Keeping Momentum After The Holidays

No matter what your business does, chances are you have some sort of big marketing push around the holidays. Be it a special package deal or a big sale, the holidays are a great time to retain your faithful customers and introduce your product to a new market. And since every business, including all of your competitors, are doing the same holiday-oriented specials, you need to go the extra mile to make your company and product stand out.

This holiday marketing push will typically involve a bigger budget, and require more man-hours from your employees. Brainstorming session after brainstorming session will work toward putting a plan in motion to set your product apart from the endless options of enticing holiday sales. The goal of these marketing efforts is conversion. You want to convert your ads and other sales pieces into buys, memberships, etc. A big bulk of your year’s revenue may even come as a result of your holiday push.

Just thinking about the holidays is exhausting, so it’s easy to see why you might be tempted to ease up on your marketing efforts and pull back your budget as the New Year begins. But there are several reasons why you shouldn’t. If you can push forward and keep that momentum up after the holidays, it can make a big difference in the success of your company.

Will The Money You Save Be Worth It In The End?

When it comes down to it, a pull back on your marketing efforts after the holidays often comes down to budget. Holiday marketing is especially pricey, and the following months often suffer at its expense. The popular argument is to reduce your marketing after the holidays because it is a slow time, then pushing again during a high season.

But the constant stopping and starting actually may be costly for your business because it is a major momentum killer. Ask yourself this: How can you keep the momentum going strong throughout the year? If you continue with your same marketing budgets and strategies, things should continue running smoothly. But pulling the plug on certain areas of your budget will cause you to spend more when you need to get things back up and running.

Related: How to Stand Out Online This Holiday Season

Consider the city miles per gallon vs. your highway miles per gallon in your car. You will use more gas going faster or constantly stopping and starting than you will by running a consistent, cruising speed. Your marketing runs the same way.

Running your marketing on a consistent pace allows you to keep a consistent budget as well, rather than needing to allocate more funds for certain seasons. Having consistent expectations makes it easier to plan throughout the year, and the growth your customer base will experience from a post-holiday push could be the difference maker when you ask for more money in the following year’s marketing plan.

Remember, Digital Marketing Is An Ecosystem

Think of your digital marketing as an ecosystem. Every part is codependent and linked together. Pulling back on just one channel can have a ripple effect that might sink the whole ship. That might seem melodramatic, but it’s true.

Related: Holiday Marketing Tips for E-Commerce Websites

Let’s say that as part of your post-holiday budget purge, in an effort to cut costs, you decide to pull back on your paid search. As a result, you will likely see a correlating drop in direct and organic traffic to your site. Keeping your paid search going strong after the holidays will keep the traffic coming, and perhaps even at a higher rate given that…

There Is Less Competition After The Holidays

Since so many companies do a big marketing push set around the holidays, many do in fact pull back their efforts in the months that follow. This creates a situation that you and your business can take advantage of by pushing ahead. During the holidays, you have to compete with everyone for attention, but after, there will be less.

This is especially true for your paid ads. Placing paid ads comes at a premium during the holidays, but after, it will be much cheaper to place ads. And combined with the reduced competition, you can often gain more traction at a lower cost. This is a real window of opportunity your business should not miss.

Focus On Acquiring New Business

This lull after the holidays is also a great time to focus on acquiring new customers and business. Because acquisition can be one of the more expensive parts of conducting a business, it makes a lot of sense to push hard while costs are down and the market is less competitive.

Making a big acquisition push after the holidays can also have huge benefits when the holidays roll around the following year. Your new acquisitions will provide you with a much larger customer base to work from when it’s time to roll out next year’s big holiday promotions.

Turn Your “Down” Months Into Strengths

The first couple months after the holidays may be a traditionally slow sales period for your business. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Why should you be so comfortable with having low sales months?

Related: 10 Essential Emails You Should be Sending This Holiday Season

You can fight complacency with these “down” seasons and make a bigger effort to turn those slow months to higher sales. This will help to keep things more consistent rather than exaggerated peaks and valleys with sales, acquisition, retention, etc. There’s nothing wrong with a big push at certain seasonal times that you know are strengths for your business, but optimizing efforts after the holidays can become a new strength.

Refocus And Re-Strategize Your Marketing Efforts

The months after the holidays can also be a great time to get your businesses marketing efforts in order for the following year. It may be time to shuffle up your traditional marketing plan and try some new things. You may have certain areas that are lacking and need more attention, while other areas of strength can use a new injection of life to keep it going strong.

This allows your marketing to be proactive rather than reactive. If you know a slow period is coming up, get ahead of it by coming up with a new strategy to bring in revenue. Plan ahead for your busier times so things are less hectic when the time comes. High seasons don’t have to be so stressful and good a new strategy or better organization can go a long way to helping.

Momentum For A New Year

When it comes to marketing your business, you may think you know what works and what doesn’t, but if you want to grow, you need to keep trying new ways to attract customers. Taking advantage of the slow period after the holidays is a great time to get attention and add to your customer base. It’s certainly worth the effort when you consider that continuing your marketing push could lead to a banner year for your business.