We asked Maria Musgrove-Wethey, retail expert and owner of The Pantiles Bride, to suggest some effective Christmas and New Year promotions she’s seen around to help boost business and entice customers to your store in 2018.

If you want more from Maria, make sure you read her piece on the questions you must ask to guarantee a sale.

12 Days of Christmas

Use the 12 days of Christmas to generate sales – you could offer a different discount or deal for each of the 12 days – for example, Day One: buy a gown and get a free accessory, Day Two: get 15% off gowns bought on this day, etc.

You could also do this throughout the month of January and mix up the offers – some days could be an amazing deal designed to get brides booking appointments whilst others could be on a smaller scale and more cost-effective, such as a free box of chocolates with every booking or purchase.

Seasonal Sample Sale

January is known as sale time and there’s no reason why you can’t jump on that bandwagon too. It’s also a great time to get rid of sample stock that is taking up space in your store, ready for a fresh buying session (London Bridal Week and White Gallery are taking place in March, remember!).

You can host a dedicated sample sale weekend, or promote a ‘sale rail’ over a set period of time – promote it with pretty imagery on social media and you’ll have brides flocking to you.

Suggest a price cap for your dresses – ‘Nothing over £700’ for example will give customers a good idea of your sale price range. If you can do every wedding dress at the same price, that might also garner interest. If you don’t want to commit to a visible price point, suggest a percentage: ‘Up to 50% all sample gowns!’

Team Up with Local Businesses

There’s nothing like a bit of cross-promotion to help you reach more businesses. Teaming up with other wedding businesses is one of Maria’s business resolutions for the New Year!

Chat to other businesses in your area and see what deals you can put together – perhaps if someone buys a gown from you in the New Year, they’ll get a cake discount or a free engagement shoot from a local photographer. If you are both promoting the deals you’ll reach an even wider audience of brides!

Create a Sense of Urgency

There’s nothing like a sense of urgency to make people feel like they want to take advantage of a deal – you could offer a discount or a free gift to the first bride to book an appointment or make a purchase with you in the new year.

Use Your Décor

This is perfect for Christmas – why not decorate your tree with clear baubles, each of which have an offer inside. It could be a free bottle of bubbly, 10% off etc. right up to a free bridesmaid dress if you purchase that day, and invite each bride who comes in to pick a bauble to open. You could even make your own crackers with special deals in!

For the rest of the year, a pretty dish full of coloured paper with offers printed on them could work – when you need to, invite the customer to select a piece of paper and discover an offer.

Things to Consider

• Make sure you add terms and conditions to your offers to cover you – you don’t want to get caught out
• Display your offers in a pretty way – sites such as canva.com help you to easily create attractive social media posts designed to catch users’ eyes.
• Don’t break any rules – if you’re using social media to promote your special offers, check their rules. For example, Facebook doesn’t allow promotions where you’re encouraged to tag people in posts.

Want to make sure you’re at your best in 2018? Make sure you read our guide to prepping your bridal business for 2018.