Julie Chomiak — December 6, 2016 The holidays are a great reason to connect with your customers and show them a the personal side of your small business. Of course, every business is promoting sales, discounts, and limited-time offers, but there are softer ways to engage your clients without asking them to make a purchase. Blogging is a prime way to provide timely, valuable content to your readers that speak to the holiday season and keep them coming back for more helpful tips and material.
If you’re wondering how to position your blog for increased traffic and subtly generate sales, this is the article for you! Try these four tips to successfully blog for business during the holidays.
Create Gift Guides
Everyone is shopping during the holidays. Create gift guides for your target audience as well as a personal wish list. Your readers will appreciate the help and enjoy learning more about you. If you have employees, have them generate their own wish lists or gift guides so your blog can reach different buyers and audiences. It’s fun to see what other people want and it often spurs new gift ideas for the readers.
To get you started, here are a few sample guides:
- Gifts for Moms
- Gifts for The Tech Savvy Friend
- Gifts for The Travel Aficionado
- Gifts for Colleagues
- Gifts for Your Pets
Gift guides allow you to connect with your audience and share about the people behind your business. It gives a glimpse into the personalities behind your brand, and if appropriate, provides a way to promote your products and services. However, tout your products carefully. Blog readers want honest articles, not promotional content disguised as objective commentary.
Share Customer Testimonials
The holidays are a wonderful time to boast about customer satisfaction and a job well done. If you have a fantastic customer testimonial on hand, write a post featuring that customer and their experience with your business. Tell the entire customer story and how your business supported their needs while over delivering and exceeding expectations. The more unique, the better as people remember surprising stories better than those that seem familiar.
Make the customer the focus of the post. With the customer as the hero, it subconsciously conveys your business principles about customer satisfaction and doing right for each client and interaction. These are invaluable sentiments that will only resonate more deeply with your readers during the holidays.
Offer Up Your Holiday Traditions
Holiday traditions are what make the season so special. Take this occasion to share your holiday traditions with your readers. You can discuss favorite recipes, family outings, decorating tips, and anything else that is nostalgic and meaningful to you.
This is another chance to engage your employee and ask them for their holiday traditions. Having a smattering of perspectives and traditions makes for a robust and engaging blog post. You’ll have as much fun writing it as your audience does reading it. Consider it as another means of opening your business to your readers in service of building relationships. It’s a way to humanize your business. and establish loyalty with your customers.
Highlight Your Charitable Side
It’s highly likely a charitable organization holds a special place in your business’s heart. Spread the word about your cause of choice on your blog! Tell your readers about the organization, why your business got involved with it, and how the brand supports the organization during the holidays and throughout the year.
Do you collect coats for a winter clothing drive or adopt a family and fulfill their Christmas present wishes? Or volunteer at a soup kitchen and provide hot meals to those in need? However you volunteer or give back as a business, share it on your blog. It increases awareness for your beloved cause and shows your customers what causes and efforts are important to the business. It’s an unexpected behind the scenes view of your brand, and one that readers want to see. Include photos from your efforts to create a visual of your goodwill. This will make an imprint on your readers and keep your business in their minds throughout the holidays.
Your business blogs should be inspiring and uplifting during the holidays. Give your readers a reason to come back week after week because your content is so captivating. Address these four areas, and you’ll have a month’s worth of content in no time.
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