We recommend that our clients use the month of September to get ready for November and December. That gives us (and them) enough time to check and double check everything. While there are countless items to check off the list, a few things move the sales needle the most.

It’s mid-October, so it’s crunch-time and every day really counts.  This isn’t meant as a comprehensive list. This is a “if you’re going to do a few things to get ready, these are the things to make sure you do” list:

1) Make sure you analyze last year’s numbers.

AdWords, Analytics and sales figures. You need to know what worked and what didn’t, specifically during the holiday season. Use that information to create your AdWords campaigns for this year.

It may seem like an obvious step, but some companies review month over month figures. More than any other time, it’s important to review year over year numbers, because the holidays are such an aberration for most ecommerce companies.

2) Get up to speed with your competition.

Read industry trades. Check your competitors’ sites. Have their websites changed? Understanding where they are right now and what the industry buzz is, can help you understand how robust your competition will be in the coming months.
 
3) Get your email-marketing schedule set now.

Even if all year long you’re able to work a day, a week, or a month ahead, the holidays move so quickly. You have to have a preliminary email-marketing schedule laid out, and get started on the graphics and messaging for these campaigns. The coming days will get busy. You should leave as little to the last minute as possible.

4) Create landing pages that complement your holiday AdWords campaigns.

Landing pages can help improve conversion rates, and are a critical part of the SEM process. Once again, if possible, look back to last year. Learn from what worked and what didn’t. Using the data available should help performance every year, regardless of the economy.

Online marketing is a fast moving industry, even in slow times. During the holiday season, every hour counts. Get in front of the process now, so you can have a successful, profitable, holiday season.

Of course my friend, a veteran of the larger trade show circuit, has by now come to know many of the other trade show warriors. Her relationship with them gave me an incredible opportunity to peek into the mind of the small business owner who manufactures or sells products into the thousands of specialty and chain stores in this country. What I found was fascinating, if not a little disturbing.

The facts are this:
• To a person, all of the business owners I spoke with have been in business for less than 6 years. Meaning they all created their business after the internet became a household name.
• They spend tens of thousands of dollars on these shows every year, year in and year out.
• Those expenditures don’t account for the lost productivity. For small businesses, every day spent on a trade show floor is a day where other business cannot get done.
• None of the businesses owners I spoke with spent more than $3,000 annually updating, maintaining, or marketing their sites. They had friends, or friends of friends around who would update pictures or add new press to the site.

What was fascinating was that all of them sold their products wholesale to retailers who sold their products online. So, although others had created a business out of marketing and selling their products online, they still didn’t take it seriously.

Bring your business into today’s age, and take your future into your own hands.

They were all doing business like it was 1995. Back then, trade shows and selling wholesale was the only way, the only option manufacturers had, to get their products out to the public. But in 2009, that is decidedly not so.

Consumers use the internet every single day to shop for what they need. Consumers do not have to know your brand name to buy your product online, any more than they do offline.

By not making your internet presence the backbone of your marketing mix, you leave the fate of your business in the hands of retail shops, hoping that they are able to drive in enough foot traffic to sell your products.

What a huge mistake.

I am not suggesting cutting out trade shows altogether, but the emphasis is backwards. Tradeshows play a supporting role to your online presence.

Make your website your priority. Create it to sell your products at retail pricing 24/7. It is not a look book. It is not a place where family and friends shop to support you. It is your most important store, and your best salesperson. Treat it that way.

Take 50-60% of your trade show budget and reallocate it to your web presence. Hire a professional. I know I’m biased but if you try and do this yourself you won’t see the kind of ROI you need. You hire a professional to take your catalog pictures. You hire a professional for your graphic design work. You hire a professional for product design help. Hire one for your web marketing too.

As your online sales pick up, budget 15-25% of your sales every month to advertising online the next month. So, if you did $10,000 in online sales in January, your budget for online ads in February is $2,000.

Then, pick only one or two trade shows to go to every year to get your products out into stores.