A Solopreneur’s Guide to Holiday Marketing This Winter

A solopreneur is that brave human that went into it alone, and at this time of the year, courageously has to take on quite a lot of tasks in the busy holiday season. The trick to holiday marketing is really about having the right tools and being extra efficient with the strategy.

Instead of opting for every imaginable trick in the book for holiday marketing, we’ll help you focus and show you how you can do it all on your own whether you’re a solopreneur, or simply a small business owner that has to take care of holiday marketing as well.

It’s simply impossible to work in all directions for holiday marketing. You need to focus on efficiency which means opting for 1 solid holiday campaign and impeccable email marketing skills to sit back and watch sales. Alright, you should also ideally give your social media pages a makeover, but we’ll give you all the tools you’ll need in this article as well as tips and ideas to handle this busy holiday period on your own.

Inspiration:

Spread the joy, but also make the most of a holiday that drives sales.

Main strategy ingredients for holiday marketing:

To help you focus, grasp the key things you need to keep in mind and work on this holiday season. You can pick and choose, but this is pretty much everything you’ll need if you’re working alone.

• Give your social media accounts a proper makeover
• Use social media to spread the joy, not crunch numbers
• Work on one main holiday campaign to save time
• Send effective holiday emails
• A no-stress Christmas contest
• Work with analytics to improve your holiday marketing strategy for next year

7 holiday marketing ideas – 2018 edition

There’s no time like Christmas to try new things. Keep in mind  your capabilities of handling orders if the demand is higher than usual. The main cause of stress is inability to deal with inventory, but also starting late.

Get a head start this year, and measure up what you can realistically achieve if you’re a devoted solopreneur. Here are some ideas and inspiration from other holiday campaigns to get you started:

1. One main holiday campaign to drive sales

First things first, determine how you can offer your product or service as a holiday gift or if it can make for a special holiday offer. If you’re offering services, it can be a gift certificate (for example). If you have a product, find an angle to make it a holiday special.

Next, single out the benefit of your product or services this holiday season. Help clients understand why they need a certain product or service, how it can help them or why it might make for a great gift.

Budle what you can into a deal. People love getting their money’s worth of products. It’s especially true for the holiday season when people are looking to spend not only on themselves but on their loved ones. If you bundle some things together, you’re offering both value and savings. A win-win for holiday gift ideas.

Dollar Shave Club – The perfect gift for almost everyone

2. Giving influencer marketing a shot

When you’re a small business, you have good chances of getting listed on holiday gift guides from influencers. What this will require from your behalf is contacting micro-influencers and bloggers in a relevant industry, giving them a free sample of your product or crafting a good pitch of your offered services.

This is a great idea because it helps you reach new audiences but it’s also a great opportunity to network and work on other projects throughout the year. Influencer marketing is big this year and will continue to be influential in 2019. Find individuals that are genuinely interested in your industry, and test this approach for your holiday marketing this year.

Macy’s campaign #macyslove

3. Find a cause and advocate for it

An important question every business owner has to ask themselves is what are your brand ethics? What kinds of causes would you like to support and can you integrate this into your marketing? During the holidays,  people are also eager to give good tidings to those in need. It’s a sentimental holiday and a good opportunity for you to advocate for a great cause.

People are in the holiday spirit, so you can tie in your holiday marketing with a charitable element during promotion. You can partner up with a brand for a good cause or go into it alone. As an option, mention that part of the holiday earnings will go towards a charitable event or some community you work closely with. In the process, you might find new customers but also spread the joy to those in need.

TD Bank #MakeTodayMatter

4. Easy giveaway on social media

Everyone is on the lookout for the perfect gifts. With a well thought out social media campaign with a giveaway, you can generate a ton of activity. Invite people to participate, ask them to follow you on all your brand social media accounts, give you a shoutout and other details that you think are important and will help you with  promotion.

Ask people to tag their friends to increase their chances of winning. This idea may take quite a bit of planning and organization, but you can do it! People love giveaways and you can simplify the process by stating specific guidelines depending on your goals for this year’s holiday marketing.

The Body Shop’s #TBSwishlist Giveaway Contest

5. Connect with happy customers for UGC

Word of mouth marketing is now UGC focused, and remains a powerful tool for spreading the word about your business. You can make the most of UGC and connect with your network and followers to help promote your product this way.

It’s the holiday season, so keep things lighthearted and inspire creativity. Ask people to incorporate your product into their social media posts with a relevant hashtag you’re using for holiday marketing this year.

L.L.Beane #12DaysofPuppies

6. Social media makeover for the holiday season

With tools like Crello, you can create really fun visuals for social media covers, emails and advertising in general. No matter how small your business, you can make little tweaks to your social media accounts to show your holiday spirit this year.

It’s also a good way to show off your brand personality through a specific design style. Consumers appreciate this kind of attention to detail. On top of this, you can create thematic holiday emails just by designing a simple email cover. Take tips from brands and their email headers here.

Crello’s social media makeover

7. Holiday marketing email blast

Based on point 1, and once you have a solid plan for what you’re promoting this holiday season and what the focus of your holiday marketing efforts is, you can tailor emails to send out to your mailing list. Be sure to pay extra attention to email design by only giving the most important information about your holiday offers this year.

If you already have a mailing list and a solid holiday marketing plan, the only pressure is the design of your letter. Our practice shows that you should keep text to the minium, focus on a well designed layout and a CTA – all of this is enough to get people to take action on a great deal.

Emails? Keep it simple like Tailorbrands

Most importantly: Don’t get overwhelmed…

We touched on all the basics that are completely doable for solopreneurs this holiday season. Holiday marketing doesn’t have to be a burden or an immeasurable amount of work. Keep things light, offer the perks of your products or services in light of this happy time of the year and stick to some simple guidelines.

Remember that it’s really important to keep track of your success and drawbacks so that you can build on your strategy for next year. Bite off only what you can chew, and focus on that one great product or offer that will drive your sales this holiday season.