The ongoing pandemic has made it difficult for Ecommerce businesses. Online stores have adapted and have to adapt more to new technologies and promotional strategies to meet their shoppers’ expectations and get ready for the craziness of the 2020 holiday season.
Your Ecommerce store cannot skip being fully optimized with interesting campaigns and promotional strategies before the big holiday season.
Here are some key planning points to help you make sure your store is fully optimized for the frenzy holiday season 2020.
1) Engage with customers using promotional strategies
The holiday season 2020 is the best time to increase your overall sales. Your Ecommerce marketing strategy needs to be tweaked to suit the holiday rush. This means that your Ecommerce strategy should be focussed on a certain holiday to increase holiday vibes and enthusiasm among your holiday shoppers.
- Use gift cards to upsell at checkout
- Offer exclusive seasonal services such as free gift-wrapping or shipping
- Create limited-time offers to add urgency
The creative options and possibilities are countless if you want to bring shoppers to your Ecommerce store with promotions and also help them celebrate the holiday season 2020 in the process.
Include free shipping and wrapping in your holiday marketing plan
Free shipping deals can drive more sales and conversions, especially during the holiday season when shoppers are willing to shop more. Free shipping offers give potential customers the nudge to go through the sale. You can offer free shipping on orders over a certain amount of purchase or maybe during a specific time period such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday if you are not sure about offering on all orders.
It’s okay to be lost and don’t know where to or how to start. Always look at your competitor’s shipping deals and strategies. Don’t forget to use tools such as Prisync to adopt eCommerce dynamic pricing as it will give you a clear idea of finalizing the right prices. Based on that information you can adjust your Ecommerce store’s free shipping plans to attract more customers and boost your sales this holiday season.
Plan for holiday contests and giveaways.
Nothing excites your customers like contests and giveaways, especially during the holidays. You can utilize the holiday season 2020 as an opportunity and enact different contests and giveaways to increase customer engagement and satisfaction while achieving your sales goals too. This can be done directly on your online store’s website, or utilize social media tools available in the market.
For example, post a picture of one of your products that resonates well with Christmas on Instagram. Run a contest for your shoppers asking them to comment on their favorite moments from Christmas celebrations or interesting Christmas jingles to suit the product features. The winner gets the product for free!
In this way, you are developing a sense of community around your brand, engaging with your customers, and also promoting your specific products that work well during the holiday season. Planning contests and giveaways before the holiday season 2020 will be an effective way to kickstart your holiday Ecommerce marketing strategy for your online store. Use TargetBay’s BayPics, a Shoppable Instagram feature to curate high-quality pictures from your customers personal accounts and display it on your product pages!
Have a rewards or loyalty program in place.
If your brand wants to invest in making your customers return, consider creating a rewards or loyalty program in place before the Holiday season. This can be tailor-made for your Ecommerce brand and it also means you’re adding extra value and consumer incentive to your Ecommerce store.
A specially designed rewards program will be easy to use, have membership-only benefits, place a higher value on your products, and increase member engagement and interaction. This is an excellent approach to turn one-time holiday shoppers into lifelong customers. You can now build emotional connections with customers through loyalty email campaigns.
If you’re searching for apps, Smile.io is a good place to start looking for rewarding your customers. With Smile.io integration, TargetBay helps you to add reward points to customers for reviews posted by them.
2) Integrate your marketing efforts
Planning holiday ecommerce marketing strategies involves creating a steady flow of content related to the holidays to excite your customers.
You can create content in different ways such as social media channels, blog posts, videos, etc. Any web search traffic directed to your business is good traffic. Content which is original, up-to-date, and relevant to the holiday season, gives you better chances for directing customers to your online store and eventually boost your holiday sales. Increase eCommerce customer engagement to scale your support, marketing, and sales with HelpCrunch’s all-in-one toolset.
For example, if you create a blog post on how to dress up for the holidays and feature a variety of your products, you have a higher chance of making a sale from customers visiting your blog. This example can be executed across different brands, as long as the content you create is relevant to not only your brand but also the holiday/season you’re promoting.
Engage with customers on social media
Your customers are on social media and so should you. You can use social media during the holiday season 2020 in a variety of ways.
- Post your store’s Instagram story
- Make Facebook posts promoting deals and discounts
- Tweet a product campaign with a #hashtag slogans
Your brand needs to work on creating unique and creative content for social media to garner the attention of customers. Having your social media campaigns and marketing techniques ready before the holiday season will help you get the word out about why shoppers should visit your online store and boost your sales.
For example, if you are completely set with Instagram’s feature, Instagram Checkout, you can start your campaigns for special discounts and deals well in advance of the holiday season, and utilize this feature by selling directly on the app.
Attract more views with paid advertising
Organic traffic is the best. But paid advertising can help in boosting your brand’s identity in a saturated market. You can begin with Facebook or Instagram Ads as it can simply boost organic content. But you have to spend a little more time when it comes to search engine marketing and also overall conversion rate optimization.
Organic SEO will help you rank on Google, but a paid advertising boost can help you garner thousands of more views. Google Ads is key to any paid strategy as it can help drive both website and in-store visits. If you have an omnichannel approach, investing in paid advertising can help drive traffic across channels, too.
Send happy holiday emails
The key and essential part of holiday campaigns are sending promotional holiday emails. If you are already with specific holiday sales, discounts, or special offers — don’t wait for the last minute to get those promotional emails out.
You can use the help of automated email features to get the word out early about your holiday promotions. This way you capture the attention of your customers before other brands start their promotions and that will increase sales and conversions.
Not to forget the email reminders about abandoned carts. Your consumers are shopping across multiple online stores during the holiday seasons. This means they are more diverted, busy, and forgetful. Don’t skip on the gentle reminder to your customers if their cart is abandoned. Recovering abandoned carts will be a great way to boost your holiday sales. Use latest Ecommerce solutions to enhance your holiday email marketing and also to combat Shopping Cart abandonment.
Send interactive holiday text messages with SMS
SMS provides a special opportunity to connect with your customers especially during the holiday season. Including Automated text messages as part of your holiday promotional strategy exposes shoppers to a new level of personalization to virtual communication.
SMS marketing is a proven holiday promotional tactic leveraged by many Ecommerce brands to execute pre-built sequences. They work especially well for conversations specific to cart abandonment, order and shipping confirmations, personalized rewards, limited-time promotions, and more.
You can partner with platforms that can help you facilitate 1:1 conversations with customers and view comprehensive analytics — down to a single message.
Use SEO tactics to rank on Google
Earning a top position with search engines through SEO is difficult especially during the holiday season depending on the keyword competitiveness.
You need to get a jump on your holiday SEO if you want to capitalize on seasonal SEO opportunities. A great holiday SEO plan helps you reduce dependency on PPC advertising and also improves performance through other marketing channels.
Get your digital marketing team to work on keyword research to find out what gets the most interest in your area of competition, and get started on optimizing pages for your base keywords plus the modifiers.
Make sure your landing pages are top-notch. These pages will be the landing spot for shoppers who get redirected from content searches or direct links from emails or advertisements. Create landing pages with designs and layouts that are appealing and easy to navigate. Elements such as the shopping cart and social buttons need to be visible and easily accessible so that holiday shoppers can browse once they’ve been redirected from a link. Don’t forget to make them responsive – all your shoppers are on mobile devices.
Bottom line
Preparing your Ecommerce store for the holiday shopping season during any year especially during a pandemic is no small task. During the holiday season of 2020, more people will be ordering online, and it’s important for you to make your customers’ experience smooth from start to finish. Prepare for holiday readiness with a step-by-step approach, and you’ll be on your way to welcoming happy shoppers who will become your loyal customers.
