‘Tis the season to grow your business!  Oracle NewsSuite offers fifteen ideas for making your business merry and bright. Get ready for early shoppers and you’ll be ready for those last-minute shoppers as well. In reviewing their list of fifteen ideas, several popped out as winners and I’ve categorized them into three types of suggestions:

• Decorate your business. That’s a given with a brick and mortar store, but what about a small business without any walk-ins? Let me be succinct here; Everyone must decorate…whether you do it digitally or tangibly. Let me repeat: Everyone needs to decorate.

• Be service-minded. Offer a discount or provide in-store gift wrapping. Offer your expertise. Offer holiday tips. Offer a free gift for stopping by. Offer refreshments for an open house. All of these sentences started with the word offer. That’s the key to helping your clientele feel like they’re being given a gift and not feeling fleeced. Create value and offer it free of charge. Choose two or three from this category to be sure you are attracting the eyes and pocketbooks of your clientele.

• Market the holidays. Create a gift guide. Launch a holiday-themed social media campaign. Plan a few weather-related discounts. Support a worthy cause. Send out a holiday gift card. Choose one or two opportunities from this category to attract attention and shoppers.

Selecting ideas from each category, strategize a winning approach to holiday sales. From our side of the page it’s all about income, right? From their viewpoint it’s all about celebrations. Your transition from merchant to celebrant is the key to growing your business through the holidays. Small Business Saturday is coming up, so coordinate your holiday festivities with this day of support for small business to make the most of it.

Look at it this way. If clients aren’t buying from you, they are buying from someone else. A recent report from NBC in citing a survey from the National Retail Foundation, reported that 62% of holiday shoppers purchase gifts for loved ones. Inflation is a given, but people are yearning for life to return to normal, whatever the new normal may be, and they are shopping. The trick is to make sure they are shopping with you.

Whether you capture sales online or in your store, you need to capture sales. Do it through engaging with your customers via mail, email, social media, or special events. Choose what you want to participate in and go full force. After all, ‘tis the season!