Holiday Marketing for Local Businesses

admin | Nov 1, 2018

‘Tis the season for holiday shopping, which means your customers are looking for discounts and deals online. Whether you are a brick and mortar retail location or a service area business, here are some tips that will help your business stand out from the rest this holiday season.

What’s New Around the Holidays?

Are you running any sales around Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or the weeks leading up to Christmas? Can you build interest in your business by hosting a giveaway or an in-store event? Are you running modified hours around Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s?

Please let your account manager know if you would like help promoting any upcoming events or sales you have planned.

6 Tips To Prepare Your Business for the Holiday Season

1. Update Google My Business

Google My Business is a free listing that shows up whenever people search for your company by name. Because of its prominent position, it is important to keep it accurate, complete, and up to date.

Google allows you to adjust hours based on holidays and special days, such as Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas Eve, and more. If you are closed or have modified hours for any of these days, you’ll want to update GMB.

You can also take advantage of other free GMB features, such as Google Posts and Events. Use these to highlight featured products, sales, and in-store events that people would be interested in. If you are a service business, this is a great spot to feature a discount or a more prominent call to action.

2. Events & Sales

End-of-the-year sales, Christmas parties, and special events for Black Friday or Small Business Saturday are popular ways to give back to your current customers and attract new ones. You can promote events on your blog, email newsletter, local online events calendars, social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), and in Google posts (through Google My Business).

For exclusive events, consider using EventBrite as your ticketing and reservation platform. It’s an affordable way to manage logistics and giving your team an accurate headcount.

3. Facebook Offers

Facebook Offers are a type of post that feature a discount or offer code exclusively on Facebook. If someone likes an Offer post, it will remind them about it before the offer expires. We recommend putting some of your advertising budget behind Offers so you can target your offer to your ideal audience.

4. Facebook Events

In addition to Facebook Offers, you can create free Facebook Events to highlight in-store events and discounts. Create an event, add information, and share it with your audience. We recommend boosting any Facebook post to expose more of your audience to it. Post boosting can be done for as little as $20.

5. Email Marketing

If you have a list of potential or current customers, email marketing is an easy way to connect with them and share your holiday plans. A one-time email about discounts, modified hours, and warm wishes for the holiday season may be a good start, but the real power in email marketing is creating a long-term plan. Contact your account manager to start a conversation about email marketing for your company.

6. LancasterPA.com

If you are a business in or around Lancaster County, LancasterPA.com is a great local resource that can help promote your business. The site ranks well, gets a decent amount of traffic, and provides helpful information for both locals and tourists. We continue to recommend advertising on their website and contributing content to their blog for many of our Lancaster-area clients.

In addition to their normal listings, LancasterPA.com has created several holiday pages for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and the Christmas season. You can get your business listed on these page and include links back to your website for any coupons, discounts, or events you would like to promote.

LancasterPA.com also has a free Events calendar for listing public- or community-focused events. You also have the opportunity to contribute an informative blog post that would be featured on their popular blog. All events and articles get shared on their social profiles and monthly email newsletter.