9 Tips from 4 Entrepreneurs: How To Succeed In Holiday Sales (and Beyond)

Tips from business owners who are succeeding online

There’s a lot of small business owners who are doing well online. I love bringing the best practices of successful business owners to you so you can learn all you can – with how to succeed in online marketing. Especially in preparation for the holidays.

These two customers use do it yourself service Weebly for their web site platform.

Paige Curtis, www.thealibiinteriors.com – they reclaim and re-purpose any and all wood because
we can make it beautiful again.

Check out their video story and scroll down for their tips:

1. For a small business, the holiday rush actually starts in September. This is when we inventory needs to be ready for the customer and wholesale orders. Try to get all holiday wholesale orders in by the first week of October so you can give undivided attention to the new orders rolling on your website through Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

2. Introduce one or two new products, but no more than that. First time visitors to your site might feel overwhelmed with too many product choices. You want them to feel focused, not distracted.

3. Also, time your big email blast to the week leading up to Black Friday or Small Business Saturday. Start to build energy and get customers excited about what you are offering. It’s important that you find the sweet spot of landing in their inbox– if you do it too early they will forget about you, if you do it too late, you’ll be lost in the white noise of Black Friday emails.

4. Get your site mobile ready. It’s so important that your site is mobile responsive since the numbers show more and more people are visiting (and purchasing!) on mobile devices than ever before! On our Weebly e-commerce site, the design, products and checkout are all as seamless from mobile as they are on the desktop which allows our customers to shop from anywhere!

5. Be ready to run YOUR site from mobile! This will save you time, headaches and give you more flexibility through the holidays. With our Weebly app we are able to run our small business from our phones and iPad. By checking orders, responding to customers, moving through orders as shipped, pending or returned on my phone, I am able to also enjoy the holiday season and get some Christmas Shopping done without being stuck to my laptop all day. I’ve even been known to run my business from the beach some days!

Video story below and best practices below the story:

1. Start planning months in advance if you want to truly capitalize on this window of spending. That means getting inventory prepped and stocked, introducing new products for the holiday season and hiring extra help so that when Black Friday hits, your business is 100% prepared, not overwhelmed, by the rush in sales.

2. Spend September and October reaching out to editors with Holiday Gift Guides to try and secure product placement for the upcoming season. Send editors a free sample of your product to get them excited about it. If you don’t know who to reach out to, be sure to save any gift guide you come across this year to have a stacked contact list for next year.

3. Have a holiday shopping deal ready to go for Black Friday. Everyone will be looking for a deal and you don’t want to miss out on the money being spent this day. Be ready to have a special promo code. We even do a giveaway to drum up social media activity. By following our business on Facebook or Instagram and leaving your own food pun, you’re automatically entered to win a $100 credit. Utilizing social media to drive people back to your e-commerce store is a great way to drum up business.

4. Email marketing is your best friend through the holidays! Use the email addresses of your previous customers to remind them what your business is up to, what is new and why they should come back to your online store. Promote a sale or giveaway and watch the number of site visitors steadily climb. At Bad Pickle Tees we have a lot of customers who specifically wait and look for sales this weekend, which is why it is our busiest weekend of the year.