Your online business might be slowing down now before the “holiday storm,” which makes the perfect time for you plan to a successful sales and marketing strategy. Here are 5 tips we put together to help you get the ball rolling.
Start Planning Your Email Marketing Campaigns Early
Many shoppers look through their email subscriptions for holiday deals around November and December. However, you should start planning your email campaigns several months earlier.
BigCommerce estimated a 50% increase in email frequency among eCommerce retailers during November and December. Getting a head start in having those emails written, designed, and coded will save you a lot of last-minute troubles.
Use power words in your emails to highlight discounts and perks. Free shipping, exclusive deals, and limited-time are all enticing headlines that attract people to open your email in their flooded inbox. You can create hype around your holiday sales event by asking people to subscribe to your exclusive email list for a 10-day countdown. Give shoppers something to look forward to before you drop your holiday deals.
Capitalize on Social Media Posts and Ads
Content creators have complained about the loss of organic reach on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, businesses benefit more since you can now target your ads to a specific audience. Ultimately, you can maximize your sales potential by targeting your ad campaigns to the right niche market.
Analyze your past social media campaigns and see what worked well this year. What do your followers usually respond to? Quotes, images, videos, or blog articles? Craft your holiday social media campaign around the posts that do well for your business and boost the posts that can generate engagements. Make a content calendar with key dates including Black Friday, Cyber Mond
ay, Christmas, and other typical holiday sales dates.
You can also engage your audience with a holiday contest to promote your brand image. In 2016, Starbucks invited customers to paint over their holiday red cups and share a picture through Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RedCupArt. The campaign attracted at least 40,000 entries, capitalizing on user-generated content and spreading the brand’s holiday spirit all over social media. What kind of contest can you host for your followers to get involved?
Create a Holiday Gift Guide
We’ve all struggled with last-minute gift shopping. Almost half of the shoppers are still undecided on their gifting options in the last two weeks of the holiday shopping season. That’s where you can come in to help your customers.
Create themed gift sets that cater to different groups, like “Gifts for BFF under $30” or “Holiday Gifts for Her”. Prepare visually appealing images for each set or gift basket to grab your customer’s attention. You can either put these gift ideas together in a blog post, a Pinterest image, or in your holiday emails.
Know Your Holiday Shipping Deadline
ShipStation Holiday Shipping Deadlines
Last-minute online shoppers need to know if their items can deliver on time. Make customer satisfaction your priority – check your shipping cutoff dates to avoid delivering any items late. ShipStation provides a comprehensive shipping deadlines infographic for UPS, USPS, and FedEx. You should take a note of all the dates and consider adding a page for holiday shipping information to your website.
With these cutoff dates in mind, you can also send out last-minute emails or popups to remind your customers to shop before it’s too late.
Consider Hiring Extra Help for Customer Service
Holiday seasoners prompts for a higher demand of customer service. Online shoppers look for good deals and promotions, as well as outstanding customer service. At least 78% of consumers cancel their transaction due to a poor service experience, meaning you should invest in providing quality customer service on top of good products. Is your business ready to go above and beyond for your customers during the busy season?
A majority of online shoppers dread calling a company and being put on hold. Have multiple support channels opened for convenience – phone, email, Facebook, Twitter, live chat, etc. Sometimes people would rather resolve their questions via live chat support or social media, and they expect a quick turnaround. Try to provide 24/7 support during the holiday season if you can.
It’s important to keep up the customer service support even after the holidays, because that’s when people have questions about delivery issues and returns. If your customers were dissatisfied with any part of the transaction, an outstanding customer service is the only thing that will save you from developing a bad reputation.
