Shopping holidays, from Valentine’s Day to Black Friday, provide ecommerce retailers with a significant portion of their annual profits. Some store-owners rely entirely on these periods, and without them would likely see an overall loss.
If you’re in the ecommerce game, it’s absolutely essential to have a tested plan for taking advantage of increased demand. Retailers that prepare well in advance of major dates will find themselves in an excellent position to outcompete rival stores, reach new customers, and drive higher order values.
In this post, we’re going to take a look at seven practical marketing tips for making the most of eCommerce holidays and increase the sales of your online store.
1. Start Planning Several Weeks (or Even Months) in Advance
It’s good practice to start planning your marketing campaigns well in advance of the shopping holidays themselves. Giving yourself some extra time will allow you and your team to brainstorm new ideas, test promotions, and gather valuable user feedback and data.
Not all shopping holidays carry the same importance, of course. Mother’s Day, for example, won’t require as much preparation as Cyber Monday. And the planning phase will be different for each one. But it’s good practice to allocate several weeks (or even months) to pre-planning.
It’s also worth considering outsourcing your holiday marketing ecommerce strategy if you don’t have the resources to manage it in-house.
2. Don’t Be Shy About Advertising Promotions
Once you’ve decided on the promotions that you’ll run, don’t be shy about advertising them. You should dedicate all premium real estate on your site – your homepage, category pages, header, sidebar etc. – to letting visitors know about your offers.
Make sure voucher codes are shown prominently and that your best offers are given pride of place. Also include information about holiday specials on all your product pages, preferably near to the main “Add to Cart” button, with any discounts shown next to the normal price.
Your homepage will often be the main entry-point for customers, so make sure it’s compelling. You should also consider dedicated landing pages for niche promotions so that customers can learn about specific details.
3. Cross-Sell and Upsell
Major shopping holidays are an excellent time to upsell and cross-sell products. Your customers are in “buy mode” and they’ll be excited to take advantage of time-limited offers.
There are three main areas to promote upsells (higher-end versions of the same product and add-ons) and cross-sells (related products and complementary products). The first is beneath the main content on product pages. Many ecommerce sites, for example, will have a dedicated section titled “Customers Also Bought…” or “You Might Be Interested in…”.
The second place is on the cart page before checkout. Ideally, you should let customers add products to their basket with a single click, rather than redirect them to a new page, which creates unnecessary friction. Finally, you have an excellent opportunity to pitch customers via email after they’ve purchased a product. Emphasize that they still have time to amend their purchase to avoid additional delivery fees.
4. Test Your Paid Ad Campaigns
Paid ads will likely constitute one of your most substantial marketing costs. That’s why it’s crucial to avoid wasted resources and run tests prior to a full rollout. Small-scale, targeted ad campaigns to specific segments of your market will enable you to pinpoint the best ideas and promotions and focus on them going forward.
If you’re planning to take advantage of more innovative ad channels and tactics, like influencer marketing, pre-testing also allows you to check their viability before spending huge sums of money.
Finally, testing will also provide you with data. This can be used to tweak and tailor your ads for maximum reach and conversions, and it will also help you to determine which segments to market to most aggressively.
5. Prepare Your Mailing Sequence
A significant portion of your holiday sales will come from your mailing list subscribers. That’s why it’s vital not to overlook your email marketing strategy. And much like your paid campaigns, it’s good practice to perform tests well before the main event. Doing so will provide you with reliable indicators of which strategies will drive the best results and set up effective automated sequences.
Ensure that you have segmented your email list and decided which offers to pitch to relevant groups. What’s more, consider going beyond traditional demographic parameters like age and sex and incorporating psychographic data, like past purchases, preferences, values, and so on into your segmentation processes.
6. Create Urgency With Timers and Stock Alerts
When a customer feels that they may miss out on an opportunity if they don’t act straight away, they are experiencing urgency. From an ecommerce perspective, urgency is an incredibly powerful emotion. And there are two simple ways you can evoke it: by adding a timer or deadline to your website (most holiday sales are time-limited) and alerting customers to low stock levels.
You might also want to include low stock alerts in follow-up emails when a customer views a product but doesn’t make a purchase. There’s nothing wrong with sending emails reminding your subscribers that a promotion will be ending soon, either.
Conclusion
As a retailer, shopping holidays provide you with a unique opportunity to boost revenues, get rid of lingering stock, and reach new markets. By spending a little time planning your strategies for events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and so on, you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to take advantage of all those eager, ready-to-buy customers.
