3 Ways To Plan Business Activities Around The Ashura Holidays
Even though Sunni Muslims make a majority of the country's population, about 15–20% of the Muslims are Shias. To assimilate the various sect
Even though Sunni Muslims make a majority of the country's population, about 15–20% of the Muslims are Shias. To assimilate the various sects living in Pakistan, the government has declared Yawm-e-Ashura as a federal holiday.
Since the ninth and tenth of Muharram—the first month in the Islamic calendar—mark the Tragedy of Karbala, the country suspends all business activities to allow its citizens to honour the death of Hazrat Hussain Ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
While the country observes religious processions and events in light of the occasion, businesses may experience a hiccup if they don’t prepare. Taking two full working days off from the calendar significantly affects business profits. Even though in-house operations can be stopped, marketing has to continue around the Ashura holidays.
Here’s how.
Plan In Advance
The first rule in the book for running a successful business is always to be prepared. Planning—especially before holidays—is crucial for the smooth operations. It’s particularly helpful to practice “code freeze,” which prevents substantial back-end accidents in your absence.
With Eid-ul-Azha holidays falling within one month of the Ashura holidays, businesses have to plan early to avoid major disruptions. Unplanned breaks can disrupt manufacturing processes or delay deliveries. Suppose you want to stay on top of your game despite the holidays. In that case, you can run an advertisement campaign that urges customers to finalize their deals before the deadline, so that the holidays don't cause any inconvenience.
Start With Simple Campaigns
Mike Wittenstein, Founder and Managing Partner at StoryMiners, shared a useful piece of advice about holiday campaigns. His message conveys the essence of holiday advertising and how to excel in that. It states:
“The IDEA is an outcome your product/service/gift can supply, the BENEFIT is what the buyer gets (not necessarily the recipient in the case of a gift), and the EMOTION is what draws them in and helps them remember.”
If you’ve only begun establishing your business in the industry, it must be your first season of Ashura holidays. Naturally, you won’t know the impact on your business operations during the off days. Instead of planning big, it’s best to start small with an idea that’s practical and offers high utility to the buyer and preserves the emotion that draws them to you.
Be it a fresh collection of black clothing apparel for the Shia buyers or food supplies for those who'll partake in the procession; you can make the most of the occasion and still make good money. The idea is to remain active throughout the holidays with prompt advertising techniques.
Be Responsive
We all know the hype to close all accounts before the holiday season is upon us. This becomes doubly hard when you have a lot of business right before the holiday. This is bad for your sales and leaves little time to focus on your holiday campaign.
The best way to secure a niche for yourself during any holiday season is to have a kickass advertisement campaign and be responsive to all queries. An example from Black Friday sales in 2018 showed that buyers were annoyed when their orders weren’t going through because of technical difficulties.
If you don't want retail sales to go down during the holiday season, you need to go beyond your benchmark in the pre-holiday period. You need all hands on deck—and especially all the core departments, including Sales, IT, and Customer Service—to accomplish these goals and make sure you convert online users into customers.
With all these great plans on paper, you also need a platform to broadcast your free local classified ad campaign for the Ashura holidays.
GoCheapShop is a growing online platform in Pakistan that offers free local ad posting services for classified ads. Our classified advertisements website allows businesses to keep track of their ad campaigns during peak holiday seasons. With Ashura holidays just round the corner, you’ll need a platform like ours to get your ad campaign running.
We offer a variety of categories for local ads, and you can choose whichever one suits your product/service best. Join us today!
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