Holiday Marketing Ideas 2021 (Podcast Episode)

Happy holidays!

This year, like every year, small business owners approach me with this question:

“Should I market my business during the holidays?”

The short answer? YES!

The long answer? This week’s podcast episode goes in-depth on what EXACTLY every small business can be doing during this busy time of year to stand out against the competition and create momentum for 2022…

You can also listen to this podcast on Buzzsprout, Spotify, and PlayerFM! Subscribe to get notifications for future episodes!

Here’s the transcription below of today’s episode, a conversation between our Director of Multimedia Content, Peyton, and Desiree, PostcardMania’s Vice President of VIP  Clients and Client Marketing:

Note: This transcription has been edited slightly for clarity.

Peyton: Welcome back to Small Business Owners of America Marketing Edition. My name is Peyton, your host, and we interrupt your current marketing tips and tricks with a podcast about different ways small businesses can make the most of the holiday season.

Holiday Promotion Ideas for Small Businesses

‘Tis the season to take advantage of the holidays. The holiday season is ripe with business opportunities, no matter what kind of industry you hail from. During the holiday season, there’s a surge in demand for products and services as consumers are buying not only for themselves but others as well.

This increase in demand means consumers are actively looking to buy more than other times of the year. There tends to be more window shopping. This surge in demand poses an opportunity — keyword “opportunity” — for small businesses and consumers who have never tried or heard of your products or services before.

So to talk about ways small businesses can make the most of the holiday season, I’m here with Desiree. She’s worked at PostcardMania for over 10 years and she is our VP of VIP clients and client marketing. Hi.

Desiree: Hi.

Peyton: How’s it going?

Desiree: Good.

Peyton: So we’re going to talk about some key tips small businesses can take advantage of for the holiday season. So my first question is, seeing that there are so many holidays coming up, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, New Years, it goes on and on. How do I choose one or do I take advantage of all of these holidays?

Desiree: So I would definitely say that you want to take advantage of all of the holidays. If you have a product or service that a consumer would need or want that you can give a great offer on for Black Friday, or Christmas, or coming into the New Year, you definitely want to do that.

Christmas Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Desiree: So that could be retail products. A lot of industries might market for fitness and coming up in the New Year, and they’ll do discounted rates for (fitness deals), and they’ll push those promotions on Cyber Monday.

(The holidays aren’t) just for those types of businesses where it makes sense to market specifically for the holiday season. You should market in those holiday months regardless of the business type you have or whatever industry you may be in. So for example, dental will want to push using dental benefits before they expire before the end of the year to get prospective new patients to take advantage of that.

So don’t not market because everything’s so holiday-focused. If you have a business that maybe isn’t retail, still definitely market during those months.

Peyton: Keep marketing, everyone!

Desiree: Always.

Peyton: Always. Now, what platform should I use to market for the holidays? Should it be a specific one or should I be doing it everywhere?

Desiree: My rule of thumb is the more channels you can put yourself on and make yourself available on, the better. So I suggest direct mail, with Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, and Gmail. We offer all of those platforms in our Everywhere Small Business packages, so you can have that multi-channel marketing effect and get your products everywhere, essentially.

Peyton: Right. Just get as many eyes as possible on your holiday deals and your holiday offers. I’m going to segue into how can I utilize that platform to optimize and make the most of the holidays? Do I target certain people? Or do I do the same target audience?

Desiree: Ideally, if you’re tying holiday marketing into your direct mail campaign, we can upload that mailing list to social media, so that the same ideal target demographic is seeing your ads digitally on their social media or Instagram or on YouTube as well as in their mailbox. So that way you have an opportunity to make thousands of impressions in between them getting a tangible mail piece in the mail.

Peyton: Right, and if you guys are listening and you haven’t listened to our podcast episode about “How to Find the Right Target Audience”, go back and listen to that so you can understand fully how to get the most out of targeting your audience when you’re marketing.

Now, say I’m a small business and I’m on the fence about, marketing during the holidays. How much time and money does this take? Does this take a lot of time for me to do? Or is this just something that can go along with my normal marketing?

Desiree: I always suggest increasing your marketing at any time during the year, but no matter what the key is that you do continue marketing. So you can obviously use a company like PostcardMania to maintain this pace.

We could handle everything for you and make it really easy, take it off your plate, and just kind of get it set and go. You, of course, can also do this yourself. At the end of the day, any way that you can get your business in front of your potential clients is what we want to help you with. So whether you’re utilizing us to do it or you’re just taking our marketing tips and tricks to do it yourself, you want to continue to market — always.

Peyton: And that’s the key. Always keep marketing. Don’t stop, you guys!

Desiree: Don’t stop won’t stop!

Peyton: Exactly. What’s one simple way that the smallest business can take advantage of the holiday season?

Holiday Promotion Examples

Desiree: Gosh, I would just say promote yourself. I wouldn’t just say, “Oh, utilize one specific platform or one different avenue.” It’s really whatever you can give.

If you’re not going to do it, your competition is, and that’s gonna be a disadvantage for you. So don’t think, “Oh, people are only focused on the holidays in certain ways.” They’re in buying mode, period. So whether that’s for presents, or it’s to use up dental benefits, or it’s to snowplow. Any industry can continue to do something. So I just feel like as long as you’re doing something, that would be my take. Just anything.

Peyton: Anything. I know you’ve given me examples of a dental office and retail. Can you give me some examples of some offers that are good to use? Or that you’ve seen used and have been successful in the past?

Desiree: Sure! So I have retail clients that will do a percentage off (of price). I’m sure that’s pretty common across that industry as a whole. So being a bit more aggressive, maybe doing 20% versus the normal 10% that you would promote during the year, do something a little bit more. Or give something away for free with that product or service.

So it could be, “Commit to 11 months of lawn maintenance and get one month free.” So just give them something a little bit more than what you would maybe normally give during the year.

Peyton: Right. Now, can you tell me if there are any businesses out there that shouldn’t market during the holidays?

Desiree: Hard no. Every single business should market no matter what time of the year it is.

So if you’re in insurance every month, a homeowner’s policy is expiring and needs renewal, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be mailing or marketing to that potential new client. Dental, you want to market for dental benefits. Jewelry, obviously, it’s the holidays. Taxes, they’re coming up. The tax industry will start to mail out postcards at the end of November, December and get ahead for January. So there really isn’t any industry or any type of business where it makes sense to stop marketing for any reason, ever.

Peyton: Right, one more time for you guys — market (your business) always.

Peyton: I just learned recently that you can download or create a holiday calendar, and it’ll tell you when tax season is when people are gonna get their tax returns?

Desiree: Exactly.

Peyton: It will tell you when people’s insurance is running out, it’ll tell you all the commercial holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s day, etc. I can use that to my benefit, as well!

I’m the Director of Multimedia Content, so I do a lot of social media stuff. Oh, maybe I should make a cute little Thanksgiving post, or maybe since Veterans Day is coming up, maybe I should say thank you to all of those who serve.

It’s to keep ideas on the back burner, to look at it and every now and then and be like, “Maybe I’ll do a post gears towards that.” I do think printing a calendar is an easy way you can stay ahead of the holidays. I know it can get overwhelming sometimes, but it’s an easier way to stay ahead.

Desiree: Yeah, absolutely.

Peyton: Do you have any other advice that you would like to give?

Desiree: I would just say be consistent. If you’re already consistent throughout the year, there’s no reason to stop during the holidays. Definitely do anything you can to maybe take advantage of the holidays and just position yourself geared around the holiday market. But either way, do something. Don’t stop. Because somebody else won’t and they’re gonna be taking your clients.

Peyton: Right. Thank you so much for joining me today, Desiree. This was such an enlightening episode for me. We are going to have a link for you in the description of ways that you can find the right offers for your company. As always, follow us on postcardmania.com. We have a ton of case studies about how our small businesses have had success in the past. We even have some examples of holiday postcards that have been extra successful, including Everywhere Small Business case studies. You can also hit up our social media, @postcardmania on Instagram and PostcardMania on Facebook. Have a happy holiday season, you all!