Don't wait until mid-January to play catch up with your revenue, put a plan in place early to keep customers at your door after the holiday shopping season is over.

It is no small secret that a lot of people buy during Christmas. There is the compulsion to buy gifts, visit friends and family, the Christmas decors and all.
The year-end is usually a time for a lot of spending. To a large extent, January usually has to bear the financial aftermath of the holiday season spending.
Buyers become suddenly more aware of their spending. As such, there is a reluctance to spend further. For small businesses owners this can be a challenging time as the business becomes slow-moving. Sales are hard to make as it is usually a slow time across most markets.
But it does not necessarily have to be this way for you, especially if you leverage local advertising.
In this post, we share a few strategies you can use to ensure sales continue even after the holiday season. We show you how small businesses can market in January following the busy holiday season.
Start targeting in December
It is easy to get carried away with all the hype that comes with the holiday season. But did you know you can leverage on the December traffic for sales in January?
With proper planning, it is actually fairly simple. Your holiday advertising already has the attention of your customers, so when they buy from you, take the opportunity to offer discounts or gift cards for January purchases. This is incentive enough for them to want to come around and at least have a look in January.
Time to roll out your discounts and deals
Who doesn’t like a great special offer? We can't think of any reason buyers would not like a deal, especially following the heavy spending season when cash is tight for most people. Special offers have great customer appeal, as the word "deal" carries with it inherent psychological power.
Even before the holiday season begins, you can channel your local advertising to target those looking for deals in your market. If you run an online business, you can focus on social media to spread the word early, and then in January reach back out to those people to let them know about new offers you have available.
Be sure to make those deals irresistible. By so doing, you can take advantage of the word-of-mouth you will get following your sales.
Launch a new product or service
This one is a bit tricky. It almost does not make sense to launch a new product during the slow month of January, right?
Well, that is conventional thinking. And you will need more than that if you're going to make those post-holiday-season sales. Do what others are not doing, surprise your customers by bringing them something fresh for the New Year.
A new product that is helpful, timely or inspiring, and has the right advertising campaign around it, will definitely attract customers. Whether it is an information product, a seasonally appropriate service or something else entirely, the right product will bring your customers to your doorstep, even in January.
Long-Term Planning
Yes, we mentioned targeting in December. But have you thought of playing it long?
You may be reading this blog post in June and thinking of waiting until December. That is a bad idea. You can start laying out the necessary strategies that will keep the customers coming back the following year.
Work out the unique offers you will be making. Talk to your team about how to use local advertising to target the right people. Develop your social media campaign ideas now.
These are just some of the things you can do to ensure that business does not dry up in January. Leverage these strategies and it will give your business the perfect head-start it needs for the New Year.
Author: Marq Mosier

Marq Mosier is the Founder of Wonderland Marketing in Houston, TX. He specializes in helping small business owners find their voice in local markets through digital marketing, content development and community building.