For about two years I taught an English class to a group of International students at my University, but most of the time they were teaching me. They taught me about their languages, customs, and food, but their questions often taught me things about my own culture I had never realized. One day I asked my students what surprised them most about the US, and one of my students from Korea said “holidays.” It was at this moment that I really and truly realized Americans love their holidays.

I proceeded to write down every holiday that we feel warrants some sort of party or celebration:

• The Super Bowl (and every other championship game for every other sport)
• 4th of July
• Labor Day
• The big ones such as Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving
• Birthdays (which of course you must have a separate kids party and family party)
• Graduation from middle school, high school, and college
• Halloween
• Valentine’s Day
• April Fool’s Day
• Anniversaries, etc.

This led me to wonder: It is worth the time for a company to create a marketing campaign for every single holiday?

Marketing for specific holidays can be tough because a lot goes into a campaign. With all of the new mediums and platforms available to send out information to the public, marketing a product or service has become expensive and time consuming. Most companies want all of their efforts to stand the test of time for this very reason, but holiday marketing tactics simply cannot offer this long-term satisfaction. Consider a few of the reasons it is, however, worth a company’s time and energy:

To Market or Not to Market for the Holidays

Aside from just the time commitment involved, marketing for the holidays can become stressful. It is difficult to know when to start these campaigns (after all, everyone makes fun of those shops ready for Christmas before Thanksgiving), and it’s difficult to know whether or not your holiday tactics have made a difference. For this reason, some companies pass on the holiday marketing festivities. Unfortunately, this is a terrible mistake for a few reasons:

According to Media Post, in 2010 the top five days by sales conversion volume included Black Friday at 23% (the day after Thanksgiving), Nov. 28 and 30 at 17%, Dec. 6 at 17%, and Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) at 16%. In other words, marketing during the holidays is a great idea. Furthermore, the holidays are on the minds of these buyers, and your company should capitalize on that by getting into the holiday spirit.

5 Tremendous Thanksgiving Marketing Tactics

Although Thanksgiving is coming up quickly, it isn’t too late to create a marketing campaign for the holiday. The general rule of thumb is to start marketing for Thanksgiving just after Halloween (and Christmas just after Thanksgiving), but as the statistics show above, there is still plenty of time. Consider a few of the things you can try to help jumpstart your holiday efforts:

• Greeting Cards – Send Thanksgiving themed greeting cards to your customers thanking them for being loyal. Consider giving out a coupon in the spirit of the holiday.
• Newsletters – The holidays are a great way to jumpstart that newsletter you’ve always wanted to offer. Customers and clients will be more apt to join during the holidays in the hopes that your company will help them know what to buy their friends for the holidays!
• Thanksgiving Deals – If you offer a deal specifically around Thanksgiving, consumers will certainly pay attention. While Christmas promotions are common, Thanksgiving deals are still a hidden secret.
• Fall Occasions – Creating a fall event is a great way to get consumers interested in your company. Consider setting up a corn maze, fall festival, or pie eating contest to help draw in new customers. This may be a bit on the expensive side, but it should be a very positive way to get people noticing your business.
• Volunteer – Thanksgiving time offers many opportunities to get involved with other companies. This will help you not only network and spread the word about your company, but you’ll be doing something that really matters (ex: work at a food shelter, donate toys for children, etc.).

In the end, marketing for a specific holiday is a fun experience. Do not worry about having to pull the marketing tactic after the holiday because it should give you what you need for the short time it’s up and running. Many companies also recycle holiday commercials or materials each year to help make it even more worthwhile.

Author Bio:

Amanda DiSilvestro is an expert writer on VoIP business phone systems based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as document management. You can find more of her articles as well as vendors comparisons for your small business needs at Business.com.

© guestposter for DazzlinDonna, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: black friday, Christmas, Holiday, Marketing, Thanksgiving
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Taking a break for a few days. Everyone enjoy!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: holidays, Thanksgiving
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This is a perfect time to discuss your plans to work from home. Of course, if the idea is news to everyone, you’ll probably get some resistance, but that’s ok. Constructive feedback is great. You do need to have a little bit of realism surrounding you. Just make sure you let everyone know that you understand the risks and that you are preparing wisely for them. (You are, right?). Explain that you plan to work from home just on a part time basis until you start to see enough progress to justify moving to full time. That will ease some of the worry that your family will undoubtedly have. Once you’ve gotten the major objections out of the way, you can begin to solicit thoughts and ideas from them.

The people closest to you understand you the most. They know your strengths and weaknesses. They can give advice to help you make the most of your plans. Keep the conversations civil and friendly. Don’t let differences of opinions turn into arguments or fights. Thanksgiving is a time for being thankful and enjoying time with our loved ones. Don’t let arguments ruin that. But do take any and all advice into consideration. If someone tells you something you don’t like, let them know you’ll consider it, and move along to something else.

Each member of your family has a unique history to draw upon, and each person can likely give you very good advice. Once you are all gathered together in one place, you have a wonderful opportunity to learn a little from each person. Use that opportunity wisely. The lessons learned may be extremely useful in the future. Share your news, get some advice, and then let it go. After all, you don’t want to dominate the day’s conversations. The rest of the family deserves their time too.

If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, you might want to consider holding a special seasonal celebration with your family so that you can all catch up with one another. Make your own “thanks-giving” holiday. Why not?

Now it’s time to figure out what groceries are needed for next week. Have a great weekend, everyone.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2007. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business discussions, constructive feedback, family, Thanksgiving, United States
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But what else does this day mean? For me, it means the start of the holiday season. None of that Black Friday stuff for me. Waiting till the day after Thanksgiving means waiting too long! People begin Christmas shopping earlier and earlier every year. And with online shopping getting to be simply huge, now’s the time that people start ordering online. So, what does that really mean for me and you?

That means it’s time to profit from the online holiday shopping sprees. Now’s the perfect time to sign up for some high-dollar affiliate products. It may be difficult to convert shoppers for high-priced items during the rest of the year, but pockets open up a lot more now. Parents have saved up all year long to get the kids their wished-for electronic toys and gadgets, and those things can cost quite a bit of money.

If YOU help those parents decide which products to buy…
If YOU explain what their options are, and show the pros and cons of each…
If YOU give them the information they need to make a decision…

Then there’s a good chance that your affiliate links will be the ones to send them on to their final purchase. And if those purchases are high-dollar sales, you earn some nice commissions. So, if you don’t already have some expensive affiliate items lined up, go find some. Then do your homework, and create some outstanding comparisons or reviews so that you can guide holiday shoppers on to their destinations – purchases that make them happy, and you as well.

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Post tags: Christmas, Halloween, high-dollar affiliate products, holiday affiliate products, holiday season, online holiday shopping sprees, online shopping, seasonal business planning, Thanksgiving
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So, this last week before Christmas, I still have to get some more groceries for the big dinner. We usually get together Christmas Eve so the kids can go off to the inlaws for Christmas Day. We’ll bake a ham, slice it up, make sandwiches, and have lots of finger foods to go with it. Everyone seems to prefer the snackies type Christmas dinner over the traditional dinner, since Thanksgiving dinner was just a few weeks ago.

My granddaughter is just a little over 1 year old, so this will be the first Christmas she’ll be able to enjoy. She still doesn’t really know what’s going on, but she does like the Christmas ornaments and lights, and she has a pretty decent grasp on the concept of opening a present and getting cool stuff. So, this year should be pretty fun. I think her favorite toy will be the toy cell phone I got for her. The kid is absolutely bonkers about two things – remote controls and phones. We had to give her her very own (old, no longer used) remote control to play with, but she still tries to grab the real ones whenever possible. And don’t get a phone anywhere within her reach! So, I found a nifty toy phone that lets you record a message, so when she hits a button, she actually hears someone (me) on the other end. It also does some other cool things, so I think she’s gonna go ga-ga over it.

Since we recently moved here, we didn’t go all out on the decorations this year, but next year we’ll be decorating the outside of the house, the front porch, and the back deck. There were just too many other things to do this year. But the inside of the house is nicely decorated and has a very nice ambience right now. Life is good.

What are y’all doing to get ready for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may be celebrating at this time of year)? Whatever it is you do, I hope all of you have a wonderful, joyful time, filled with great fun and lots of love this holiday season.

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Post tags: cellular telephone, Christmas, Christmas Day, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving
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