Wednesday, September 26, 2012

You're Gonna Have to Stand Out from the Crowd


Dec. 27, 2010 - NYC’s Polish-born Agata Olek
hit up the Wall Street Bull and encapsulated it inside crocheted neon.
http://cnnmon.ie/fBS1Iv

  
Holiday Marketing 2012: The holidays are upon is – can you believe it? And, it is still September! Every year, the frenzy starts earlier as savvy businesses want to be the very first in front of you for marketing their products.

With the exploding number of Internet businesses of all sizes, a buyer can find any product they want online. For those of us with very small businesses run by us, solopreneurs, or by limited staff, the din of  our competitor’s “buy me, buy me” can be overwhelming. Now, in September, is the time to work out the plan to market our products online and off.


I cannot give you a plan specific to your business to follow. You will need to study your competition, your targeted buyer demographic, your distribution channels, and your goals for your business.

However, I can give you some strategic ideas on how to approach your holiday buyers. You might want to ask yourself these thoughtful questions:
  • Why is my product special or better that my competition’s? Or is it?
  • Would I want to buy my product over my competition’s product? If so, why? If not, why?
  • What extras can I offer my targeted buyer this holiday season? Could that be an extra free service, free gift wrap, or other? What would be valuable to them?  
  • What would be a trigger for my targeted buyer to seal the deal? Price? Design? Extras? Usefulness? Quality? Local?
  • What are the challenges that my targeted buyer faces during the holiday rush? How can I solve that problem for them?
Answer these questions and you will have an outline of your core marketing strategy. From there, craft your marketing message to include these points and get the message out there!

By the way, to add to my own holiday strategies, in addition to GalleriaLinda's iCraft.ca shop, I have reopened GalleriaLinda's jewelry shop on Etsy. Please take a look! I am loading in over the next two weeks so please check back.