It is no secret that the Central Coast is a tourist hotspot over the Christmas/Sumer period. In fact, Destination NSW shows that 1.4m people visited the Central Coast during this period in 2017. With great beaches and quality restaurants, it’s hardly surprising people flock to this location to call home, even if it is just temporary.

Interestingly, 50% of these visitors were from Sydney and astonishingly, 62,000 people who visit the Central Coast will be international travellers! And here lays a great business opportunity.

Whilst your sales will increase over this period due to the sheer number of people being in the area, wouldn’t it be nice to have this fluctuation continue throughout the year? Well, it can.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have this fluctuation continue throughout the year? Well, it can.

Instead of thinking of these customers as a nice ‘boost in January sales’ if you capture their contact information they become so much more. The easiest way to generate your next customer is to go to people who have already made a purchase form you. By capturing just an email address, you can build a better relationship.

Come March or April you have the opportunity to email your new customer database with an offer for your products. You can direct them to your online stall or you can manually manage the process in other ways. Now instead of them travelling 2 hours up the freeway or across the ocean, they can re-order from you with the click of a button.

One of the hesitations of shopping online is people’s fear that the product is misrepresented. But if they have been to your physical location, had a feel for the atmosphere of your business and made a purchase, then offering them an online offer where they can re-purchase their preferred product will be the highest form of customer service.

So over this holiday period, don’t think in terms of just one-off sales, think how you can build a lifelong customer by creating an experience and building the relationship (virtually) over time.