The holiday season is the seller's favorite!
Not only does it mean more significant sales but also more revenue and greater customer engagement.
Going by the recent statistics, ecommerce holiday sales crossed a whopping 190.47 billion in the year 2020. The year-on-year increase was close to 35.8 percent.
With such skyrocketing numbers, it is obvious why sellers look forward to this time throughout the year.
The market becomes competitive, with every brand offering customers attractive offers.
Challenges: The idea is that most customers love to shop from the market giants, especially when their products are on discounts. So, small sellers have to try extra hard to mark their customers only if they had a marketing plan handcrafted for the holiday season.
Ecommerce sales skyrocket during the final quarter of the year. Statistics suggest that 61 percent of online sellers expect higher engagement and sales via social media.
The first step to a successful holiday marketing strategy is curating a delightful store experience. Start by evaluating your store from the customer's experience point of view.
The goal should be to leverage your website design to create a custom experience. Yes, we're talking about personalization.
When we talk about eCommerce personalization, think about cross-selling and upselling strategies.
Let's say that you have a holiday sale on different products.
Cross-selling & Upselling: By leveraging cross-selling and upselling, you promote products. These products then complement your customer's purchase.
Product Recommendations: Product recommendations can have a lasting impact on your customer. They increase your sales opportunity.
Keep Customers Engaged: At the same time, help your customer find products they might be looking for. It is an effective strategy to boost sales and keep your customers engaged. However, there are a few points you need to keep in mind.
With personalization, keep a check on your website speed. As your visitors grow, your website should be able to handle the increase in traffic.
The holiday season is challenging because of the growing competition among sellers. Everyone will try to offer their best deals to customers on their favorite products.
What happens when a customer lands on your website and doesn't find products they are looking for in one go?
Chances are they will move onto other websites.
Bounce rates are higher during the holiday season since customers give a few seconds to form an opinion about your store. If you can catch their attention with the relevant products in those few seconds, you win.
On the other hand, if you cannot offer them desirable products, you lose a sale opportunity.
The key to success lies in adopting personalization in your merchandising.
This issue amplifies when customers are using their phones for shopping. Since mobile screens have a limited area, merchandising becomes vital in deciding a successful sale.
The best you can do is showcase the season's favorite products that are also sought after by your customers.
Another trick that works best is product bundles!
If you're new to the market, you might learn it the hard way. If you've already been selling for a while, you must have your lessons.
You already know what happened to your business during last year's holiday sales.
Fix Weaknesses: Learn from your past holiday campaigns to determine what works for your business and what doesn't.
This includes internal weaknesses such as inventory storage problems. Similarly, there might be a certain type of bundle or offer that customers loved over the others.
Alternatively, you must have channels that brought you more sales than the others.
Look for Right Options: Make sure you look for the right opportunities you might have missed the first time.
Perhaps you did everything, but your website slowed down. Or you partnered with a logistics company that failed to deliver their promises (and your parcels!). Try to avoid such mistakes this time with better decisions.
What are the hardcore metrics that will decide the success or failure of your holiday marketing efforts? Answering this question must be the primary goal for all businesses.
For this reason, you must have metrics at your disposal. It would be best if you had strict and tangible performance metrics for the holiday season.
Even though these will be specific to your business, some popular ones include-
One of the most important things you need to consider for the holiday season is your budget. Usually, sellers start freaking out as the holiday season draws closer. They end up splurging their money on all platforms.
Allocate a Budget: While this is not a good practice, it certainly doesn't guarantee greater sales. If you want a successful holiday marketing strategy, start planning right away. The first step is to create a budget.
Determine your marketing goals and the cost associated with them. Then figure out where you want to spend your money.
Create Graphics: You might want to spend some of it on paid advertising, while the remaining on creating holiday graphics and improving your website. It all depends on where you are in the market and what are your areas of improvement.
Then allocate funds to each of these categories. While the actual costs might vary, you should have a buffer for it in your plan.
If a customer reaches your checkout page, congratulations are in order. That's because your customer has made up their mind to purchase from you.
As a seller, you must not give them any reason to abandon your cart and move on. But, this is where most sellers make mistakes.
Cart abandonments are one of the most significant issues in eCommerce. They occur because sellers are too careless to optimize their checkout page.
When the holiday season is approaching, make sure the first thing you do is simplify it.
Simple & Clear: Your checkout page must be simple and clear to the customer.
No Hidden Cost: You must not add any hidden costs to the cart that lead to a sense of betrayal. If you have shipping costs, be sure to mention them in advance to your customer.
Add Guest Checkout Option: One of the effective strategies is to add a guest checkout option. This will enable customers to quickly go through with their purchase without filling in all the information.
Add Multiple Payment Options: Don't let limited payment options be a reason for an abandoned cart.
Remember that the checkout page adds to your customer's overall experience. And once they have made their mind to purchase your product, there isn't a lot that you should be asking.
Expand your sales channels and leverage popular platforms like online marketplaces, global platforms, social media, and others.
Your eCommerce store might be making enough sales for you. But, what is stopping you from increasing your sales and spreading the holiday magic?
Other platforms are equally sale-generating platforms like your website. Besides, they also have greater benefits like a dedicated audience and more.
When you sell on other channels like Amazon, Target, etc., you increase your visibility. Your customers can find you better and on more reliable platforms.
Even though every platform has its pros and cons, your customers find you more reliable when you're selling on such popular platforms. Similarly, if you're selling on your brick-and-mortar store, it is time to provide your customers with the best of both worlds.
Another critical area where you need to put in the extra effort is your PPC strategy.
With the holiday season picking up pace, all your market rivals will take off with their paid marketing efforts. For this reason, you must prepare to pull your socks.
Optimize Product Feeds: Start by optimizing your product feeds. This way, you will have organized shopping campaigns in relevant product groups, where bids can be placed.
Study Market Predictions: Make sure you study the market predictions and list your products based on their seasonal selling value. Similarly, try to expand your keyword reach in the area of SEO.
You should aim for seasonal products and whose demands are forecasted to rise. If there are multiple days during the holiday season, target each of these individually.
For example, you can create campaigns relevant to Thanksgiving and Christmas separately.
Once the holiday season starts coming closer, a lot of sellers wish they would have planned something for this day or that day.
If you've been in the business for a while, you know the feeling. For example, you know that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are two of the holiday season peaks. So, start working on your plan early.
Take a look at the numbers from last year. Then center your campaigns, all paid, organic and social, around these specific themes. If it helps, create a calendar and send out any updates for banners or ads early.
Your SEO demands attention during the holiday season. You might run the same keyword over and over again. But, in doing this, you will lose opportunities on keywords that your competitors are targeting.
Most sellers don't have an ecommerce SEO strategy at the top of their minds during the peak season. But, this doesn't mean it isn't one of the contributing factors for your organic traffic.
The best you can do is start working early by identifying the trending keywords in your industry. Since there will be seasonal changes, you need to build your holiday keyword list as early as possible.
Shopping guides work miraculously as marketing tactics. If you've been only highlighting your products over the years, it is time for a change.
With plenty of competitors adopting newer strategies, you need something extra. This will help you stand out in your customer's eyes.
The idea is to motivate your shoppers to shop for all their needs from you. This is where holiday gift guides play a key role.
You might have a plethora of products on your website. Based on rising market demands and bestsellers for the season, carefully pick out a few.
Strategy: Create an attractive email and social media campaign around these products.
In other words, a gift guide helps your customer pick the right gift for their right person. Be it a friend, family member, or a colleague. Gift guides can help you segment your product categories, giving each the due attention they need.
When your goal is to make it through the holiday season, two things will follow. If you're doing things correctly, you'll experience an increase in sales.
At the same time, you will also get more orders to deliver. This is where efficient order fulfillment does its magic.
Preparing for the holiday season means preparing for order fulfillment. It would be best if you determined how to handle the logistics hassle-free.
Most sellers pick either of the two ways.
There are no hard and fast rules on what you must do. But, before you choose anything, make sure you determine your business priorities and budget.
Getting your hands on the tips can help you create an effective strategy. But, you'd still need to do the hard labor implementing them. A better idea is to leverage an eCommerce marketing tool. Take a look at the best ones below-
This is one of the most famous marketing tools you'll ever come across. Right from helping you figure out your website visitors to bounce rates, GA can help you answer most of your questions.
You can gain several insights from Analytics that can be used to check your market and campaigns. Similarly, you can leverage Google Analytics to track your eCommerce conversions, no matter what they might be.
If you're a small business, Canva can be your go-to tool for creating beautiful campaigns. It is a graphic design tool that helps you create banners, social media posts, and stories. With a bit of hands-on experience and a drag and drop platform, you can create most of your campaigns with it. The best part is that Canva is available for free.
A paid marketing tool, Sumo helps you ease your marketing and sales efforts. It provides you with the shortcuts to solve your most troubling challenges.
For example, you can reduce your cart abandonment rate using the tool. It simply optimizes your checkout to a simple four-step process. It is simple to set up and integrates with the common eCommerce platforms.
Klaviyo is one tool that provides its marketers with the opportunity to leverage their sales data without much ado. This way, you can personalize your efforts on Facebook, Instagram, email marketing, and others.
Another key advantage of this tool is that it lets you segment your audience. Once this is done, you can send them personalized messages on their preferred platforms.
We cannot stress the importance of product recommendations during the holiday season. 'Personalized Recommendations' is one tool that helps you achieve it with ease. It is a cross-selling tool that considers the customer's browsing history before suggesting a product.
Holiday marketing can be challenging, even if you are doing everything right. Be it the growing competition or sudden increase in orders; every step has to be planned.
Make sure you leverage the tips and tricks that will give you a headstart on your campaigns. And when in doubt, take a dive into your business data for the answers.
Get in touch with us to get more tips on holiday shopping for your ecommerce now!
He has spent more than 12 Years in strategising and executing SEO campaigns. He is interested to writing Digital-marketing, PPC and Social Media Marketing related topics.
Influencer Marketing for Ecommerce
Social Media Marketing Tools for Ecommerce
Hiring a Marketing Firm for Ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence in Ecommerce
Customer Retention Rate for Ecommerce
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Increase Customer Loyalty of an Ecommerce
Lead Generation Benefits for Ecommerce
Google Analytics for Ecommerce Tracking
Ecommerce Checkout Page Features
Grow Your Ecommerce Customer Base
Referral Marketing for Ecommerce
Inventory Management for Ecommerce
Social Media Marketing Tips for Ecommerce
Product Photography Ideas for Your Ecommerce
Instagram Stories for Ecommerce
Ecommerce Sales Strategy for Black Friday
Ecommerce Repeat Purchase Rate Tips
Ecommerce Marketing for Food Business
He has spent more than 12 Years in strategising and executing SEO campaigns. He is interested to writing Digital-marketing, PPC and Social Media Marketing related topics.
Influencer Marketing for Ecommerce
Social Media Marketing Tools for Ecommerce
Hiring a Marketing Firm for Ecommerce
Artificial Intelligence in Ecommerce
Customer Retention Rate for Ecommerce
Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Increase Customer Loyalty of an Ecommerce
Lead Generation Benefits for Ecommerce
Google Analytics for Ecommerce Tracking
Ecommerce Checkout Page Features
Grow Your Ecommerce Customer Base
Referral Marketing for Ecommerce
Inventory Management for Ecommerce
Social Media Marketing Tips for Ecommerce
Product Photography Ideas for Your Ecommerce
Instagram Stories for Ecommerce
Ecommerce Sales Strategy for Black Friday
Ecommerce Repeat Purchase Rate Tips
Ecommerce Marketing for Food Business