We have Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up.
We're now heading straight into the holiday season of various festivals: Diwali, Bonfire Night, Thanksgiving….I'm sure you can think of more.
When that happens, the B2B service world tends to get drowned out by ecommerce, because it's their time of year. Q4 is where they reap the biggest profits. It’s annoying for the rest of us and it starts earlier every year. I saw Christmas pudding in the supermarket at the end of August!
How can you draw attention to your business, with the sales klaxon going off for three straight months?
There's a few ways.
The first one is: don't do discounts.
Unless you have a very good reason for it.
If you normally discount for a birthday, or if you run a holiday flash sale and people are expecting it, that's fine because it's part of the brand.
You're not deliberately devaluing yourself for the sake of Black Friday.
Everyone loves a giveaway.
It could be a free strategy session, an exclusive workshop for those who book within a certain window. It could be a downloadable resource.
It could be a report that you normally charge for.
You could run a spin wheel. This is incredibly easy now - Klaviyo offers it on their sign-up forms or you can integrate Smart Target or Triggerbee apps for Mailchimp. POWR and Common Ninja software apps do the same for Hubspot (look on the marketplace).
Instead of discounts, give away workbooks, one-time consults, or that paid masterclass. You can also create unique digital hampers by collaborating with someone else.
The trick is to be playful, creative and connected with your audience.
We're done with gift cards. Everyone's done gift cards. We're sick of gift cards.
You want to get people talking about your services.
Here's your opportunity to do interactive content, such as polls, quizzes and videos.
That's my challenge to you. Reach for the unique thing about your business, rather than cash.
What else can you do?
Other Ideas:
Merchandise, for example: tech accessories, notebooks, mugs. It’s old-school, but it works, especially if you can customise it.
The other option is a free trial. I’ve seen amazing demand when agencies partner with software providers. The customer gets free access to the platform for a certain amount of time, whilst the agency gives a workbook, template or series of tips to get the most out of it.
This also goes for your membership. You can do one month only: "I want you to try out my membership."
And that can be a straightforward giveaway, done by text to handpicked customers.
There's lots of ways that you can build buzz around your business.
You can get it going. And yes, you can also do referrals for people with viral contests going, "oh yeah, you can get more entries if you tell a friend about this."
Get thinking now, so you can relax and enjoy the rest of the quarter!