The holiday season (quarter 4) is the most profitable time for both big and small businesses. A great way to increase sales for the upcoming year is by applying new marketing efforts to drive potential customers to your online store.
Would you like to make more money this holiday season selling your art and handmade crafts?
Are you interested in reaching new customers that will purchase from you again next year?
Do you have a plan?
If you don’t have a marketing plan, don’t worry. We have you covered. This post will share how to create a holiday marketing plan to increase sales this upcoming holiday season.
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What Is Q4
Q4 (quarter four) is the last quarter of a fiscal year for organizations and corporations. A third of the U.S. small businesses claim that the fourth quarter is the most profitable time of the year.
Both mortar stores and online stores can increase their revenue by developing an effective holiday marketing strategy. The companies that shine are the ones who have devoted time to improving their holiday marketing plans.
How To Create A Holiday Marketing Plan For Artists And Crafters
You probably already know that more people are purchasing products online than ever before. In 2018, Cyber Monday generated 7.9 billion dollars in sales and became the biggest online shopping day in U.S. history.
So what does this mean for art businesses?
It means that if you develop a plan now and implement a holiday promotion, you can increase your holiday sales.
The next few months could become the most profitable time of the year for you.
The obstacle you will be facing is that every other artist and crafter selling products online will be working towards the same goal. They are expecting to sell more art and handmade crafts this holiday season too.
To become successful this holiday season, you have to produce a clear action plan for the months to come, and you will have to start now.
Waiting till the last minute will only have you wish you started planning sooner.
Schedule a few minutes to create a holiday campaign for your business this week to prevent this from happening.
Below are some tips to help you create a holiday marketing plan that will produce tangible results.
Holiday Marketing Creating Timeline
The best way to get started is to write down some of the biggest selling days for the upcoming holidays, like Cyber Monday and Black Friday.
Here are some other shopping occasions you might want to consider focusing on:
October:
- 14th Canadian Thanksgiving – If you live in Canida or offer international shipping
- 31st Halloween
November:
- 28th U.S. Thanksgiving
- 29th Black Friday
- 30th Small Business Saturday
December:
- 2nd Cyber Monday
- 9th Green Monday
- 17th Free Shipping Day
- 22-30th Hanukkah
- 24th Christmas Eve
- 25th Christmas
- 26th Boxing Day
- 31st – New Years Eve
Highlight which dates you will be focusing on and research or ask your shipping service the cut-off dates for delivery.
You will also want to look into the cut-off dates for POD services if you use a print-on-demand service like Printful.
The cut-off dates will be when your customers purchase their products to receive them for their festivities.
We suggest making the cut-off date 2-3 days before what is recommended by the services you are using in case there is a problem on their end. Your holiday shoppers would be contacting you, not the post office, if they did not receive their holiday gifts in time.
All cut-off dates should be posted on your website, social media accounts and sent in a newsletter to inspire potential buyers to make a purchase sooner than later.
What Are Your Holiday Specials
The next step is to decide what you will be promoting and what sales you will be offering for the holidays you are focusing on.
Different Special Options:
- Free Shipping
- Discount
- Giveaway
- Contest
- Discount To VIP Customers
- Promo Codes
After you have decided what type of sales you will be offering, you will want to determine what products you will be promoting.
You might want to:
- Promote your best selling art prints
- Holiday crafts
- Slow-moving items
- Original art that did not sell over the past year
- Crafts that did not sell during the craft fairs
- New artwork
- New craft designs
Related Resource: 7 Tips That Will Sell Your Art Online This Holiday Season
Prepare Your Website
Prepare your artist website for the specials you are going to be offering.
Schedule some time during the next week or two to prepare your online store for the holidays.
- Create discounts
- Create coupon codes
- Create abandoned cart recovery emails
- Create Exit Pop-ups
- Post Deadlines
Preparing now will allow you enough time to fix any bugs that might arise.
Double Check Website Shopping Areas
Schedule some time within the next couple of weeks to ensure that your website is up to date and working correctly.
Proofread:
- Product descriptions
- Store policies
- Contact information
- About Me Page
- Subscription forms
If you notice that something needs attention, fix the problem right then.
Procrastinating on important tasks will lower your sales and increase unnecessary stress. Working on your website today will ensure that the holiday shopping season will run smoothly.
Create a Social Media Strategy
Now is the time to create a social media marketing strategy.
Popular Social Media Networks:
- Create all of the images and content for the posts you will be publishing over the holidays.
- Creating posts now will save you a lot of headaches in the upcoming months and prevent you from posting content you did not want to post.
- Create a calendar for each social media network and write down when you will be posting specific posts.
Take advantage of scheduling tools like Tailwind. Tailwind makes it easy to schedule all of your Pinterest Pins and Instagram posts for three or four months in advance. Planning social media posts ahead of time will free up time for essential things like packaging and shipping all of the items you are selling.
One of the best holiday marketing tips we can share is to get as much work done now as you can to focus on customer service and creating art for the next few months.
If you find it challenging to create social media ads and posts, hire someone from Fiverr. Fiverr has specialists who could help you create social media ads and posts for reasonable costs. Social media platforms are an excellent tool for promoting your brand, but they can eat up a lot of your time with little returns if you do not know what you’re doing. It is best to let the professionals do what they do best, so you can focus on creating great art.
Holiday Newsletters
Designing an email marketing campaign is a great way to sell new holiday products to people who purchased from you last year.
The customers who subscribed to your email list are the ones that will be more willing to purchase your products this holiday season. They gave you their email because they admire your artwork and handmade gifts.
Create a holiday newsletter strategy that will remind them that you have the perfect gifts for their friends and family. You might want to encourage them to purchase by giving them a special holiday offer because they signed up for your newsletters.
Creating the upcoming newsletters now will save you a tremendous amount of time for the forthcoming months.
Holiday Newsletter Ideas:
- The offer of the week
- Order deadlines
- Upcoming sales Preview
- Gift guide
- Free shipping deadlines
- New Products
Popular Email Marketing Online Tutorials:
Getting Started with Email Marketing | Learn with Mailchimp
Email Marketing Essentials: Designing Effective Emails
Email Marketing: How to Build an Effective Strategy for Your Company
Previous Holiday Marketing Campaigns
The best way to drive traffic to your online art gallery is by studying what worked and what didn’t work last year. Analyzing previous year’s marketing materials will show you what your best moves are for the upcoming holidays.
When you develop new holiday marketing strategies, start by filling your holiday marketing calendar with tactics that produce positive results. Discard any strategy that didn’t work and try to come up with new plans you can implement.
Final Thoughts On Holiday Marketing Plan For Artists
Taking the time to create a holiday marketing plan now will help you to sell more this holiday season.
The strategies outlined above have helped many artists have successful holiday seasons. The critical thing to remember is that holiday marketing ideas are meant for producing more sales. Not every idea you come up with will give you positive results. The only way to design better marketing plans that will increase holiday art sales is by using strategies that have been proven to work from the past and developing new marketing campaigns.
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