20 Ecommerce Marketing Strategies to Increase Holiday Season Sales
The holiday season is the best time of the year when talking about ecommerce businesses. As the holiday season approaches and families get set to plan their holiday meals and gifts for their loved ones, the opportunity becomes fantastic for ecommerce brands using an effective ecommerce marketing strategy. Currently, there is a growing number of ecommerce businesses on the Internet. Here are 20 ecommerce marketing strategies to increase holiday season sales.
Start Early with Holiday Promotions
Start preparing your marketing strategy early before the holiday season begins. Shoppers start their holiday shopping before the start of the holiday season, so it’s important to attract their attention before anyone else’s. You can do that by starting holiday marketing campaigns a little early in October and November.
Use email newsletters, social media posts, and website banners to continue advertising the deals that are soon to come out. Build up a level of anticipation and excitement around your holiday offerings. That way, you can get started early enough and build momentum so that your brand is top-of-mind when customers are ready to purchase.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Shopping
Now that most shoppers use cell phones to shop online, your ecommerce website should be 100% optimized for mobile use. A mobile-friendly website not only improves user experience but also advances its search engine rankings.
Key aspects of mobile optimization include:
- Responsive design by embracing different screen sizes
- Fast loading times
- Easy to navigate
- Allow simplified checkout
- Make sure that your product images and descriptions are mobile-friendly
The seamless mobile shopping experience will reach the ever-increasing number of mobile shoppers and can increase the conversion rates during holidays.
Create Gift Guides and Curated Collections
One of the challenges holiday shoppers often face is finding the ideal gift for their loved ones. There is help to offer them in the form of themed gift guides and curated collections.
Place the guides on your website so that they are easily seen by everyone and promoted through your marketing streams. This will allow the customers to find themselves or others appropriate gifts while at the same time giving off a picture of your range of products that could increase average order value.
Implement a Solid Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing is one of the best mediums to communicate with customers during the holiday season. Create an all-inclusive strategy in email marketing that includes the following:
- Early bird offers for subscribers
- Exclusive deals and promotional offers
- A countdown timer for a limited-time offer
- Reminders for abandoned carts
- Last-minute gift ideas
- Shipping deadlines reminders
Do you want to know how to use email marketing to increase your sales?
Offer Free Shipping and Flexible Return Policies
Shipping costs and the return policy are the deal-breakers, especially when it is near the holidays when consumers compare offers at different retailers. Offer free shipping with a minimum purchase amount to offset the loss from shipping costs or as a limited-time offer.
Consider the extended return policy on gifts purchased during the holidays. Many consumers like to have the ability to return or exchange holiday purchases after the holidays.
Leverage Social Media for Holiday Marketing
Social media platforms are very powerful in holiday marketing. Use them for:
- Showcasing your products in beautiful festive settings.
- Sharing stories and content about the holidays.
- Contests and giveaways.
- Special deals are only available to followers.
- Comment and respond through messages and like comments directly on the platform.
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Implement a Loyalty Program or Offer Special Perks
Reward loyalty customers with special privileges or create a loyalty program if one is not already in place. Some ideas include the following:
- Holiday deals before anyone else
- Double points or rewards on purchase
- Free gifts at the time of purchase
- Higher tier position for the new year
- Holiday-themed rewards
Create Urgency with Limited-Time Offers
The holiday shopping season itself is time-sensitive, and you can capitalize on this to create a sense of urgency in your marketing. These techniques might include:
- Flash sales with countdown timers
- Limited stock notifications
- One-day-only deals
- Early bird specials
- Last-chance reminders for shipping deadlines.
Optimize for Local SEO
Ecommerce may seem so focused on delivering direct sales through online systems, but it does not mean that no one is searching locally. Many shoppers will look for a “near me” to find local businesses for last-minute purchases or in-store pickups. Take advantage of the power of local SEO through the following methods:
- Claiming and updating your Google My Business listing.
- Ensuring consistency of business information across all platforms, including address, phone number, and hours of operation.
- Have separate landing pages for different locations if you have a multiplicity of physical locations.
- Use local terms in your website content and meta-descriptions.
Are you a Local Business Owner? Follow this Local SEO Checklist to attract more customers
Streamline the Checkout Process
A long or complicated check-out process may be the cause for abandonment, especially as the holiday season can be very heavy. Simplify your check-out process using:
- Guest checkout functionality
- One-click purchasing
- Multi-payment, including digital wallets
- Reduce form fields to fill in
- Progress bar if check-out covers multiple steps
- Functioning well on mobile.
Maybe the best way to lower the cart abandonment rates and boost the conversion is to make it as easy as possible for customers to finish their purchases.
Implement Cross-Selling and Upselling Techniques
The holiday is a great season to implement cross and upselling techniques to increase the average order value. Use these techniques:
- Complementary product recommendations at the time of shopping
- Bundles or gift sets are offered at a small discount
- An upgraded version of a product in the cart can also be recommended
- Frequently Bought Together sections
- “You May Also Like” recommendations based on browsing history
Ensure that the recommendations made to the customer are relevant as well as add value to the purchase he or she makes. This would not only boost sales but also enhance shopping experiences by ensuring a customer would find everything he or she needs right there in front of them.
Offer Gift Cards and Digital Gifts
Gift cards are a great holiday gift; they’re perfect when one can’t make up his or her mind about a gift to give or is looking for something to buy for that person who seems almost impossible to please. Promote gift cards heavily on your website and in your marketing materials. Consider offering bonus incentives, such as giving a bonus card with a $10 card for every $100 gift card sold.
You can also give digital gifts or have immediate delivery if applicable to your business. This really suits the last-minute shopper who would prefer a non-physical gift.
Leverage User-Generated Content
Encourage customers to create and share content featuring your products. User-generated content can be a very effective form of social proof around the holidays. Strategies to harness UGC include:
- Holiday-themed photo contest
- Running customer photos on your website and in your social media channels
- Branded hashtag for holiday purchases
- Encouraging customers to leave reviews with photos
- Use testimonials with photos in your marketing materials
UGC is not only a great source of authentic content for your marketing efforts, but it also drives the construction of a community around your brand.
Collaborate with Influencers and Brand Ambassadors
The holiday season is a great time to do influencer marketing. Partner with influencers or brand ambassadors whose audience fits your target market. They can market your products to their followers through:
- Sponsored posts featuring your products as gift ideas
- Holiday-themed unboxing videos
- Gift guides that include your products
- Exclusive discount codes that they extend to their followers
- Takeovers of your social media accounts
Concentrate on influencers that embody the true meaning of your brand values, as their followers can believe in their reviews. This might help you reach new audiences and add credibility to your holiday offerings.
Implement Live Chat Support
The holiday season is usually the peak time for inquiries from your customers. Live chat support on your website can indeed really help answer your customers’ questions fast and possibly even help you salvage some lost sales based on unanswered queries. Live chat is really useful for:
- Product recommendations
- Order status inquires
- Shipping information
- Returns and exchanges
- General customer support
Make sure you have fully trained employees working your live chat during the peak hours of shopping and extend your support hours through the holiday season.
Create a Sense of Exclusivity
Everyone should feel special during the holiday season. Make them feel like VIPs with:
- Early access to holiday sales, but only for email subscribers or loyalty program members
- Limited edition holiday products
- By invitation only- Events or Sales online, exclusively.
- Exclusive bundles or gift sets.
- Secret sales are only available with a special code.
Optimize Your Site Search Functionality
There are holidays right at your doorstep, and the first hit on your site is when a customer should easily find what he or she’s looking for. Your site search functionality should implement the following:
- Autocomplete suggestions
- Ability to account for common misspellings
- Filtered search options (price, category, etc.)
- Popular searches view
- Product images with search results
A decent, efficient, and well-optimized search function will in many ways revolutionize the user experience and boost chances of conversion.
Create Engaging Holiday-Themed Content
Content marketing is a huge part of your holiday marketing plan. Create new holiday-themed content that gives value to your audience while subliminally promoting your product. Some examples are:
- Holiday gift guides
- How-to articles or videos on a holiday theme, such as wrapping a gift, holiday recipes
- Behind-the-scenes looks at your holiday preparations
- Holiday-themed quizzes or interactive content
- Customer spotlights featuring holiday stories
Share these throughout your blogs, social media, and email newsletters to keep your audience interested all season long.
Prepare for Post-Holiday Sales
The marketing opportunities don’t end with the holiday season. While the majority of buyers are still finding deals after the holidays to utilize their gift cards or exchange unwanted gifts, they sometimes feel that it’s all right to treat themselves. Provide a post-holiday marketing plan that includes the following:
- End-of-year clearance sales
- New Year’s promotions
- “Treat yourself” campaigns
- Gift card redemption promotions
- Teaser campaigns for new year product launches.
This strategy can carry the sales momentum into the new year and can also serve to liquidate the excess holiday inventory.
Analyze and Learn for Next Year
Although this approach will not impact sales this holiday season, it will play a critical role in the long run. Monitor what works and what does not during the holiday period. Pay attention to:
- Which promotion brought in the most sales
- What is selling and what is not selling
- Which marketing avenue is good
- What customer service complaints are occurring the most or being asked most about
- When is the majority of the peak sales happening, and on which days
Use this information to sharpen your approach for the holiday season next year so that marketing efforts are better done.
Conclusion
Implementing all of these 20 strategies to help get a healthy increase in your ecommerce sales during the holiday season. The only way to ensure results is to plan, stay flexible, and consistently deliver value back to your customers. Create a smooth shopping experience and implement attractive marketing campaigns to maximize your chance to take full advantage of a holiday shopping rush and set your business up for success in the new year.
