provided him an opportunity to purchase from you again and he also gets a referral for your business – you have a brand new customer! You could also put up a kiosk in your premises and use it for capturing customer feedback and referral data. If you are an online business, create a feedback form and gather data in this way.

Use the power of 80-20 rule:

You have heard it all – 20% of your products lead to 80% of your sales or would you want to say 20% of your customers lead to 80% of your profits. Have you identified this group? Are you aware of these 20% products? Look at the options that you already have. Do you want to experiment by introducing new items and evaluating the outcome? Does this new item have the potential to become your top 20%? How about running a coffee week or a spa day contest? Letting your existing customers know about these themed weeks during the slump will not only help in boosting sales, it will also enable you in identifying your top 20% that you can lay special focus on in the months to come.

Your slow moving products have to get out of your store too. These are your 80% products. How about some deals on eBay that help you clear the traffic? You can even team these up with your existing products. You have purchased a laptop and received the printer free of charge. Can you try selling a necklace and offering a 20% discount on bangles?

The power of mobile payments

Mobile payments can make life a lot easy for you and your customers. Use this traditionally slower period to integrate this technology into your business and understand how to build this into your business. Imagine how much customer satisfaction and efficiency can a mobile payment methodology bring into your business?

By not allowing the post-holiday stagnation to get in your way and viewing this lean period as an opportunity to generate more sales through innovative marketing and efficient customer management, you can ensure you emerge as a winner this summer!