January is a time for new beginnings, stripping away the excesses of the holidays, and getting back to basics. While this can be refreshing in some ways, it can also be challenging for small businesses. Unless you own a gym or other health-centric business, you’re likely to experience some depressed foot traffic during January. Combine everyone’s health-centric resolutions, fresh haul of presents, and general holiday-fatigue, and you get a slow, quiet start to a new year.
Events are our favorite way to combat the New Year Slump and encourage foot traffic. This January, we worked with our clients Sentrel and Adelante to start their 2018 off with dozens of new customers walking through their doors. Here are some of our best tips for a successful January event:
1. Lean into a common resolution and offer a free work out. We partnered our clients with nearby fitness studios to offer a free class. If your client has the space, they can take a cue from Adelante and hold the workout class right in their shop, or in the case of Sentrel, they can partner with a nextdoor neighbor.
2. Keep it healthy! Sticking to a health theme is appealing to people who over-indulged during the holidays (um, everyone), but especially all those engaging in a Dry January. Think juices, veggie-based snacks, and skip the booze. Save those mimosas for Valentine’s Day, when everyone is ready to party again.
3. Make it a market! The January slump touches all kinds of businesses, so call up some of your favorite local makers and see if they’d be interested in popping up in your client’s space. Not only does this open up the audience for your event, but it also gives your client a chance to explore local brands that may be a good permanent fit in their shop. Plus, it could come back around and snag your client an invite to pop-up elsewhere later on.
4. Promote! Of course, this goes for every event, but you have a distinct advantage for early January events if you spend the week between Christmas and New Years emailing all of your favorite editors. Why? Most people aren’t working. You may be getting OOO messages, but when those editors get back, they still have a newsletter to fill! Because the first two weeks of January butt right up against people’s vacations, they tend to be light on events, so you’re even more likely to snag good placement. Don’t forget to follow up after NYE!
Events like this allow you to take advantage of the spirit of January and help maintain some of that magic holiday momentum as you move into a new year. So here’s to everyone’s resolutions, here’s to a busy January, and here’s to 2018! Cheers!
Meet the Author...
Mandi grew up in Montana and graduated from the University of Montana with a bachelor's degree in political science and a minor in economics.
Now, she splits her time between Sara Hussey Public Relations. and Cristina Facundo Styling. Mandi's own styling work can be found here.
She and her husband are proud adoptive parents to two elderly chihuahua mixes and avid consumers of local rock 'n' roll, yoga, and Asian food.
