MI Pro

Make a holiday promotion plan
For each of the next 12 weeks (i.e., 9 weeks pre-holiday and three weeks after, particularly create holiday specials for shoppers with gift cards) map out:
1.    What are our featured products?
2.    What are key specials, promotions and sale items?
3.    What key message do we want to convey? (price? value? service? etc)

Create content and select products for each week of your plan 
Customers will visit your website much more often during the holidays.  So rotate messages so that each week people see different reasons and merchandise to buy from you.

Develop content that compels people to buy AND visit you
Present featured products and key specials from your plan.  Most importantly, give your customers key reasons to buy from YOU, not an e-commerce-only site.

Always provide three to five reasons for customers to come to or contact your store (in-store specials, try the instrument, expert advice, etc.).  Sell your expertise and advice.

Present merchandise with a proven online sales track record
Here are the key categories of products that have sold well on the web during the holidays.

Starter packs: Some manufacturers offer 'all-in-one' kits (for example a guitar, care and amplifier together). But don’t stop there. Create a starter pack for each category using a mix of brands.  For example, what about a drum starter pack of a snare, sticks, practice pad and lesson book or a choir singer’s pack with sheet music, vocal spray and a book on diction?  Nobody else can compete with your “custom” packs and you can maintain solid profit margins.

Accessories: Accessories make great stocking stuffers and low-cost gifts. Tuners, string packs, cases, music stands, print music books – don’t over look these affordable items as a way to build future relationships that could lead to instrument sales.

Lessons: Sell these in packs of three to six lessons at a special price or bundle them with instrument purchases. Encourage the success of a new musician and you will have a customer for life.

Step-up instruments: The holidays are a time for a large gift.  So step-up instruments for the experienced player can be that special gift. Offer short-term financing and layaways to make this affordable. Offer a post-holiday in-store session to fit the instrument to the new gift recipient – no e-commerce company can offer that.

Books: Often overlooked, but not to the smart web merchandiser. Focus on top sellers, recent pop releases and sell that Christmas music. There are great margins in books and everyone who buys one is your core target audience.

Gift cards: Last but not least, sell them online. Over 18 per cent of shoppers last year used them. This year that number will be higher.

Market to the non-musician
Alert! Many people coming to your website won’t know anything about music, yet they will buy gifts for people that do.
So make it easy for them. Give them gift ideas online and in store. Those suggestions should be at different price ranges.  For example, 'hot gifts for guitarists from 20 to 50 pounds'.  That makes it simple for them – and profitable for you.

Don’t overlook events
Your store should be the hub for music in your town. Post local music events on your website. Trade links with local community groups. Every choir needs a piano. Every working band needs sound gear. Support them and they’ll support you.

Use eNewsletters – and collect emails
During the holidays customers want gift ideas. e-newsletters are low-cost and drive traffic to your site and your store.

At this season of high store traffic, train every staff member to collect email addresses from walk-ins and buyers alike. High traffic equals tremendous potential to expand your email lists.

Display complete product lines on your site
If you don’t have what a customer wants in your store, what do you tell them? That’s right, 'we can get it.'

So make your site be the same way. Merchandise every product from all your manufacturers in your own online product catalog.  

Don’t have a database now? No problem. Consult with a service like ours that already provides pre-loaded data from your brands at your web address.  

Don’t have a site? Need to expand your site’s capabilities? Consider a pre-built system
There’s still time to have a site in place for the holidays.  Pre-built sites with pre-loaded data offer extensive tools to help you meet your customers’ Internet needs.

Your customers will be active on the web during the holidays!
The question is...

Will you?

Gordon O’Hara is a managing partner at Retail Up!,  a website and ePOS service provider for all types of music dealers.  

Over 100 music and print music dealers in the UK, Ireland, Canada and the Americas use their system to add new functions to an existing website or a full website for their music shops. The system includes pre-loaded music product databases, content management system and many of the marketing tools discussed in this article. Retail Up’s OneStep ePOS systems interface with leading accounting packages.  

You can reach him by clicking on the Retail Up web button to the right of this article.