November 6, 2002
A
Sleigh-Load of
Holiday Marketing Tips
With pumpkin season already behind us and Thanksgiving fast approaching,
you're no doubt already deep in the details of upcoming holiday
events and special promotions. But if, like many, you're looking
for additional ways to maximize your holiday marketing this year,
here are a number of tips you can begin using right away:
Pitch your holiday gift suggestions
to newspapers now
Most newspapers are already
at work on the editorial content for their holiday gift guides,
so if you didn't begin pitching your gift suggestion ideas last
month, do it now. (Forget pitching to magazines at this point.
To appear in their December issues your pitch would have needed
to reach them by June or July.)
What kinds of gift suggestions will
up your chances of getting feature coverage? The more creative
-- and sometimes over the top -- the better.
Even if you don't sell a lot of the
more exotic items, the publicity value alone is worth it. Think
Neiman Marcus and its annual Christmas book -- this year featuring
Burberry London taxis for $58,900 each, a $3 million collection
of Andy Warhol portraits and a $15,000 bamboo hut. Besides garnering
the upscale retailer a huge amount of press, these limited edition
offerings help spur sales of $15 paperweights and other gifts
more within the average shopper's reach.
Just in case you don't have a taxi to offer, here are a few
less lofty ideas you can consider instead:
- Create a something-of-the-month-club
gift package that includes 12 items from your museum store or
a combination of merchandise, event tickets and classes relating
to one particular theme -- gardening, quilting, or "a year
of fun" for kids, for example.
- Promote donations to your adopt-an-animal
or adopt-a-tree program.
- Offer themed gift packages rather than
single items. Bundle your cookbook, for instance, with a few
cooking-related items from your store and admission to a cooking
class.
- Instead of simply promoting gift memberships,
Dana Hines, coauthor of Membership
Development: An Action Plan for Results,
suggests including a small but clever premium along with each
one. And offer a discount for multiple gift membership purchases
as well.
- Partner with a local restaurant or
hotel and offer a VIP gift package including tickets to a major
exhibition or event opening and a private behind-the-scenes tour.
- With the economy still weak, assemble
a list of gift suggestions to fit every budget -- Gifts Under
$10, Under $50, Over $250, etc.
- Take a cue from Retail Forward, a Columbus, Ohio consulting
firm, and promote more gifts for the home this year. They're
predicting that the recent spurt in mortgage refinancings will
make home goods one of the bright spots in an otherwise fairly
flat sales season.
Start contacting media outlets with
your holiday story ideas
Newspapers, business journals, radio and TV stations
are all hungry for out of the ordinary holiday features. And
with the season stretching longer and longer each year, they
have lots of space that needs to be filled. Spend some time coming
up with a few unusual story angles and start drumming up interest
now. When calling editors, be sure
to ask when they'll be planning their holiday stories and what's
the best time to reach them.
Take advantage of your expert status
The holidays are a great time to create tip sheets
and top-ten lists in your museum's area of expertise. The media
love these because they can be used as-is for stories and fillers,
and you can post them on your website and distribute them to
members and visitors as well. Best of all, the subject matter
is almost unlimited as long as you give it a holiday twist. Everything
from "How 8 Popular Holiday Traditions Got Their Start"
to "Six Ways to Give Your Pet a Great Holiday" to "The
Top 10 Ways to Keep Kids Occupied During Christmas Vacation"
is fair game.
When decking the halls, don't forget
your website
Be sure to promote your website at all your holiday
events, in your newsletter and in any and all ads and marketing
pieces that you distribute between now and Christmas. Most important,
be sure your site is ready to receive holiday visitors and donors:
- Make certain that everything is working properly.
- Add a link from your home page to a special holiday section.
- Offer free holiday e-cards (along with prominent links to
your holiday shopping pages and online giving opportunities).
- Post your holiday tip sheets or top-ten lists.
- Promote gift memberships.
- If you have the capability to accept donations online, create
a specific limited-time giving opportunity with a holiday theme.
It will generate better results than a generic request for support.
- Create a separate page for each of your holiday events. Make
certain that every one contains full details -- who, why, when,
where, how much and where and how to purchase tickets.
- Give site visitors the option to make an online donation
to a holiday event if they can't attend.
- Include a holiday gift ideas page, broken down into different
price categories.
- Since shipping fees are a major obstacle to online sales,
consider featuring reduced shipping at your online store this
season.
- Allow local customers to order online and pick up their orders
in person at your museum store.
Use e-mail liberally
Leading catalog retailers mail multiple times during
the holiday season because they know that each catalog you receive
from them increases the chances that you'll buy. While few museum
budgets will stretch far enough these days to cover multiple
print mailings, the low cost of e-mail makes it possible for
even small institutions to use the same strategy electronically.
E-mail marketing experts, in fact, suggest doing mailings as
often as every 10 days during the holiday season. Here a few
ways you might use e-mail in your holiday marketing plans:
- Invite recipients to visit the holiday section your website.
- Promote your holiday events, gift memberships and holiday
giving opportunities. (For the benefit of last-minute shoppers,
you can promote the last two right up until two days before the
holiday.)
- Send out tip sheets and top-ten lists.
- Do a mailing of gift ideas in different price categories.
- Offer an early-shopper discount to those who make online
purchases by a certain date.
- Dana Hines suggests offering "double-discount shopping
days" to members during the holidays. Promote those events
through e-mail.
- Instead of sending holiday cards this year, send your greetings
by e-mail. You might even include a link to download a free screen
saver, holiday recipes or a special calendar.
- Collect e-mail addresses at all your holiday events and then
follow up by e-mail with a "thank you for attending."
Be sure the e-mail includes a link to the holiday section of
your website and to next year's calendar of events.
Ask if your message can tag along
Ask your corporate partners and other businesses serving
your target market about the possibility of including your marketing
message in their mailings, packages or circulars. Since the economy
has curbed many companies' abilities to make cash donations,
allowing your message to tag along as a statement stuffer, package
insert or newsletter blurb is an in-kind contribution they may
be happy to make. And don't forget to include a marketing piece
in every envelope and bag that goes out of your own museum for
the rest of the year!
Promote "Giving the gift of
time"
One of my all-time favorite ideas for holiday marketing
comes from an article
by R. Dale Safrit of the volunteer management consultancy Merrill
Associates. Safrit suggests launching a volunteer recruitment
campaign at the holidays that focuses not on the usual "become
a volunteer" message, but rather on "giving the gift
of time." A terrific idea for any organization.
Hold a Holiday Thank-a-Thon
Another of my all-time favorites comes from Terry
Axelrod of RaisingMoreMoney.com. She suggests holding a holiday
thank-a-thon -- making phone calls to members and donors
with no other motive than to simply thank them for their support
and let them know that they matter and they're appreciated.
Okay, I can already hear you groaning at the thought of even
more work during an already busy season. But think about
it a minute. What better feel-good gift could you possibly give
-- to your donors or to yourself?
Happy Holidays.
