George - 15 Dec 2022 18:00:00
This time of year is busy enough as a shopper let alone a store owner, so it is not surprising if you feel that you’ve been too busy to plan and run seasonal marketing campaigns in the run up to the big day.
Ideally you would have started implementing some Christmas marketing campaigns way back in September/October, but for those of us who are feeling a little ‘late to the party’, here are some last minute Christmas marketing tips that can pep up your ecommerce business this holiday season.
During the Christmas period people are searching for inspiration and ‘how to’ guides, so it's a great idea to create some Christmas inspired blog posts to inform and educate but also spread the word about your products and business.
Create some holiday inspired ads, blogs and social media posts, relevant to your service or business. Also think about creating some festive inspired landing pages. This has the added benefit of allowing you to keep track of your most clicked on landing pages and therefore helps shape your marketing for future occasions. You will be able to see when you should be pushing individual pages at peak times to see an increase in traffic and engagement, as well as striking up conversations which all help with keeping your business relevant and alive.
Don’t wait until it's too late to shout about your amazing one off deals and savings over the boxing day and new year sales. Create suspense and give your customers a reason to keep checking back to your website to see what bargains might be found in the upcoming sales. Creating suspense is a great way to make your sales a bigger success.
Think about emailing your previous customers to tell them to look out for your sales, and announce it on your social media channels too. The sooner you can start to do this the better, as it gets your customers talking and sharing with their friends. By the time the sale time hits you’ll have more eager customers waiting.
Everyone knows how nice it is to be appreciated, and your customer is no different. Send a personalised email or even a Christmas card specially addressed to them. Even if you spend a few moments writing a personal message of thanks and then emailing or sharing via your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter will strengthen your customer connections and can lead to extra sales. As an extra special festive treat you can add a coupon code or loyalty discount that your customers would love to take advantage of in the New Year?
Looking for a last minute gift anyone? There will be plenty of people who are last minute shoppers, or those that have just realised that they’ve forgotten to buy for one of the many on their Christmas list. Take advantage of the desperate stragglers and offer a voucher to spend on your website at a later date. Don’t forget to use your email marketing and landing pages to promote your gift vouchers as a product in their own right.
This is a fun and effective way to promote your products. After all, you are the person who knows your products and your customers the best. You will also know which of your items are most popular and therefore can target your customers more effectively with the products they want to buy.
It might sound like a big task but it needn’t be. To make it more simple write your gift buying guide with the following categories to make sure you cover all bases.
Choose a few of your best sellers for a ‘Gifts by Category’, ‘Gifts by Person (him, her, kids, pets etc)’, and ‘Gifts by Price’ for example. Don’t forget to embrace some Christmas themed illustrations to entice your customers to view your guide and get in the Christmas buying spirit.
What better way to spread the cheer and give something back to those in need, than at Christmas time. Think about how you can partner with charities to offer a percentage of your profits on certain products or donations of some kind. This will not only encourage shoppers to make a purchase from a store that promises to donate to a charity when they buy from you, but it will also give your store a great marketing boost and for all the right reasons.
At this time of year there is a flurry of activity online as everyone is trying to find ideas of what to buy for their loved ones. At this stage it’s probably a bit late to take advantage of any organic traffic, so you want to be focusing on your Christmas themed paid ads. Focus on using words with a seasonal theme in your marketing campaigns for your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns.
Use a keyword planner to determine what the best words are for your PPC campaign, then create some content around those. Perhaps use a targeted PPC campaign to promote a landing page for your unique gift buying guide?
It's a very good plan to make sure you make your holiday information is up to date. Check your last order dates and shipping deadlines are clearly shown. Also make sure your customers are aware of your returns policy and make updates, to include information related to gifting returns.This will allow your customers to buy with increased confidence.
Have some fun and add some festive imagery to your website to create an appealing and enjoyable shopping experience as well giving your sales or promotions a boost. You don’t need to be a designer to create some Christmas images, using tools such as Canva is a quick and easy way to create professional looking images for your ecommerce website. Decorating your website is a great way to encourage browsers to your website to make a purchase, as it will give the impression that you are offering something unique specifically at Christmas time.
At Christmas time people generally are looking to spend and with so much choice you want to give them that extra reason to buy from you. Create some compelling offers or freebies to entice the customer away from your competitors and make a purchase from your store. Simply offering free gift wrap is a quick way to get your customers clicking ‘buy now’. Perhaps have a minimum spend limit on free gift wrapping, to encourage your customers to add another item to their basket to qualify for the free gift wrap service. Another useful addition is offering a gift receipt. Many people are buying for others at Christmas time, and the idea of a gift receipt will give the purchaser more confidence that if they got it wrong the recipient is able to choose something more appropriate.
The more marketplaces you sell on, the greater your exposure and the more sales you will make. If you are not already doing so, you can sell your products on Amazon, eBay, Etsy and more, you do not have to limit yourself to selling solely on a website. Google shopping is also a great way to give your products more exposure, as customers will generally search for a product that they are looking for either directly in a marketplace or google products.
As you can see, there are lots of simple things you can do to improve your ecommerce website to take advantage of seasonal holidays even at a late stage. Christmas is nearly upon us, so it’s a good idea to implement at least one of these ideas today, to make sure you take advantage of the online shopping, seasonal flurry. I suggest that you start by sending your customers a personal Happy Christmas email.
George Marketing Expert
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