The end of financial year usually spells a bit of a mad rush. Chatting with your accountant and working out your tax position is usually high on the agenda of small businesses. Knowing what you have left to spend in your marketing budget and getting that off the ground should be a high priority too.

See it’s not just Officeworks with their big budget TV, print and radio advertising that can get maximum impact from the EOFY madness. There’s no reason why your business, with a bit of targeted advertising can’t tap into the masses of ‘ready to spend’ consumers. Especially small businesses with the recently announced $20K tax break.

Here’s 3 EOFY Marketing Ideas:

1. EOFY Year Sale

Ok, there’s nothing at all original about this idea. But many business people I speak to at this time of year are so bogged down in the nitty gritty of getting everything done before EOFY that they neglect to prepare for the potential boom in selling that EOFY can offer their own business.

Think about your product and what spin you can put on it to sell more at this time of year. Offer a ‘buy in bulk’ special, look at shifting excess stock with an offer that will be hard refuse or a discount for orders before June 30.

Advertise your sale – not once or twice. Get it out there at least 3 times. Printed flyers or postcards are excellent for spot sales and can be distributed widely to catch new customers as well as sent to your existing database (which you’re building on all the time, right?).

2. Cash In On Referrals

Despite many businesses relying on word of mouth and referrals, few have a structured referral system in place to cash in on this. Use EOFY to establish and kick off your referral program. Offer an incentive and use the deadline of June 30 for your initial promotion. This will give you good solid leads to kick off the new financial year.

Postcards sent to existing clients are a great starting point. Remember though once is rarely enough to get people to take action. Make sure every time a client purchases from you include a postcard reminder of your referral program.

3. New Year Coupon

Stimulate sales in the new financial year by getting some small business card size discount coupons printed. This can be done at any time of year obviously but it’s a good chance to cash in on the additional disposable income that will be floating around once people get their tax refunds. If your product or service doesn’t lend itself to an EOFY sale then this is a great alternative.

Ok, so I’m going to be quite frank with my EOFY offer for Cariss Printing. We have excess stock clogging up the shelves. Perfect for flyers and letterheads. So 10% off these items until June 30. Flyers will be awesome for your own EOFY promotions and letterheads you will always use so why not stock up while they’re discounted!