Post Holiday Boom
by David Leach
The holidays are obviously going to hit and hit hard, but that should not be the end-all in terms of preparation and buckling down.
The first quarter of the year will be an extremely crucial time for retention, because hopefully your holiday campaigns were so successful, that you find yourself inundated with new customers and prospects. And if you are on top of things your holiday emails are either being tee’d up this very moment or have already been chucked down some chimneys, so now is the time to think about what needs to happen after January 1.
You will want to ask yourself, “What is the message that needs to be conveyed after someone has purchased, trialed, or come into contact with our offering?” Email is the perfect way to touch base with tact, and is essentially a touching point, regardless of how your relationship with a particular customer was started. So one example could be sending an email to Joe Smith from XYZ Corp. who purchased your special holiday offering, and thanking him for his purchase and also “Hey, we think you might find these other unique offerings of interest as well.” Here, someone who has essentially been completely catered to and taken care of can easily become a repeat buyer. Why not follow up with everyone and do it while you are still fresh in their minds?
As you can tell, I would recommend strategizing now, for your own post holiday boom, so you are 100% ready to go that first week after the holidays. Because if you don’t do it now, holiday party planning will take over your life and you will be sending out campaigns the second week after your competitors already ate some victory pie from being on-the-ball, the week before. Think about it.
