The Business-Savvy Guide to Seasonal Selling
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Business-Savvy Guide to Seasonal Selling Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 1 Contents Introduction .............................................................................3 Chapter 1: Saving the right dates ................................. 4 Chapter 3: Putting it into action ..................................15 Top 10 trading dates businesses are Five ways to boost Valentine’s Day sales ................... 16 missing out on ........................................................................6 An insider’s guide to festive ecommerce .................. 18 Top 10 overlooked promotional dates ........................... 7 Top tips for making the most of Black Friday Planning for the year ahead .............................................. 8 and Cyber Monday .............................................................20 Chapter 2: Creating great seasonal campaigns .....10 Eight-step guide to creating timely social media campaigns .................................................................11 Four ways the seasons can boost your online sales .................................................................. 13 Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 2 Introduction The saying “prior planning and preparation prevents poor performance” probably hits home with every small business owner. Charting the ebb and flow of business in advance allows you to deal with peaks and valleys without missing a step. One practical way to structure your business activity is to plan around key dates and popular holidays. This way you can smoothly co-ordinate sales, promotions, marketing, and staffing in advance, alleviating some of the pressure at these busy times and allowing you to better take advantage of time-sensitive opportunities. To give you a sense of how lucrative these opportunities can be, UK shoppers spent a record £5.8 billion between Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016, according to VoucherCodes.co.uk and the Centre for Retail Research (CRR). Within the 24-hours of Black Friday, experts estimate that £1.27 billion was spent. This guide gives you everything you need to assess and identify important trading dates for your business – including some new tricks to help you take advantage of popular selling days throughout the year. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 3 Chapter 1: Saving the right dates Yes, holidays are obvious. They’re highlighted on pretty much every calendar available. However, recurring events and seasonal trends are also valuable to keep in mind. National events, and local events like festivals, music and sports events, conferences and trade shows can be major selling seasons for your business. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 4 Your retail calendar - dates for the diary Use our calendar to help build your seasonal selling plan. January February March April 1st: New Year’s Day 14th: Valentine’s Day 1st: St David’s Day The Grand National January Sales Mother’s Day Easter 17th: St Patrick’s Day The Queen’s Birthday The Budget 23rd: St George’s Day May June July August FA Cup Final The Derby Summer Holidays Summer Holidays Father’s Day Wimbledon September October November December Back to School Golden Week 5th: Bonfire Night Small Business Saturday 31st: Halloween Black Friday 25th: Christmas Day Cyber Monday 26th: Boxing Day 30th: St Andrew’s Day 31st: New Year’s Eve The Autumn Statement Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 5 Top 10 trading dates most businesses are missing The major holidays and selling seasons are obvious, but there are some overlooked ones that savvy businesses should also highlight on their calendars. Tim Holton, Marketing Manager at Uniq Systems, (Sage Strategic Partner for the Sage 200 Suite,) shares his advice and top 10 dates to add to your calendar. The dates that will spring to mind when you think about the annual retail sales calendar will no doubt include Christmas, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Valentine’s Day amongst others. These are all dates when checkout tills and ecommerce sites alike will expect to see a spike in sales. Even if your product offering isn’t directly associated with one of these events, most smart marketing will include some reference to the season. The list of traditionally overlooked dates, though, will depend on your target audience, business type and even your geographic location. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 6 Think local Build credibility What’s happening in your neighbourhood? Thinking locally can bring In the past, the FA Cup and the Budget were considered major “national” an array of opportunities, like local carnivals or musical festivals. Think events. However, with the level of live football coverage and the leaking of carefully about your target market and location. For example, if you run Budget proposals these days, they no longer hold the imagination of the the pub next to the local events field, then festivals are dates not to be public as they once did. overlooked. It doesn’t mean that your potential customers feel the same way though. On the larger scale, if you’re close to major arenas like the NEC in Recognising that these dates are important can give extra credibility to your Birmingham or London’s Wembley stadium, it’s important to keep tabs company when used in the correct way. For example, for the Budget you on any forthcoming events. Date changes for annual events can also might produce a newsletter explaining the key changes that will affect your be critical, for example, with hotel bookings for exhibitors. Focusing on potential customers such as company car tax, changes to stamp duty or the “overlooked” dates – especially local ones – can mean that you’re even the (albeit small) increases in alcohol costs. By positioning yourself as not competing with larger businesses that have multi-million-pound a knowledge expert and being able to communicate these changes to your marketing budgets. The art of being successful is the ability to be flexible audience you can improve your standing in your marketplace. and to understand your market. The FA Cup is an event that brings a great opportunity to be seen supporting your local team – especially if they are facing a larger opponent! It can improve your local credibility and if you support your local team, the locals will be more inclined to support their local retailers, too. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 7 Top 10 overlooked promotional dates 1. People who are paid monthly usually receive payment on the last day of the month. It makes sense to target the weekend immediately after pay day. A Friday pay day like Friday 28th September 2018 is perfect. 2. Along those same lines, those paid bi-weekly enjoy rare occasions where they are paid three times in a month. For example, if someone is paid every other Friday, in August 2018 they might receive payment on August 3rd, 17th, and 31st. This could make them feel like they have extra money to spend, and therefore the 31st of August is an optimal time for a sales promotion. 3. 26th September is the most popular birthday in England and Wales, making the week leading to it an excellent time for a promotion. Think: free gift wrapping! 4. The UK is home to over eight million people who weren’t born in the UK. One of the largest immigrant populations in the UK is the Polish community, and using a Polish national holiday as a reason for a promotion could galvanize a lot of people. One such holiday is the Polish Constitution Day on 3rd May. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 8 5. A potentially controversial opportunity for a 7. Two-thirds of all British people take holiday in July 9. It’s important to remember that when it comes to promotion is 23rd June., the anniversary of Brexit. and August. That makes the first payday weekend religious holidays, there’s more than just Christmas A polarizing historical event like this could incite in July an ideal time to promote souvenir ideas. and Easter. With a large Indian population in the UK, a a political response in the form of consumer 8. Many University Freshers’ weeks start near the promotion celebrating Diwali on the 7th of November influence, prompting higher sales. One thing’s for end of September, making that month a big selling 2018 is a good idea, particularly as gift giving is a large sure: people will take notice of your business. opportunity. While the first week of university part of Diwali. 6. ‘Blue Monday’, the most miserable day of the year, might be synonymous with partying, students 10. When you are focusing on Christmas, ensure you is on the 15th of January in 2018. While debt and receive the first instalment of their maintenance make it clear when your final delivery day is. Not only time away from receiving salary (the Christmas loans within 72 hours of registering, resulting in does it mean customers get their gifts in time for holiday can be a long break between paydays), the rare event that there are large numbers of the big day, it adds a sense of urgency – hopefully may not at first seem conducive to encouraging students with money to spend. spurring them on to buy. You could even add free retail spending, it may be an untapped opportunity Christmas delivery to offer that extra incentive. for businesses who could promote the preceding weekend as a way to use retail therapy to remedy the misery. Ultimate guide to seasonal selling 9 Planning for the year ahead Once you’ve identified the key dates for your business you’ll need to make sure you’re planning ahead so you have marketing campaigns, special offers and stock ready to go. Here’s what you should be doing when for some of the key annual trading dates. December/January June September This is your time to be making the most of the new year sales. You should start planning for Father’s Day in early June, It’s time to ramp up your Christmas marketing strategy during Think about special offers and discounts to get the last of the including getting your search keywords in place.