The holiday season is a critical time for business owners to put their best foot forward — and that goes for their marketing strategies, too. For small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) especially, effective marketing can go a long way in combating inflation and other economic challenges.
Constant Contact’s latest Small Business Now Report provides important insight into what’s on the minds of small business owners as they brace for their most important time of the year. According to the report, Canada’s small businesses are expecting the long-tail impacts of inflation and shifting consumer behaviours to make for a challenging holiday season this year. Of those surveyed, nine in 10 say they have felt the impacts of inflation this year, while over half (56 per cent) of Canadian consumers have decreased their spending at small businesses.
Despite these economic headwinds, almost one-third of SMEs believe improving their marketing strategies is essential to their success this holiday season. And for good reason — Canadian small businesses stand out as the most reliant on holiday sales compared to SMEs in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, with 21 per cent saying at least half of their annual revenue is generated during the holidays.
Constant Contact customer, Wellington Brewery, is an example of a small business that is making thoughtful adjustments to its digital marketing strategy to help make the most of holiday sales. Brad McInerney, Marketing director at Wellington Brewery, says he has found email to be the most effective marketing tool for his business during both low and high selling seasons, like the holidays.
“Before the pandemic, our email marketing was more about branding, community building, and customer relationships,” says McInerney. “Since then, it is more focused on supporting our ecommerce sales.”
McInerney believes that smaller businesses can often generate more immediate results with email marketing. “Social media is not always the best platform to tell people about our product and our business. We can go more in-depth with email.”
Incentive marketing is especially important when consumers are dealing with an uncertain economy and being more careful about how they spend their money, he adds. “When selling directly to customers you have to make sure you are very value focused. You can have a great product or story, but you also have to offer incentives such as promotion codes or special offers to keep them coming back.”
One of the great things about Constant Contact, McInerney continues, is its ability to segment customer lists so that he can tailor promotions more effectively, whether that be for individual consumers, bars and restaurants, grocery orders, or beer stores, or for highlighting seasonal product offerings
“If a top customer hasn’t ordered in a while, we might offer them $10 off their next order. After the holiday season, when many customers cut back on alcohol, we promote our non-alcoholic items. It’s about customizing outreach so that we can meet customers where they are at that particular time.”
Wellington Brewery’s use of email marketing has been highly effective in riding the economic ups and downs of the last few years, says McInerney, and he expects it will yield the same rewards this holiday season. “One great thing about using email marketing is that it’s a direct-action environment. If we send out a new product launch to our main customer list on a Tuesday for example, we get orders by the weekend. Email marketing has definitely been a worthwhile investment for us.”
With SMBs feeling a greater sense of urgency to boost sales and revenue at the end of the year, it is incumbent on them to dial up their marketing efforts in a similar fashion to Wellington Brewery, to ensure success during the holiday season.
For more information on how Constant Contact can help your small business market its products and services more effectively, visit constantcontact.ca and sign up for a free trial today.
