The Entrepreneurial Corner – Promotions

This month, let’s focus on Promotions as a business owner. This month we are celebrating Father’s’ Day and I personally enjoy creating special promotions around holidays. The key to a successful promotion is to plan ahead. Set your marketing timeline up at the start of the year and continue to look at it throughout the year. In January, you should have all of your marketing for February complete. If you are running any marketing campaigns, or if you are launching a new product or service, you should have this all planned out. You should set up a detailed plan of what ads, emails and posts are going out on which date.

Oftentimes, promotions fail because they are thrown together at the last minute. If you’re offering something special for a holiday, you can’t send out an email, or post an ad on social media the day before and expect the customers to rush in to take advantage of the promotion. You have to create buzz around your product or service. Build up the hype over an extended period of time. Show up in your customers’ inboxes and then continue to show up.

We receive so much advertising stimulation in our current world that not all the information gets through. We’re selective about what emails we read and what links we click on. So, unless you’re showing up consistently with a valuable message, chances are you’ll go unnoticed.

I say this not to discourage you, but to inspire you to dig deep when you’re creating promotions. Really try to get into the heads of your target audience. What email subject line would cut through the crowd and stand out? What is the real pain of your audience, and how will your promotion ease that pain? If it is a holiday, then how could you make it a celebration or sale? All of this is best executed when you’ve taken the time to plan out your marketing campaigns and promotions and laid them out in a timeline. Having a clear timeline will also help when it comes to budget.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the Fathers out there, and hopefully your business planned ahead to celebrate them. If not, what holiday can you prepare for in advance now that will help promote your brand in the future?

Michelle@MichelleRhodesOnline.com