Christmas is an intense period for businesses, and it’s easy to think about enjoying some downtime in January. It’s important not to see the first month of the year as a time to slow down or unwind, though, as this is an excellent opportunity to learn and improve.
For business owners, if you use January to evaluate what’s worked and what hasn’t, you can make a solid plan for the new year and set your business up for greater success. While your competition may still be recovering from all the festivities, you can get the edge on them if you do the right things.
Businesses Go Heavy on Promotions Over the Christmas Period
With the Christmas period now over, there will be a slow shift back to normality for businesses. Everywhere you looked during December, there were special festive promotions and twists on existing products. For instance, in the iGaming market, there were spinoffs of popular games, such as Fishin’ Frenzy Christmas. On Netflix and other streaming platforms, you couldn’t scroll without running into a Christmas film or special, like Is It Cake? Holiday or Sugar Rush Christmas.
Along with the seasonal specials, there were countless promotions over Christmas. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales always kick everything off and have the best discounts, but there are other deals over the holidays designed to keep people spending. For example, Boots is famous for its 3 for 2 deal on gift sets, and O2 always offers various festive phone deals.
Great Time to Assess What Has Worked and What Hasn’t
If you’re operating a business that ran some Christmas promotions in December, January is now the time to analyse what worked and what didn’t. If the offers were successful and led to an increase in sales, you’ll have more data on your customers that you can then use to improve operations in the year ahead. The good thing about January is that it’s nowhere near as hectic as the month that’s just passed, so there’s plenty of time to do a deep dive into the company processes.
For example, you can look into the different marketing methods used over Christmas, such as email marketing and social media ads, and see which ones were most effective. You can do this by looking at the campaign stats and seeing where the best click-through rates were. An article from Mailchimp has some good tips on how to conduct this analysis.
January is also a great time to conduct operational reviews. If you incurred some delays or failed deliveries, you need to calculate the cost of these in refunds and support tickets. Then, this can lead to better forecasting and staffing for periods when you expect business to be busy again.
If you thought about enjoying some relaxation in the new year, think again. The business owners who beat their competition are all busy dealing with the aftermath of their Christmas promotions. January is when you can really get a sense of the impact of all the hard work you did in December, so it’s important not to take your foot off the gas.
