The lucrative holiday shopping season will be upon us soon, and for many online retailers it’s the difference between an okay fiscal year and a fantastic one. This year is shaping up to be the biggest since 2011, with sales expected to reach nearly $ 900 billion in the United States alone during the months of November and December.
Position Your Online Store for Success
You may have the greatest online experience in your industry, or perhaps you have the best products and the lowest prices. None of it does any good if your target audience doesn’t know you exist.
Make sure the following channels are part of your holiday e-commerce marketing strategy:
- Email Marketing: Well in advance of the holiday shopping season, send “hype” emails to your list. For example, build a buzz around your Black Friday sale. When the big day finally arrives, you will have consumers clamoring to see what you have to offer.
Before you ramp up your email marketing campaign, it’s a good idea to:
- Organize your data and segment your list for laser-focused targeting.
- Create special campaigns for each segment.
- Find ways to intertwine your email strategy with other marketing strategies.
- Used sequencing to gradually build anticipation for your upcoming deals and offers.
- Make sure your offers will seamlessly integrate with the on-site experience, so consumers don’t have to go searching for coupon codes.
- Mobile Friendly Website: If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic. Earlier this year, Google announced that mobile search has overtaken desktop with more than 50 percent of searches coming from mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets.
You don’t have much time, and in fact, making your entire site mobile-friendly is a fairly huge task right before the holidays, depending on the size and structure of your site. What you can do right away is use mobile-friendly overlays to focus on micro-converting your mobile traffic. For example, you could offer 5% off to increase the chances you’ll get them back on your site from a desktop later.
Or, you could segment visitors from different locations and target them with location-specific messaging about your shipping policies to where they live.
Make your messaging for mobile visitors fun, engaging and compelling by offering them something of real value as a reason to visit you from another channel.
Using overlays instead of trying to change your entire site allows you to connect with your mobile visitors in more meaningful ways, without overhauling your site or having to deal with IT.
- Website Personalization: Are you treating every visitor in exactly the same way? If so, you’re missing out on a key opportunity to engage them and make a sale.
Website personalization allows you to provide specific offers to specific groups of people. For example, new visitors may receive one offer while returning visitors receive another. You should also consider personalizing based on:
- Location
- Referral type (social media, email, organic, paid, etc.)
- Time of day
- Search query or keywords
- On-site behavior
- Shopping cart contents or average order value
Prepare Your Holiday E-Commerce Marketing Calendar
Think about your personal holiday shopping list. How do you decide what to buy? How do you decide how much to spend? For some, the entire process is driven by discounts and coupons. This is why Black Friday and Cyber Monday attract so much attention. It’s also one of the reasons why online retailers need a calendar .
Creating a holiday e-commerce marketing calendar to track your campaigns and ensure you have your bases covered by including at last the following:
- Types of coupons and discounts, as well as when and how they will be released.
- Email marketing calendar, complete with when email will be sent.
- When to start online deals (perhaps before the competition).
- The option to extend Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales based on inventory and performance.
Get Ready for Your Greatest Holiday E-Commerce Season Yet
Your competition are scrambling to get ready for the holiday season onslaught of shoppers, too. We know that consumers are comparison shopping and doing their research across devices, and across screens. Which of you will offer site visitors the best experience and close the deal?
If you want to realize big profits this holiday season, download the new ebook, Make the Most Profitable Holiday Season Ever: Actionable Guide For Online Retailers. In it, you’ll learn how to create a marketing strategy for the 2015 holiday season, with actionable advice on making the most of your top marketing channels, campaigns you absolutely need to run and more.
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