Get Ready for the Holidays
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The Christmas season is approaching quickly. Well, not quite, but for those of us in the direct sales industry we need to plan ahead. Now is the time to start planning what you will be offering for holiday related information to help your customers get ready for Christmas when it rolls around. I have a few suggestions for you to get your holiday marketing plan started.
Ultimate Stampers Christmas Wish List’
Create the ‘Ultimate Stampers Christmas Wish List’ for your customers. There is never any end to the crafter’s shopping list. They always want something else for their stamping and craft closet or studio. Who knows maybe the crafter will share stamping as a gift to someone else. Make a list of the hottest new Stampin’ Up! products or handmade gift items and then think of the tools needed to create them. Make a list of different recipients (older parents, children, teens, friends, co-workers, etc) and list out great product or handmade gift ideas that you can share with your readers. Complete a checklist once with a budget sensitive mindset. (Low-mid priced items) than go back and complete another copy with a sky’s the limit mindset.
Your blog is the perfect space for bringing in a little holiday spirit since the format encourages a more casual approach and highly relational content. You can expand your holiday list to a series of blogging articles. The blogging articles don’t have to take a lot of your time and effort. You can sit down in one afternoon and write out eight or ten posts, each recommending another great wish list idea. Use the Product Guide as a resource. Add a blog article about every four to seven days.
Handmade Gift Tutorials
Go a step beyond just making recommendations in your emails/blogs and create project tutorials to give your readers. For the last three years I have created a 12-days newsletter filled with holiday crafting inspiration that is delivered via an email, one newsletter per day or week. Each newsletter is packed with clear photographed projects highlighting a select theme or activity (Sizzix, Card Making, Gift Giving) and includes a full tutorial with step-by-step pictures, product highlights and other related project ideas. If you share the joy of making gifts early on, you may entice your readers to give handmade gift giving a try.
Holiday Open Houses and Classes
How about hosting a “Men Only Holiday Party”. Go beyond the Wish List and invite all the spouses of your customers to come to shop and make a handmade card for their spouses. I’ve done this in the past and it was very successful but most importantly, my customers were very thankful they didn’t get another unwanted gift. Of course, I wrapped the gifts for the men shoppers (using Stampin’ Up! supplies of course!) and and delivered them for a small fee. The same concept can be used for teens. Teens could make gifts for their parents but I have a feeling they would rather make them for their friends. So you might want to include both. 
A little creativity and research on your part will keep you in the reader’s mind when they are creating their holiday wish lists. What have you done in the past that has been successful for your business?
