Between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the festive shopping season,  the end of the year is one of the busiest times for SMEs.

With an influx of buyers ready to spend, now is the time to put plans in place to maximise your revenue. It's time to focus on your marketing efforts, double down on your stock levels and get enough hands on deck to successfully handle a rise in demand.

Monthly household spending hits its peak every year throughout December. Plus, it’s predicted that Australian shoppers will spend $63.9 billion in the 2022 festive season, meaning there’s plenty of opportunity to capitalise on.

Ready to maximise your revenue during the busiest time of the year? We’re diving into our top tips to boost your revenue during these busy periods to help you navigate and prepare for an influx of customers and orders.

1. Prepare well in advance

First, it's essential to ensure you've set your business up for success by planning and preparing for the silly season ahead of time.

Whether your busiest time of the year is Boxing day, Black Friday, or even Christmas gifting, it's crucial to start preparing your budgets, stock, and marketing efforts.

Here are three steps to get your business ready for the end-of-year rush.

Prepare your budget

Start by reviewing your quarterly budget and ensure you've got enough cash to fund this busy period.

Investing in the right areas of your business can help you to successfully navigate an increase in bookings or sales without stressing about having enough products or people to meet demand.

For example, if you know the Christmas period will be your busiest time, you may need to hire extra staff and purchase more stock to cope. Your budget should account for the increase in expenses and how those will contribute to a boost in revenue.

You can maximize your chances of boosting sales and ultimately reaching positive cash flow by making some temporary adjustments and reinvesting into your business ahead of a busy season.

Get your stock together

You don't want to find yourself in a situation where the demand for your products is greater than how much stock you have on the shelves. One of the best ways to prepare for this is to review previous sales records to predict what this season will look like.

Make sure to put in orders for materials and packaging well ahead of time to ensure you get all the supplies you need to maximise revenue.

Bring in an extra pair of hands

With an increase in demand, it could be worth hiring an extra set of hands to help you out.

Many businesses hire Christmas casuals to manage an influx of customers and orders they couldn't handle with regular staffing.

The key is finding ways to increase your staff temporarily (rather than committing to higher fixed staffing costs for the long term), which makes casuals, contractors, or freelancers great options to consider.

Once you've got enough hands on deck, provide the proper training and prepare your roster early on, especially if you have casual staff. Your budgets should also consider extra staffing, so you know you have the financial runway to cover these costs.  

2. Identify the best marketing channels

There is a range of different marketing channels you can use to promote your products and services. But the key to cutting through the noise and maximising revenue is knowing where to find your ideal customers.

Narrowing down your channels will help you run paid advertising campaigns and organic marketing on the right platforms.

Some good questions to ask yourself include:

• What social media platforms are my audience using? Are they an older demographic using Facebook and Instagram, or are they a younger demographic who uses TikTok?
• What marketing channels have you found the most success with, and why?
• What is your budget and is it high enough to run effective campaigns in more expensive advertising channels?
• Is your audience responsive to email marketing campaigns? If so, it’s an extremely cost-effective channel that should be a focus during this period.

A good place to start is to use data and information from previous years to plan for the upcoming busy period to get to know who your target audience is and what platforms they are using.

Once you’ve identified the best marketing channels, you can start getting creative with your campaigns to create buzz and promote any discounts and deals for your busy period.

Don’t be afraid to invest money in paid channels over the festive season, conversion rates are much higher at this time of year in most industries.

3. Make sure you have the capital to handle it

Another important part of boosting revenue during busy times is ensuring you have the capital to handle the extra expenses like staffing costs, stock, and marketing.

If you don't have the immediate cash flow you need, but know you will make it up during this period; corporate cards can be a great way to bridge the gap.

With Cape’s corporate cards, your business can prepare for the craziness in advance, with up to $500k credit, and no transaction fees. You’ll have peace of mind that you can maximise performance when it matters and not worry about running out of cash.

Wrapping up

Even though the end-of-year rush provides a massive opportunity for businesses, it can be stressful. Cash flow is tight, expenses are high, workload increases, and making hay while the sun shines is challenging!

But with the right budgeting, forecasting, cash flow, and expense management tools, you can maximise your revenue and performance.