Woohoo – the holiday season is finally upon us! It’s a crazy time of year packed full of events, treats, ugly sweaters, and time off from busy work schedules. When you’re running a business or a side hustle, you know how important it is to close out your year with a bang. You have a few last-minute plans up your sleeve and we’re here to help you turn those ideas into a full marketing strategy! Below, we explore some ideas that are quick to apply and fun to do this holiday season.

Understand Your Budget

When planning out some year-end marketing ideas, you need to understand your remaining budget for the year. There are many ways to use your year-end budget, such as through marketing products or charitable initiatives. You need to know how much you have spent and how much you have agreed to spend for the following year. Even if you happen to have a few dollars left over, there is always something that can be done. Whether your business is small or large, we have plans for you:

If you have $10 remaining in your budget, run a social ad

Facebook ads are inexpensive and you can use it to share anything. Even if you don’t have products or sales to push, you can share an ebook, a helpful blog, or an article that featured your business. Share this ad with your current audience by boosting your post or with a whole new target market to see how they react.

If you have $50 remaining in your budget, improve the office

With a little bit to scrounge up, you can order a couple pizzas for an office lunch for a small team. Hook your laptop up to a TV or larger computer screen in the office, set up a comfy seating area, and watch some Netflix. Pizza and movies are a great way to relax and unwind together before work shuts down for the holidays. Throw in an ugly sweater contest and you’ve got yourself a party!

If your team is too large for a couple of pizzas, opt to improve the space they work out of. Print some photos from the previous year through inexpensive providers, such as Walmart. Then get creative with twine, string lights, tacks, or cheap frames. You can decorate the office walls with photos of your incredible team or give each team member a photo from an event to have on their desks.

If you have a few hundred to a thousand remaining, get going!

Not all companies have the attitude of “use it or lose it” (obviously less so if it’s your own small business) but you should be aware of how much you have remaining and delve deep into why that is. If you had a very successful year and kept pushing profits back into the business, then this may be a great time to reward the people who helped you get there. You can opt to provide bonuses or gift cards to your employees as a year-end reward. You can also put together a list of charities that are important to the employees in your office, and give back together. Find a way that you can add value to the team and community that helped you succeed all year.

Make a Landing Page

You’ve decided what you want to do with your extra cash, but now, you need to share that effort with the world. Make a fun landing page that highlights your company’s involvement in a toy drive featuring pictures of your team dropping off presents. Aside from sharing what you company is doing, this is also great publicity and SEO for the charity involved. If you’re opting to make a Facebook ad, create a landing page for the customers to go to share the ebook, products, or content you want to highlight. Or how about showing off how your team sat down one day and handmade ugly sweaters for an internal contest?

A landing page can be used to post pictures of your team in handmade ugly holiday sweaters, tell a story of a charity you supported, or give your customers all your holiday sales at a glance. If development resources are in short supply over the holiday season, up a quick landing page using Unbounce or Webflow.

Get a Festive Domain Name for the Landing Page

We may be a bit bias here, but what is the holiday season without an appropriately-themed domain name? You can have a lot of fun with your festive initiatives and we think there is no better way than this! Grab your brand name at a:

• .HOLIDAY domain for your holiday sales or party
• .CHRISTMAS domain for your best gift ideas or team’s ugly sweater contest
• .CHARITY domain for your team and company’s charitable initiatives 

Share Your Efforts

Whether you’ve made a year-end ebook that you’re going to advertise, or a page full of the best sales, or plan to give back to a great non-profit, you need to let your customers and partners know. Share your landing page on social media and in your email marketing campaigns. Make sure to wish all the wonderful people in your business’s life a happy holidays and let them know how grateful you are to them. 

Happy Holidays from all of us at Hover to you! We can’t wait to see what you create in the new year with your 2020 goals in mind.