Holiday periods can be a goldmine for the small business, if leveraged correctly. Here are four ways in which your small business can utilise seasonal occasions to bolster your profits, and increase your visibility in the process.

Make Use of Special Offers

The special offer is a quintessential tool for increasing the profits of your business during a seasonal holiday – and are scientifically proven to make consumers happier. Make use of seasonal iconography and phrasing to re-tool your offerings for the season; if you were a hospitality venue, you might expand your offering to include mulled wine at Christmas and introduce a 2-for-1 offer on weekends, or put a Halloween twist on cocktails and introduce a Happy Hour. Consumers love to see the seasons reflected back to them, and having industry-specific offers is an excellent way of increasing your visibility as a brand.

The temptation, especially if your business is a new one, may be to think that offers and discounts are a one-way ticket to losing profits as opposed to gaining them. But the profits you make from discounts and offers are of a different kind. When selling a product or service at your regular rate, you are aiming for a GP, or Gross Profit target – a percentage which represents the amount of that rate is profit vs costs and overheads. When you introduce a discount, you are instead looking at profit by volume. Your GP will be lower, but your net profit will be higher from selling more of your stock or service than if the offer wasn’t running at all.

Prepare for Each Holiday

There are many holidays throughout the year, some of which even overlap each other in terms of visibility.

Your task as a small business is to figure out which holidays could serve your brand the best, and create a series of plans for each one. It’s important not to forget just how impactful Christmas can be on any business – spending is at an all-year high in the Christmas season, with a surprising amount of spending taking place on even on Christmas Day itself. It pays to be ready for busier periods. Many people use holiday times to travel. There are some businesses that operate over fifty tours that offer lots of destination at keen prices.

Get In on Christmas Early

Speaking of the Christmas period: don’t be afraid to start a marketing push for your Christmas offers early! Many people are already thinking forward to the festive season, and other, larger businesses have already signed off on their own festive content. Thinking about Christmas earlier than you think you should is a positive, because it gives you the necessary lead time push your campaign farther – for example, snapping up sought-after advertising slots in relevant publications before it’s too late.

Christmas is a period of high competition in most every industry, and if you’re going to be investing in a Christmas campaign, you’ll need to do it right to cut through the noise. Take out a small business loan to pay for your campaign – this way, you can afford to do it well, and reap the rewards without eating into company coffers.

Collaborate with Other Businesses

Lastly, collaboration is a powerful way to leverage the holiday season. Other small businesses might twin with yours in interesting ways, and together you could offer interesting deals to consumers. Alternatively, as businesses you may be able to trade services to mutually help each other for the holiday period.