The holiday season can provide huge growth opportunities for small businesses yet it can also equally feel like an uphill battle to compete with more mature businesses. Digital innovation can provide the answer to driving success and scaling your business during this lucrative time of year.

But what are the ‘back to basics’ benefits of using digital channels, and how can business owners implement these changes today? There’s no better time to ask why – or get ready – than now, encourages Harry Lowes, Director Mid-Market at Meta ANZ.

Digital channels are a key sales driver for many small businesses and digital advertising can be crucial to unlocking more potential customers for your business. The holiday season is the perfect time to get started with digital advertising, which is now easier than ever and requires minimal investment to test the waters. Products like Meta’s Advantage+ shopping campaigns use machine learning to take the work out of delivering and scaling up your ad campaigns – vital for SMEs at a busy but critical time of year.

According to Meta’s The Digital Journeys of SMEs in Australia Report 2023, the value of using technology to drive tangible business outcomes is undoubtedly without question. Digital technologies allowed small and medium businesses in Australia to generate a whopping $306 billion in additional revenue over the last year. In fact, if all small businesses fully embraced digital technology in Australia, they could unlock another $181 billion in revenue. Digital sales channels now also account for a larger share of sales than traditional channels. Over the next 12 months, small and medium businesses expect 57 per cent of sales to come from digital channels alone. That’s why getting started now to take advantage of the holiday season is a must and testing the waters is certainly possible, even during the busy festive season.

3 tips to nail the festive season

Tip #1 – Ensure your customer support is ready 

Nailing your customer service during the holiday season can be key to developing long-term customer relationships. You want to make the shopping experience easy, pleasant and hassle free, especially during this frenzy period. Digital channels are an efficient way to connect with your customers – and are quickly becoming customers’ go-to when it comes to contacting businesses.  

Improve customers’ experience by setting up automated responses to answer frequently asked questions based on keywords in the customer’s message, or simply to let them know when they can expect a response back to help keep the customer experience consistent. 

Tip 2: Remember, make it personal 

The holiday season is a key period for online shopping, whether for gifts, sales or summer shopping sprees. For brick-and-mortar businesses or those who have confined their businesses to a specific location, personalisation can provide an opportunity to expand your potential customer base significantly. The report also found that 65 per cent of small business leaders cite improvements in sales from outside their local economy thanks to digital technologies.

Using paid digital advertising, small businesses can reach new audiences in specific locations with curated and audience-specific messaging. Furthermore, you can target these audiences with communications specific to their locations to make your customers feel valued – whether that pertains to shipping options, service availability or offers for new customers. 

Tip 3: Don’t forget to evaluate and report

Getting to the holiday season finish line is the only goal in sight right now for most businesses. That said, remember digital channels provide a wealth of information related to your audience and business. Keep track of those insights to check back in after your activity. For example, analyse engagement rates or click-through rates on product-related social posts to gauge customer preferences, which can then help to identify hero products to feature in future digital advertising campaigns or on the website homepage.

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