Christmas time is traditionally about creating a festive sales plan, marketing products that tie in with the season and hoping that our public is going to bite. But with a little forward planning, the festive season can delver a profitability banquet that’ll keep your bottom line healthy well into the New Year. Here’s how.
Start by identifying the revenue your products bring in
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me – a revenue table, which showed how many units of product I’d sold every December for the last five years. And if I had only been in business for a couple of months, it would have shown my revenue for those months. The idea is to find the products that bring in the most revenue, and make a league table of them. One will end up being your flagship seasonal offering.
Then look at which revenue builders are also good and profitable
Profit isn’t the same thing as revenue. While one product may bring in the biggest overall figures on paper, there could be others with much higher profit margins. The trick to finding the Christmas product that really makes a difference is to get one that gives high revenue and high profitability. Make a league table for all your products for both factors. The one that comes highest overall for both is the one that wins.
Now look at the products that aren’t doing so well
One of the key opportunities here is actually for products that fail on the revenue side, the profit side or both. You can use your investigation to highlight the five worst performers, and make an early New Year’s resolution to do something about them. Begin by thinking about why the products you have isolated are performing at a lower level. Is it something to do with the season – or have you failed to advertise the lower performer as well as the higher one?
Then create an advertising campaign that delivers the goods
Once you have done your research into your poorest performing products, and identified potential reasons why they aren’t scoring as highly as the others, you can start to create an advertising campaign that works to redress the balance. Begin by targeting the audience you have outlined in your research, Ask target consumers to help by rating the product in its transition phase. Develop free giveaways designed to target the desired consumer back to the fold.
Develop a sales prospectus
Certain businesses, for example wholesale B2B brands or food retailers, can increase either hold on seasonal shopping by developing sales prospectuses. The prospectuses are sent out in an early seasonal mailing, giving private and trade customers plenty of opportunity to plan their spending. By developing a prospectus it is also possible to manage your festive stock levels in advance: if you give your customers the opportunity to place advance orders, you’ll get a much better idea of the amount of stock you need to hold as the festive period comes into full effect. You can visit site for best prices here.
The Author is a special tax and finance adviser who works with small businesses in the UK and Europe, He writes regular articles on tax, finance and business, and has a personal network of business blogs that is routinely viewed by more than three quarters of a million people. He lives in Kensington.