January, the dreaded retail month. The winter festivities are behind us, budgets are tight and immediately the sales are on the rise. In today’s column, business expert Angelo Vero explains how he thinks enterpreneurs should approach the sales period.

For many companies, sales are an ideal time to get rid of remaining stock at dumping prices. But for small businesses, giving gigantic discounts is often a poisoned gift. Yes, you can get rid of stock, but you have to pay for it and at the same time work harder. Is that the best way to get rid of old stock?

Think primarily long-term

Participating in sales is primarily a long-term strategy. Because when you have sales and offer discounts, you open the door for potential new customers to get to know your products at a cheaper price. This is also the approach you need to take in terms of your marketing. Use the sales as an investment to attract new customers and make sure you have a good follow-up to bind them to your company.

From experience I know that many companies only focus on bringing in one sale. Because a new customer is good, right? Yes right, a new customer is definitely good. But a returning customer is better. To me, it’s more interesting to link sales, because sale A must trigger B. For example, an extra nice discount right after someone has made a purchase. Because often people still have a product in their shopping cart, but had a certain budget in mind. A nice promotion can convince them to purchase that last piece after all.

Sales as a business accelerator

As mentioned earlier, sales are mainly something you have to look at in the long term. Because if you were to analyze in the short term, you might find that you have invested a lot of time and the financial return might be lower than expected. Therefore, everything you do after the sales is much more important that the sales themselves. Use the data you get during the sales period to make analyses of best sellers, most visited pages, products that are not selling etc. Adjust your website, social media focus and offer with that information.

During the sales period there is a lot of traffic via socials or newsletters that visit your website. Not only can you extract data to do things differently. With all that traffic you can also work with something called re-marketing. This is a term we often see used and in short it means that we recontact visitors through advertising on Facebook, Instagram or through Google and all its partners. So you can reach non-customers who have visited your website back later with a nice marketing campaign. Because maybe now was not the time for a purchase and that moment will come in the future.

Did you know…?

You can also participate in the sales period without actually giving discounts?

Yes it sounds crazy, but it can be done. As a company, you can ride the wave of active internet traffic. A lot of people are using search engines like google right now, so with a good SEO and advertising strategy you can get some of the visitors to your website. Once they are on your website, you can immediately take them on a discovery through the site. A good content plan and clear USPs can make them buy from you instead of the competition.

In addition, you can also think about alternatives to discounts that might convince potential customers to buy from you. For example, as a company you can focus on free shipping or certain additional services that you can offer when someone becomes a customer. Think of personal shopping or Whatsapp service. Services where you only have time and therefore no money to invest. This is of course provided that you have time for this. If you do not have time to give extra service, then this is not the best option for you. Even a great loyalty program that is very transparant and easy to step into, can be a great motivator for people to buy from your business.

There are advantages to participating in sales as a business beyond the financial gains. It is important that you think carefully beforehand about what exactly you want to achieve with your participation and how everything you do today is going to ensure that your business future is strengthened. If you would like more business tips or a tailor-made business plan, be sure to check out Blogzine Academy.