It may feel like autumn in the air as leaves are beginning to change and Halloween costumes, ghosts and goblins are hanging in store displays. But to savvy holiday consumers, the fall is more than just a time to rake leaves and go trick or treating. 

According to the National Retail Federation, more than half of holiday shoppers start to research and plan their gifts in October or earlier. So if you want to use the holiday to promote your brand and gain business leads, you need to start now. Here are some tips for getting a head start on holiday promotions:

1. Plan Ahead With Your Ads

Planning ahead with your holiday ads involves creating a strategy now, especially if you are using new ad creative. If you are trying to increase business leads this season with some new ads, they may not perform as well as they could if you don't start preparing early.

To prepare for promotions, test your ad creative and ideas weeks in advance to see how your customers will respond. Optimize as you go and tweak for the best results. When you launch your ads during the prime holiday season, your ads and messaging will perform better because you took the time to optimize them.

2. Be Joyous and Thematic

The holiday season is the most joyful time of the year. To get into the spirit and connect with customers, inject a little joy into your messaging and promotions, whether email, texts, voice broadcasts, blogs or social media posts. Include holiday hashtags (#bejoyous) on your social posts and start priming your audience with some images to get them thinking about the joy the holidays bring. 

As an example of how to add holiday-themed imagery to your content, if you are running a special to gain business leads for your construction or carpentry small business, consider adding creative holiday images to your media like a DIY stable for Rudolph or wooden toys.

3. Encourage Loyalty Early On

In the coming months, your audience will be bombarded with holiday messaging and promotions. You need to find a way to cut through the noise and keep the focus on your brand so your customers stay loyal to you. To execute this successfully and build up anticipation, start hinting to your customers (right now) what types of promotions they can expect for the holidays. Promote pre-holiday discounts as well. Your goal is to get customers excited and remembering you when the holiday ad frenzy hits them.  

4. Use Voice Broadcasting

Communicating with your customers during the months preceding and for the holidays is crucial to prepare your customers for your promotions. But, calling customers manually is tedious, expensive and time-consuming, and time is not on your side. One of the quickest and easiest ways to broadcast your promotions and holiday-themed messages to as many people as possible is to use voice broadcasting. With CallFire’s voice broadcasting technology you can send custom messages to all of your customers in seconds. And voice messages convey a human touch, a dynamic that ties in with the holiday theme of caring and connecting.  

As an industry veteran, CallFire partners with small businesses daily to help them get the most exposure for their promotions and supercharge their business lead generation and sales. To get started with voice broadcasting and get the most out of your holiday promotions with this cost-effective, time-saving strategy, sign up for a free account here.