3 Smart Ways to Stay Visible Over the Holidays

We've all been here before. As Thanksgiving approaches, everyone's thoughts turn to road trips, elaborate meal preparation, and figuring out how to divide TV privileges between the football fans and the dog-show aficionados. Then Black Friday hits, followed by Cyber Monday, followed by another wave of chaos in December. Even if your business profits from seasonal holiday shopping, it can easily get lost in the shuffle. So what can you do to market your brand more effectively and stay more visible until the holiday madness settles down? Consider the following three strategies.

Host Your Own Virtual Holiday Party

Entrepreneurs are constantly looking for networking opportunities where they can get to know each other and possibly forge new collaborative and referral relationships. However, if you rely on other organizations to provide such events for you, you allow yourself to blend into the blur of bodies as just another guest with a pack of business cards. To complicate matters further, the COVID-19 pandemic has made large gatherings in hard-to-manage conditions a bad idea. So why not provide an alternative in the form of your own Zoom-based holiday party? As the host, you and your brand naturally grab the spotlight, helping to ensure that every guest pays at least some attention to you. The Zoom environment may also make it easier for guests to enjoy conversations without shouting over each other.

Make Holiday Messages a Part of Your Marketing Routine

Do you want your clients and customers to think of you during the holidays? Can you think of some long-silent clients and prospects you'd like to reconnect with? This time of year offers the perfect opportunity to do so by making use of the time-honored tradition of holiday messages. Send out those thank-you-for-being-a-customer cards and emails, or simply convey your best wishes for the holiday. Better yet, include a special offer or promotional gift to keep recipients engaged or spur them to rekindle their relationships with you.

Produce Holiday-Themed Social Media

If everybody's going to be scouring the Internet for holiday-related stuff as they do every year, why not upload some content for them to find in their searches? Think about how your products and services intersect with whatever special needs or challenges your target market might face during this holiday season. Create blog articles, video clips, Tweets, and other social media content that addresses those issues while gently pointing back toward your company as a possible solution. Launch an online contest of some sort, perhaps involving videos or written testimonials submitted by your audience. Get people interacting on your social media platforms, and they'll stay on those platforms as long as you keep feeding them content that matters to them.

Do your own holiday plans limit your ability to focus on holiday-themed marketing content? That's okay, because many freelance copywriters (including Yours Truly) maintain full-time operations all year round. So contact me, and let's work together to keep your business humming along this holiday season!

3 Reasons to Feel Thankful (When You Hire a Freelance Copywriter)

What will you give thanks for this Thanksgiving? If you're in business, you may simply feel thankful that you've kept your head above water after the craziness of the past couple of years. Of course, you probably feel thankful for many more personal things as well -- but for many small business owners, work life quality and personal life quality go hand in hand. You may find that any steps you take to make your business work better also aids your health, your sanity, and your domestic life. With that thought in mind, consider how you could benefit from bringing a skilled, experienced freelance marketing copywriter into your contact sphere. The next time somebody at your Thanksgiving table asks you what you're thankful for, you might include these three answers.

1. "I'm thankful that I can spend more time with my loved ones and less time sweating over my marketing content." I've said it before and I'll say it again -- writing takes time and effort, no matter how much talent you may have for it or how much you may enjoy it under less pressurized circumstances. You could probably make better use of that time and effort by devoting it to other necessary on-the-job tasks. You may also wish you could stop taking that extra writing work home with you so you could give more time to your family and friends. When you outsource your marketing content writing to a dedicated professional, you're giving yourself the gift of time -- and who wouldn't feel thankful a little more of that?
2. "I'm thankful that I can feel more confident and less stressed about my marketing campaigns." Any major marketing campaign involves a great deal of physical work and mental energy. You've got to research the competition, evaluate your goals, create a detailed action plan, and coordinate all the efforts of your various creative professionals to bring that plan to successful fruition. It's a stressful job under the best of circumstances -- and if you're winging it by writing your own marketing content, you may feel totally uncertain as to what kind of results you can expect. You might as well take the content creation off your plate by assigning it to a professional writer who knows how to work as a team player, follow instructions, and meet deadlines. 
3. "I'm thankful for the boost in business I can get from more effective brand messaging." Has your brand messaging wandered off target as your company has grown and evolved? A brand that no longer makes its mark on its target audience can only hurt your revenue figures. You might not even know for certain where the branding inconsistency or ineffectiveness lies. Could it be hiding in your website or print marketing content, for example? Hire a freelance copywriter who specializes in marketing content creation, and you'll have that extra pair of trained eyes you need to evaluate the problem, find out where to make improvements, and then redo the content so it actually promotes the right brand message to boost your income. More Thanksgiving dinner for everybody!

I'm thankful for the opportunity to help folks like you achieve your marketing objectives -- and I'd like to give you reason to feel thankful that you requested my writing services. Contact me, and let's talk turkey!