Your Holiday Marketing Plan

The holidays are just around the corner, and for a lot of marketers, this is the season that makes or breaks the entire year's sales. If this includes you, make sure you have a plan in place to reach out to likely buyers of your product or service and offer them value as they decide what to give to their loved ones.

Of course, the holidays are primarily (at least idealistically) a season themed on the spiritual. Yet let's face it, they have also become the most potent time of the year for giving, and many gifts revolve around life's necessities for those you love. Dad needs a new winter coat, little Jimmy needs some socks and a new pair of kicks, you get the drift.

While practical gifts may be, well, practical, you should also think about price points. What great gifts do you offer for $10? $100? $500? Folks have all different budgets. Make sure you can accommodate both on-budget and over-the-top.

Regardless of what you sell, if it can be given as a gift you need to plan your marketing accordingly. Plan your signage carefully to put gift ideas into the minds of potential givers. Think through your week-by-week sales or special offers, as well as how you will use mail, advertising and other ways to reach out and communicate those specials to prospects. Consider even announcing your sale schedule ahead of time, to lock a purchase into the minds of buyers so they don't go somewhere else. Another idea: Offer a free gift with purchase. It's a great way to enable a gift purchaser to fulfill an office Secret Santa, for example.

Whether your business is retail or business-to-business, here are three points you should keep in mind, regardless of your business:

• Send holiday greetings to customers
• Don't forget to ask how clients are doing
• Tap into year-end budgets

For further reading, we found the holiday marketing tips to be helpful: Low Cost Holiday Marketing Tip Sheet.

Finally, a great promotion is to promote giving. Put your money where your heart is and give a donation for every purchase of an item, or even any item.

You know best what strategies will work to bring in consumers this holiday season. Put a plan in place now so that over the coming weeks, you reach those consumers with great products and good value. Such efforts begin with communication. What's your communication plan?