As the festivities are around the corner and people go to great lengths for the festive season. However, some either lack the necessary expertise or the time to hop markets. Well, people look for feasible options online to buy gifts. As an online business, you may use this to your advantage by digging into the right strategies and preparations. We have hereby curated a list of strategies to help eCommerce businesses be equipped for the holiday season ahead of time and devour the last-minute hassle.Â
Here are 21 points to consider when you’re preparing for your online store during the festive season
Table of Contents
Holiday season prep beforehand-
1. Maintain your stock/ inventory management
Check up with suppliers early to make sure you’re adequately stocked, especially for popular gift products, to prevent extended wait periods and dissatisfied customers.
Take advantage of automatic stock updates by implementing a competent inventory management system or an analytical tool like- Kinator.
2. Retarget your audience
Holiday season may distract customers. Nearly 70% of online shopping carts were abandoned without making any purchases as of November 2021, according to Statista. Retarget them with eCommerce PPC ads and sponsored social media campaigns to entice them to buy again. To reduce cart abandonment rates, consider the following strategies:
- By sending them a push message, you can encourage them to return and complete the transaction for the products they abandoned.
- Simplify the checkout process.
- Provide several payment methods.
3. Monitor your KPIs
Your holiday marketing campaign isn’t complete unless you’ve outlined the important business KPIs, such as the percentage increase in sales that must be achieved, cost per acquisition, average order value, ROI, and others.
Prepare your website-
1. Use a holiday sales calendar to keep a track of the upcoming events.
Maintaining a holiday sales calendar is recommended as it will help you to track upcoming events and will provide you with ample time for strategizing growth opportunities, brand awareness, and revenues.Â
2. Make sure your website is Mobile-Friendly
Acc. to Statista, Mobile devices generated 58.99% of global website traffic. To make your website mobile-friendly-
- Simplify your menu and add the search functionality.
- Create a new holiday-related theme for your online storeÂ
- Use SEO-friendly URL
- Run ads specifically for mobile to target customers
3. Prepare to handle traffic-
Amid all this festive sale rush, the website cascading could take place, One must be prepared to prevent obstacles in advance by follow the steps to avoid such hurdles-
- Optimize your Loading page speed
- Easy checkout process
- Use plugins and extensions to upsell your products
- Regular checkup of your website
Festive SEO content Tips to Discoverability of your products/improve rankings
1. Get a firm foothold on seasonal keywords
You must examine last year’s top keywords. Following a comprehensive analysis, you can choose to either remain with the old keywords that were successful for your brand the previous year or do more study to uncover some fresh ones to improve the caliber of the festive SEO. Of course, keep an eye on the newest trends.
What to do-
- Monitor keyword performance.
- Publish new, high-quality content and engage in conversation for greater reach.
- Use keywords like Christmas/Diwali present instead of just the festival.
2. Create a customized holiday landing page
A seasonal landing page can make your goal more attainable by creating more focused and precise holiday-related goals, centralizing all holiday-related keywords, enabling a holiday-specific Call to Action (CTA), attracting more consumers, showcasing all holiday-related offers and product announcements, etc. Therefore, the likelihood of such a page ranking is far higher than on decentralized holiday-themed pages.
3. Forecast the Last-Minute Holiday Shopping/ create a sense of urgency
Use phrases such as “just three days left” or “there is still time!” to instill a feeling of urgency. The best way to guarantee last-minute sales is to include new arrivals and current bestsellers on the first page of your online website.
4. Use festive specific videos and pictures
Music and images combined in a festive video will surely strike a chord with your audience. It is estimated that consumers watch such content for 100 minutes on average per day (Statista).
Plan your holiday season with PPC
1. Create different campaigns for top performers
Holidays boost ad traffic. Your campaigns will run out of money (far sooner than intended). You don’t want to miss out on your top-performing products, thus you can divide your top performers into individual campaigns, you gain greater control over budgets, and can alter your expenditure for the best return.
2. Bid aggressively
During the Festive season, not only will traffic rise but so will the level of competition, thus it’s important to raise your bids accordingly. In the coming months, CPCs for popular products and keywords will grow, necessitating revisions to your bidding strategies.
3. Launch a Pay-Per-Click Campaign
Launch PPC ads specifically for the holiday season. Consider what is essential to buyers and include those phrases and concepts in your ad content, along with holiday-themed power words and phrases.Â
Holiday promotion
1. Give your customers bundle offers
Maximize your sale and visibility by offering bundle deals, promos, and discounts.
You can offer fast-paced bundles, merge fast and slow-selling products, or can give them the option to make it customizable according to their needs.
2. Include holiday giveaways
Giveaways have a 34% conversion rate, higher than other content. Giveaways can inspire subscribers to participate more. You may then offer them brand-specific discounts/vouchers.
3. Leverage social media for promotion
Maintain your social media activity over the packed Holiday season. To optimize your sales and create brand awareness- tap on influencers, and run ads on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and many more.
4. Send holiday email marketing messages
Email is an effective marketing medium for Festive advertising. Utilize it to increase conversion rates and collect a portion of holiday spending. Email enables you to deliver a tailored message to your target audience’s inbox, increasing your visibility.
What to do-Â
- Send a welcome/thank you email when someone sign up
- Promote your sales promo gift card via email
- Notify the customers by abandoned cart emails
- Optimize the subject lines of your holiday emails.
- Create customized email campaigns for the holidays.
5. Add free samples with orders
This isn’t the best fit for all businesses, but it’s ideal for those that deal with the distribution of consumable goods (like beauty products, candies, beverages, and other small items). Provide a free trial set together with the initial purchase. This is a win-win: it encourages purchases and increases consumer loyalty.
Customer support services
1. Reward loyal customers with a gift or special offer
Do you want to capitalize on the trust you’ve earned from your customers by going the extra mile for them? Then it makes sense to surprise them with a special surprise or an enticing offer.
Consider adding a personal touch to the present or deal to win extra points. Especially during peak times, this may be difficult to accomplish, so make use of it whenever feasible.
Consumers who feel appreciated are much more likely to make a second purchase than those who view themselves as just another cog in the system.
2. Increase your communication channels
How can potential consumers contact you? People have varying levels of preferences for picking up the phone or replying to emails. You should offer customer support through real-time messaging and social media if you aren’t currently.
3. Deliver outstanding customer service
Obviously, this is something you should be doing all the time, but the (huge) increase in Holiday consumers requires you to be more vigilant. Take into account the following:
- Draft more faqs for your customers on your website
- Add chatbots to answer customers’ quarries
Time to Take the Next Step
Both retailers and shoppers are more excited than ever about the coming holiday season. Maintain a degree of self-awareness by monitoring your own and your competitors’ progress. From out-of-stock warnings to assist with content strategy, budget management, and promotional efforts, our team is here to support you at every step of the e-commerce process.
We hope that the above-mentioned strategies help you during the event times. For more assistance, contact us at info@paxcom.net
