6 Effective Holiday Strategies for Bloggers & Biz Owners

The holiday season is filled with happiness, shopping, awesome food, time with friends and family; for bloggers and business owners – it’s one of the most important times to have your holiday strategies in place to sell more. Retail stores may have had the Christmas trees and jolly music playing before October ended, but now it’s your turn to get started on holiday strategies. The obvious solution is to get more eyes on what you have to offer. Whether that’s physical product as a small-biz owner or as a blogger and influencer, now is the time to start. More product views, more sales, right? But how do you do that? Hard work, lots of effort and authenticity and it’s possible. Here’s how:

 

Create an awesome editorial calendar. Promote the products you sell and do so strategically. Have the calendar in front of you and plan out the days that you’ll be promoting content. If you’re selling something physical especially, it’s important to plan content to help you sell in enough time for people to shop for the holidays. Start early and focus on what works best with your readers and don’t stop promoting.

 

Utilize affiliate links. With so many networks, it’s important to know which you like best and which works best for you. That being said, using affiliate links as a part of your holiday strategy can be HUGE for sales. Doing things such as creating gift guides for your blog can be huge for sales. If you’re a blogger and own a small business, include some of your products in your gift guides! Choose to use links that are relevant to your audience and your niche and plan your gift guides accordingly. Be consistent, keep your affiliate links up to date (for example – assure there are no links that link to an out-of-stock product) and be selective in the links you choose to use.

 

Do extensive keyword research. While it may seem like this is an obvious one, there’s more to it than meets the eye! It’s crucial to step away from the typical keywords; “christmas gifts”, “holiday gifts”, etc. Great keywords can result in a HUGE difference in views and therefore, sales. Google Trends is a great way to find which keywords are going to be most beneficial to you based on what sort of wording you already implement. It’s SO important to make connections between the wording you already use and keywords that are trending.

 

Don’t forget to focus on the major shopping days. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday fall within days of each other. While all are similar in the sense that they provide a holiday rush to most retailers, all bloggers and biz owners can take major advantage of each day. Focus on all three days accordingly, and work hard to separate the three. The more you promote and make each of the three days different, the more you can potentially sell readers and viewers on.

 

Have a clear view of inventory management. This is for all you biz owners planning to sell this season – nothing is more important than knowing exactly what your inventory looks like at every moment. Find a way to keep track of this at all times, and know which products historically will sell quicker than others.

 

Use social media to your advantage. And more specifically, hashtags! Social media is SO huge in more than one way these days, and using relevant hashtags to your business and your niche will increase your views and increase your following. The more eyes on what you have to offer, the better. Especially during the holidays – an already extremely competitive time for all in this business.

Planning your holiday strategies can be difficult, but if you have an idea of how to make it work you can be extremely successful during this time of year. Grab a cup of hot chocolate, play the holiday music and get to work. ; )