Just because Black Friday has past you by this year doesn't mean you can't take advantage of the spending nature of this holiday season. There are plenty of ways to bring in new (and old) customers. The trick is to give them a reason to choose your business as opposed to your competitor's. Here are some ideas to help get you started.

This season's Black Friday deals brought businesses all over the country an early Christmas present: a stocking full of extra income and a sleigh full of satisfied customers. According to the National Retail Foundation, $45 billion was spent on Black Friday and its accompanying weekend this year, including Cyber Monday. Not only were retail shops flooded with customers in a buying frenzy, waiting outside in freezing temperatures in order to take part in these once-a-year mega-sales, e-commerce online stores also saw a huge increase in business this year, up 16% from last year, and saw an average sale of $60.05. Black Friday shoppers spent an average of $365.34 acquiring gifts for family and friends overall, over the weekend sale.

Tip 1: Many stores integrate their door buster brick-and-mortar sales with their online stores. Let's face it: not everyone wants to take part in the experience of competitive shopping at 3:30am the day after Thanksgiving. Smart retailers are aware of this and offer similar bargains on their web storefront. Online, shoppers can get in on your deals while staying in the comfort of their own homes. Having an online storefront also allows you to remain accessible to customers worldwide, 24/7. How do you bring customers on to your website? Advertise that you have one. Include your website address on all your printed materials, billing, emails and other communications. Make sure if you're a brick-and-mortar business you let your customers know that deals are happening online as well as off. Have special deals not available in-store to help lure customers to your site. Consider advertising a loss leader promotion on an item: a sale on an item that you'll actually lose money on but make up for it by bringing in LOTS of customers due to the ridiculously low price. Before you start pushing your website, make sure you're ready for the influx of traffic you're bound to generate. This means you need to have enough bandwidth from your ISP in order to handle your many visitors as well as having an easy-to-navigate, easy-to-buy-from online storefront. You'll need to be set up with an internet payment gateway account (i.e.: Authorize.Net) in order to seamlessly accept payments online so that the checkout process is as straightforward and simple as possible for your customers. If you're not web-savvy yourself, it's worth the investment to pay a professional to build your website for you. The last thing you want to do is create an unprofessional website for your customers to visit. Doing so tarnishes your brand image and can potentially drive customers away from you. If you're accepting credit card payments already, a good merchant services provider will be able to offer you web development services to help get you processing on the web. Which brings us to our next tip.

Tip 2: If you aren't accepting credit cards already, you need to start now. Most purchases these days are made via bank cards. As I've written in previous articles, you could be making FIVE TIMES more money in your business by offering your customers flexible payment options, not to mention you can't operate online without accepting them. Accepting credit cards gives you an air of credibility that non-accepting stores don't have. Nowadays, people wonder why you're not accepting credit or debit cards; that there must be some negative reason as to why you're not able to. Those folks won't spend extra time and energy finding an ATM just to shop at your store. They will, however, seek out one of your competitors that will take their payments. Don't miss the boat on this one. You have no excuses.

Tip 3: The third and final tip to increase your revenue this holiday season is to start a rewards program for your business. While on this topic, beginning a loyalty program also enables you to start offering your customers gift cards (they require the same type of processing terminal). A rewards program will increase your customer loyalty rate tenfold, on average. If people have a good reason to shop at your store, they will. Think about how Subway used to have those Sub Club punch cards: the more you eat there, the more free sandwiches you get. Same concept, only in a digital, results-trackable environment (read: insight into your customers visiting habits). A rewards program will keep your business top-of-mind when shopping this holiday season. Plus, by making gift cards available for purchase, you're opening your doors to a whole new world of revenue. Gift cards are the most popular gift to give and receive in the US: they're convenient, error-proof (you don't run the risk of buying a gift someone doesn't like), and act as portable palm-sized advertisements for your company. If you're already processing credit cards, your merchant services provider should be able to get you outfitted with a gift card/loyalty program.