This morning, a knock on the door gave me a pleasant and insightful surprise. A neighbour, an 84 year old woman who lives by herself handed me an advanced Easter Sunday present - 4 pieces of a Milk Chocolate Hollow Bunny. One each for me and my wife, and for my two boys.
As I look at the foil wrapped chocolate bunny, it got me to thinking about how the Easter holidays affect both big and small businesses all over the world.
True, Easter may not be as big a commercial holiday as Christmas or Boxing Day. Or even occasions that guarantee an increase in gift purchases such as Mother's and Father's Day. But, entrepreneurs, both big and small, may still take advantage of the Easter holidays to spike up their sales and generate the much needed income during the first quarter of the year.
Most countries, specially those that are dominantly Christian, celebrate Holy Week (last week of Lent and the week before Easter) with a few days of no work and school. This gives businesses involved in the travel and tourism industry an opportunity to get more customers who take the time out for a short vacation.
For those that peddle more basic products and services, there are a number of ways that they can take advantage of Easter into bringing home the bacon:
- For those that publish a regular newsletter, make it an Easter themed one - whether it is full of bunnies and eggs, or for those that can include a bit of spiritual features, it can showcase an easter story or articles for reflection.
- Use Easter themed shopping bags or wrapping paper announcing your Easter activities or sales promotions.
- Send Easter Greeting Cards to loyal customers.
- Re-position your products and services ( gift certificates) as possible Easter gifts your customers can give out to family and friends.
- Provide Easter give-aways like Easter Eggs or Bunnies (stuffed toys, please do NOT use real rabbits or bunnies). If you decide to use a real rabbit for kids to pet and have their picture taken with, why not borrow or lease one from a local pet store ( in exchange for publicity) and make sure to take care of the pet properly.
- Supply recipes for Easter traditions around the world –Tsoureki (Greek Easter bread), Kolache (Bulgarian bread) or Pisanki (Polish Easter Eggs) for instance. Thank you to http://www.wordconstructions.com.au/articles/business/easterbus.html for this suggestion and other ideas.
- Hold workshops on how to decorate easter eggs or how to make chocolate bunnies.
- Hold an Easter themed contest for kids. In my kid's school, they were all asked to decorate a plastic cup with whatever Easter idea they had in mind. My son used paper , adhesive tape and markers to create a Super Bunny complete with the Superman "S" Logo. Use your product or packaging bag as a base material.
- For those with blogs or websites, have your webmaster throw in a couple of Easter images and articles.
- A more ambitious project would be to hold an Easter Egg Hunt complete with prizes.
- Of course, nothing beats a promotional sale during Easter Sunday itself. Make sure to promote it weeks before.
Do you have any other Easter ideas you'd like to share with our readers? Do send them in by posting a comment below or email me at : adluzuriaga@gmail.com
I'll make sure to include them in the post or in future entries.
Happy Easter everyone!
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