- Today I want to give you an overview
of what it looks like to have a successful holiday season,
starting from July (air whooshing)
and going all the way
to January. (air whooshing)
I'm going to look at each of the four stages
of a profitable holiday season:
planning, prepping, (air whooshing)
implementing, and wrapping up, (air whooshing)
and talk to you about what things you need to get done
at during each stage to make sure that you are ready
for your best holiday sales yet.
Let's dive in.
(drum beats)
Bonjour, my name is Deb,
and I'm the founder of Tizzit Co,
a membership community for makers
and handmade shop owners,
just like your fabulous self.
You can learn more about our community
Tizzit HQ via link below this video,
but for now let's jump straight into today's conversation:
The Four Stages of a Profitable Holiday Season.
I wanna start by showing you this diagram
to help you get a picture in your head
of how you should think about
organising your holiday sales.
You can see that the timeframe for each stage is mapped out
to ensure that you have completed that stage
in time to be ready for the next stage
because they build on each other.
So each stage is necessary
for the next one to be successful.
And an added bonus of that is that
by staggering all of your "to do's" this way, (chuckles)
you can focus and do a really good job on each stage
without feeling overwhelmed
and do it all at once.
So let's start with stage one, which is planning.
Planning happens starting as early as you can really,
but at the latest starting in July
and ending in August, the latest.
Planning is actually the most important part
of the work you are going to do,
and if you don't want to be all stressed
and completely burned out and feeling out of control,
not to mention missing out on sales during the holiday rush,
you really wanna be sure you plan and do it early.
And I really mean it when I say that
this is the most important task.
You wanna do this for your own sanity,
because you will thank yourself a million times over
during the holiday rush.
And during the planning phase,
you're not actually taking any action,
you're just thinking and strategizing
and assigning clear dates to each task.
Essentially making like a master plan for yourself
that you will just follow step by step
for the rest of the year.
Think of it as stepping into your CEO shoes
and working on your business,
just not in it yet.
So what does this master plan of yours need to cover?
Step one is deciding what events
you will be focusing on promoting.
Some of you have businesses
that will benefit from focusing on Halloween,
but maybe others might skip Halloween altogether
and focus more on black Friday or Christmas.
And of course, some of you will choose
to focus on more than one of these.
So that's step one, deciding what events
and holidays you will run a promo for or focus on.
Step two is based on the events
you choose to research trends
and keywords on the platforms that you sell on
so that you can incorporate any seasonal trends
and high value keywords that are a good fit
for your product listings.
And actually there is one special exception to the
"You're not taking action in the planning stage" rule
that I just mentioned as this
might require some immediate action.
If you are trying to rank new keywords for SEO,
you might want to make those changes
during the planning stage to be ahead of the curve,
and ranking for those keywords
as soon as people start searching for them,
which is always a few months
before the actual event or holiday.
Then comes step three, which is product planning
and deciding on your product offerings.
And you have all sorts of great options to consider.
Here are some questions to ask yourself,
do you want to create new products
to offer for this special event?
So a special collection
(air whooshing) for Christmas, for example.
Or perhaps use some of your existing products,
but make slight modifications, like for example,
offering a new seasonal colour
to position them as a great Christmas season product
or a fun product for Halloween, or what have you.
Another option is to create bundles
or collections of products. (air whooshing)
So the question here would be do you have products
that you could combine to create gift bundles?
And finally, it's worth noting that
you don't need to create new products at all.
You might have products already that can just be marketed
as a great Christmas present for example,
without the need to reinvent the wheel
or to turn everything you make red
and green for (chuckles) Christmas.
Please don't feel like you need to create products
just for a special event or holiday.
It's more so about thinking of ways
you can market the products you already have
for those events.
Thinking through your product offering strategy
upfront though will be huge help
once you start to plan inventory
and promo strategies details.
Now, on to step four,
which is thinking through what promo strategies
and or incentives you will use to boost sales
and set dates for each.
I have a great view on promo strategies
coming out next week,
so you are definitely going (chuckles)
to want to watch that to get a good overview
of all the different promo strategies
that can help you increase your holiday sales.
And I'm gonna cover all sorts of strategies
for you to choose from, you know?
Discounts, giveaways, contest,
coupons, you name (chuckles) it.
So make sure you subscribe below
to (chuckles) get a notification
when this video drops next week.
But for now, all you need to know is that
in that planning stage,
you need to decide on the promo you're going to be running.
And then for each one when it will start
and when it will end.
In other words, you want to set clear dates
around each promotional campaign and strategy.
Step five is deciding on your order cutoff dates
to ensure that people will receive
their products in time for the holiday.
You will need to work backwards here
from shipping time and processing times
and ask yourself, for example for Christmas,
when do you need people to order by
so that you can confidently say,
"Yes, you will receive your parcel in time"?
You want to do this for each holiday deadline
and make sure to add a buffer.
There's no better way to get a bad review
than to over promise
and under deliver on that front.
Okay, next, step six.
Which is product listing updates.
Will you need to make some changes to your listing
to make them more relevant to a particular season?
If you have a necklace right now that says,
"The perfect necklace to turn a simple summer dress
into a statement outfit",
you might wanna change that up
when winter shows up, it snows. (chuckles)
Or vice versa, if you're like me,
you're in Australia or the Southern atmosphere,
and you have Christmas in the middle of summer.
In any (chuckles) case, if you're planning
to update your product listings,
what do you plan to change?
And when will you need to implement those changes?
Will you need to change your titles,
your descriptions, update your pictures?
If you're adding new products,
you will need to take new pictures for those
and write new product descriptions for those as well.
So all these seemingly little tasks do add up,
so add them to your master plan list
and assign dates to do the work.
Finally, step seven are your shop updates.
We just talked about the listings,
but what about your shop or websites more generally?
Have a look at what it is now, how it is now,
and ask yourself if you want to change up
any of the following:
your website or shop copy and messaging,
your banner and graphics.
I like to think of this as your shop's holiday decoration,
and things like your shipping policies.
Again, that goes into your master plan list,
with a clear date for when those changes
will need to be done by.
Okay, that's all your planning
done. (air whooshing)
And essentially this stage is like
a mega project planning stage.
And even if you might feel like
you have a super long list of things
to think about and do right now,
it's perfectly okay because you have them all listed,
you have time on your side.
Remember, we're planning for six months of work,
so it's not like you need to do all of that by next week.
And you have clear dates assigned for each.
So you have a plan
and you can be confident
moving into the next stage,
which is stage two, prepping.
The prepping stage is basically,
just following the master plan
you created for yourself in stage one,
and should happen around August and September.
The goal is to do as much as possible now,
so you don't need to do too much later
in the mega rush of holiday sales.
Thanks to the awesome (chuckles) planning
and the assigning that you did in stage one,
you should have a clear to-do list for each week
and start prepping things in advance.
So first let's talk about the prep work for your products.
It should include things like creating new products.
If you decided to do so, ordering supplies,
taking new product photos,
or taking new lifestyle images for products
that already exist by using all the props
so they look relevant to that season.
And of course, writing new copy
for your product descriptions,
your website, or your shop.
Now, remember at this stage,
you're not changing your photos
or your copy over just yet.
You're just taking those pictures and writing the copy
so that when it comes time to switch over,
you've got it all ready to go.
Think how amazing that will feel
to be at the start of the holiday season
and have everything ready to go. (laughing)
Now let's move on to the promo prep work
when you create any graphics
you will need during your promos.
So for example, graphics for social media,
Email marketing campaigns,
ads if you be running those.
And then you'll also create the copy for those promos.
So here again, social copy, email copy,
so it's all set to go during the busy season.
Next, is prepping your shop,
which includes any graphics you'll need, you know?
Things like banner or any shop or website decoration,
and this is also a great time to give your shop a once over
to be sure it's all ready for the holiday shopping season.
If you plan on running advertising campaigns,
make sure that your advertising pixel, (chuckles)
that little piece of code you need to track your results
is set up for Facebook, Instagram, and or Pinterest.
And of course, it's always a good idea to look at each page
and listing on your shop to make sure that
everything is working properly
and optimised for sales,
that way your shop will be in tip-top shape.
Step four in your prep stage
is what I like to call problem solving in advance.
It's a good idea to prepare
for any worst case scenarios that might happen.
For example, what if an order doesn't get delivered?
What if it's late?
Do you have a prepared response
to send out for that kind of inquiry?
What process will you go through to try
and fix this situation if it shows up?
If you think of possible things that could happen
and make a plan of what you would do,
then you won't feel so stressed if they do happen
because you have already planned ahead
and know how to handle them.
And finally, step five.
I also want to really anchor as you
to do some personal planning as well
for what kind of help you may need
during the holiday craziness?
Can you do your gift shopping for the family
and friends a bit early this year?
Do you have someone who can help you with orders
or shipping or at home during the busy season?
Do some in advanced self care
by really thinking through how to make it easier on yourself
when you're in the thick of it,
you'll be so glad that you did.
Now, it's time to move on to stage three,
which is implementing.
And that's roughly from September to November.
You're going to be marketing,
making products, selling products,
and shipping products.
So basically, you will follow your plan from stage one,
using everything you created in stage two
and put it all in action.
Even though this is the rush,
you front-loaded all the work in stage two,
so you should actually feel pretty in control
despite all the holiday business.
Not saying you won't feel busy,
you very likely will feel busy,
but at least you won't have to think about
what needs to get done.
You'll just have to do it. (laughing)
Okay, we're almost there.
Stage four is wrapping up
and that happens in December or January,
when the holidays are finishing up.
You'll be finishing the final orders
and doing all the shop decoration
and changing your holiday product listings back to normal.
If you have holiday products you won't be selling anymore,
not even next year,
You can plan a sale or a promo to get rid of that stock.
And as things quiet down,
there are three main things you'll want to do.
First, record your thoughts and stats.
You will want to skip this
and do it later but this is the time to sit down
and look back at your holiday wins and challenges.
You'll want to cover things like
how do you solve go this year overall?
What worked, what didn't?
And essentially you want to write yourself notes
on what you wish you had done differently,
tips for making next year a little bit easier,
anything you want your future self to remember.
You will use this document
during your next year's planning stage
to create a plan for an even better holiday season.
Next is thinking about making repeat customers.
You just got some new customers,
you'll want to brainstorm
and plan for how you can turn those holiday sales
into forever customers
who will make repeat purchases in the future.
How can you get the shoppers
who bought from you to season
to keep buying from you over the year?
And finally, take a well-deserved break,
at that point, you really will have earned it.
Focused on the successes you achieve this year,
and pat yourself on the back.
Right now though your head is probably spinning,
and you're probably feeling like,
"How am I going to remember to do all of this stuff?"
Don't worry though, I will put some more resources
to help you below this video including a full workshop
to help you prep for holiday success with workbooks
and all that good stuff so you can get really organised.
If you are Tizzit HQ member already,
make sure to check it out in your members area.
And if you're not a member,
what are you waiting for? (chuckles)
Join and me and your fellow Tizzit HQ members
as we dive into the details along with workbooks
and checklist to help you have a profitable holiday season
and get your holiday sales docs all in a row.
I'll put the link to that workshop below,
so go check it out, thanks for watching.
Make sure to subscribe.
And until next time, au revoir.