Do you find the Christmas season exhausting? 

The kids are finishing up the school year, shopping centres are overrun with people on the hunt for the perfect presents, and all of the extended family comes out of the woodwork to enjoy the Christmas celebration you’re so generously hosting. 

Oh, and don’t forget that as a small business owner, you are going to be running a business on top of all of this!  

Now don’t get me wrong, Christmas is a wonderful time filled with family, friends and love. But it can also be an extremely stressful time. 

As a small business owner the holiday season will either go one of two ways:  

It will be your busiest and most profitable time of year. 

Or it’s your slow season and you’re preparing to take some time off for Christmas.

Preparing for the Christmas and holiday season can be a challenge, so we’ve made a list of things we think every fempreneur should be doing this holiday season!

1. Keep Your Branding Consistent

The Christmas spirit is infectious and red, white, and green seems to be everywhere right now! 
It’s easy to get caught up in this and to forget your brand voice. Everything is bright, cheery, and colourful and you want your social media to match that too. But does this match your brand voice and personality? You can and should celebrate the holidays, but you can’t forget about your brand personality. Is your brand quirky, fun and nurturing or is it serious and controversial? Incorporate this into your holiday posts, and stay true to your voice. 

You can and should celebrate the holidays, but you can’t forget about your brand personality.

You also need to stay true to your brand colours. If your brand colours are muted yellows and pinks, you shouldn’t abandon them and start using lots of reds and greens just because it’s Christmas. Find ways to add them into your posts, even if they aren’t as prominent as usual. 

Stay true to your brand and stand out from the sea of red and green! Here’s an example of how our team has incorporated some of our brand colours (fempire pink,  mint green, and white) and personality into our Christmas social media posts! 

2. Create Visually Appealing Social Media Posts

During the holiday period, a lot of brands, particularly big brands, become a lot more active on Facebook and Instagram. Organic reach drops off and the number of sponsored posts on social media goes up. You’ve probably noticed this pattern yourself, and unfortunately, it’s something that happens every year. But try not to stress too much, it will start rising again in the new year. 

So what can you do? 

You might consider sponsoring your own posts, but most people have this same idea and the cost of advertising is a lot higher than usual in December. Instead, I’d recommend getting creative with your holiday posts so that they stand out in the feed. If you want your audience to interact with your posts over the Christmas period, they need to be eye-catching. 

If you want your audience to interact with your posts over the Christmas period, they need to be eye-catching.  Click To Tweet

Think outside the box. Use humour, intrigue, or emotion-evoking images to draw your audience in. This is a great excuse to improve your social media game for 2021!

This Instagram post by bubblyperth is a great example of using humour to encourage engagement with your audience.

3. Schedule Your Email Marketing in Advance

During the holiday period, a lot of small businesses owners decide to shut down so that they can celebrate Christmas with their families. And even if you’re only taking a few days off, you still need to think about how it’s going to affect your email marketing. 

Do you need to send out any emails while you’re on holidays? Maybe you have emails planned to go out in the week before or after your break. The solution is to schedule your emails in advance using an email marketing provider like MailChimp. Schedule them out so that you can enjoy your time off without worry. 

And don’t forget to send your database an email stating your working hours and wishing them a Merry Christmas. You can even include a personalised graphic like this one. 

4. Get Christmassy with it

There is so much Christmas related content being released at the moment that you may be tempted to avoid posting anything Christmassy whatsoever.
But the holiday season can be a fun way to engage with your audience and show your appreciation of them.

Don’t ignore it – Embrace it. Christmas can be a great time to strengthen relationships with your existing customers and to also introduce new customers to your brand.

Here’s a couple of ways you can bring the holiday spirit into your posts and promotions:

• Christmas and New Year-themed Social Media Posts
• Christmas/NY Promotions
• Holiday Bundles 
• Holiday Quizzes 
• Christmas Giveaways
• Christmas-themed Webinars
• Virtual Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties

5. Trust Your Intuition

As a businesswoman, it is essential that you learn to trust your instincts. This can become difficult around the holiday season when everybody has an opinion and things start to get noisy. Other people will have a lot of ideas about how you should be doing things but you need to trust yourself. 

Stand out from the crowd by following your intuition and making your own choices. If your decision feels right, don’t discount it – run with it.

If your decision feels right, don’t discount it – run with it.

6. Check In with Your Business Coach

Whatever your situation, the Christmas season is usually anything but business as usual. 

If you run a product-based business, you are probably rushing around, hard at work getting things done. While many of us in service-based businesses are getting busy organising things for the new year and planning a short holiday break. Either way, it can be a pretty stressful time.

That’s why now might be a good time to check in with your business coach. If you’re feeling stressed or unsure, they may be able to offer you some advice, validation, or just another opinion on your Christmas planning. Don’t be afraid to reach out and check-in with them before the new year!

Just don’t forget to wish them a happy holidays too!

Oh, and if you know you need a business coach then let us help connect you to an expert Fempire Coach. Click here and fill out our simple form and one of our coaches will be in touch.

7. Don’t Skip Sleep

Given how stressful this time of year can be for small business owners, you might be tempted to spend extra time at night laying in bed and answering emails, or burning the candles at both ends trying to get everything done.

You need to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep at night. Sleep is not optional. And skipping it will cause a drop in both your productivity and in your health. It will make it that much harder to be productive when you are actually supposed to be working and this will cause your stress levels to skyrocket. 

So, set yourself a sleep schedule and stick to it.  

8. Schedule Your Social Media for the Holidays

If you’re planning to take some time off over the holidays, you should consider scheduling your social media posts in advance. By planning and scheduling your posts in the weeks leading up to your time off, you can ensure that your brand is working, even though you aren’t. 

By planning and scheduling your posts in the weeks leading up to your time off, you can ensure that your brand is working, even though you aren’t.  Click To Tweet

If you have a Facebook Business page, you can schedule both your Facebook and Instagram posts for free using Creator Studio.

And for other social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, you might want to use a third-party scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootesuite. Both of these platforms have free trial periods, so if you time it right, you can schedule all of your holiday posts without even having to pay for it!  

And while you’re busy planning your posts, it’s a good idea to also plan out and schedule your social media for that first week back at work, so that you can focus on catching up on everything else without worrying about your socials.

9. Take Some Time for Yourself

With December being such a crazy month, a lot of BossQueens find themselves rushing around, juggling their business, kids, and families. And this leaves pretty much no time for you to do something for yourself. It can be really draining and stressful, and that’s not what the holidays should be about.

So take some time and do something just for you. Take a bubble bath, go for a walk, or block out an afternoon where you can just lay around and watch Netflix.

Don’t feel guilty for relaxing and de-stressing – you need to take care of yourself too.

10. Set Boundaries around the Holidays

When you’re super busy it can be tempting to overload yourself trying to get everything done. But you need to set boundaries, and given how stressful the Christmas season can be, you’re going to have to be more on the ball than usual.

Set strict work/home boundaries so that you can focus just on work when at work, and on everything else when you’re at home.

A couple of tips to help you set boundaries during the holidays:

• Have strict work hours.
• Schedule your day out and stick to it.  
• Don’t let your clients think you’re at their beck and call. 

11. Share Your Own Holiday Celebrations

The holiday season is a great time to connect with your brand’s audience on a personal level. They’ve seen the professional side of your brand, but what about the personal side? It’s no lie, customers respond better to real people than to brands.

It’s no lie, customers respond better to real people than to brands.

Take this opportunity to share little snippets of your own holiday celebrations with your audience. Post stories and photos on your business’s social media about your Christmas celebrations and experiences. Share a photo to your story of your Christmas lunch or of your Christmas light adventure. This will help your brand appear more authentic and will encourage conversation between your followers.

12. Unplug for Christmas

Make sure that you take some time off before the new year. If you celebrate Christmas, spend it with your family – uninterrupted by work. And even if you don’t celebrate, Christmas day is still a great choice for a day off. Your customers are probably going to be more focused on spending time with their families than on buying from you on Christmas anyway. 

Make an effort to unplug from work. 

Turn off your phone, ignore your emails, focus on your family, hit the beach or binge some Netflix, do whatever works for you, and just let your body and mind relax. 

Happy Holidays!

So there are twelve things to think about this Christmas and New Year Season. Now go out there and have an amazing holiday season and start to the new year! 

And for more bossQueen tips and advice or to just keep up with all things Fempire, make sure that you’re following us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!

Do you have any tips or advice for getting through the holiday season? Let us know in the comments below xox