6 Actions That Will Get Results
“Too many business owners are throwing away 20% of their income every year by giving up on December and January.”
~ Chandell Labbozzetta
It’s the middle of November and I notice that many non-retail businesses have already shut down their marketing campaigns on the assumption that no one is making appointments in December and January.
I hope you’re not one of them, because I believe these are the best months for service businesses and consultants to set appointments and make sales with prospects who are serious about taking action.
Here’s the reality: Serious business owners ca afford to take time off because they know they will have cash coming in for the next step… so, I’m suggesting that if your pipeline for February isn’t already overflowing and you are worried that you’ll be eating into cash reserves over Christmas, January, and into February then now is the time to act!
6 Action Steps That Will Fill Your Pipeline for the New Year
#1Your Christmas-Themed Campaign
It’s not too late to start special Christmas Campaign. I encourage clients to run themed campaigns every month of the year, but Christmas campaigns are especially powerful (even if you’re not in retail).
It’s a wonderful opportunity to offer taster sessions, group classes, and upgrade existing clients to new packages. If you don’t want people to gift your services to their friends and relatives, encourage them to splurge on themselves.
Start offering your packages as soon as you can and keep following up all the way to Christmas and beyond. I bet you know some people who wake up on Boxing Day and decide to reward themselves after a stressful day, so make sure you’re part of their conversation.
#2 December is a Great Opportunity for Lead Generation
I’ve noticed that more Christmas events than ever are getting pushed into November. That makes December a fantastic time for you to hold your live events, webinars, and multi-day challenges. You can even push them out into January when many people are sitting at home with some extra spare time to think and plan while recovering from the pre-Christmas frenzy.
One of my friends in the manufacturing space has filled his factory with private clients for whom he usually has little capacity, which not only helps him augment his income, but also enables his staff to choose whether they want the time off or would prefer to work.
An accountant has offered some special one-off group classes which are already sold out: many of the people who took this offer up have already booked in ongoing work with her and her team so that a couple of months which were looking quite lean are now highly profitable.
#3 Target Seasonal Customers
It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you will have some seasonal customers. Find them, reach out to them, and see what happens. The only thing you can be certain of is that if you do nothing, they won’t darken your doorway.
If you have a list and do any advertising on social media you can use that list to create a look-alike audience that has a high probability of responding. Pre-Christmas and January is also a great time to run lost customer reactivation campaigns.
#4 Target Trends and Review the Past Year
This is a good time to offer your customers a review of 2019 changes and opportunities in your industry and forecast the trends and opening that might lie ahead for 2020.
If you do it thoughtfully, it provides a useful tool for readers and is a great lead into a webinar or challenge for December of January
#5 Feed the Promotion-Hungry
This doesn’t have to be a discount, although ‘last-chance-before-a-price-rise’ offers can be real winners. You could:
- offer free tools or training;
- walk them through a planning or implementation strategy;
- promote your discovery sessions;
- create a special Christmas-only version of one of your usual products or courses;
- bundle products together;
- offer the ‘Limited Edition Ultra-Deluxe’ version of your service package;
- the possibilities are truly only limited by your imagination!
#6 Have Fun
Design your Christmas promotion so that it brings a smile to people’s faces when they see it. That will make it stand out from the earnest and politically correct offerings your competitors make… it will also disarm your recipients and increase the likelihood that they’ll respond to you.
A Quick Note on Themes…
If you’re running out of promotional ideas and are sick of competing on price, themed monthly campaigns are a great resource to consider.
Build your monthly newsletter, emails, postcards and online ads around a theme. It’s a fantastic way to get noticed and create expectancy and easier to execute than you might think.
