Brands must consider a full range of holiday ecommerce strategies to achieve their revenue goals this season. This is where leveraging historical data and best practices will help. Ensure your site is optimized for conversions. This includes creating a seamless customer journey from browsing to purchasing. Adding Buy Now Pay Later options like Afterpay is also important this year.
1. Create Product Bundles
For many online retailers, holiday sales are crucial for bringing in recurring revenue throughout the rest of the year. The busiest shopping period of the year also offers an excellent opportunity to establish brand loyalty and grow repeat purchases from existing customers.
Consider your product inventory and create bundles for products that are complementary and will perform well together. For example, a high-performing custom phone case could be bundled with a protective case or a new stylus for the device. Bundles are a great way to increase average order value and provide a more appealing purchase experience for shoppers.
Make sure your team is ready for a busy season by identifying the most important sales dates and optimizing all marketing efforts to drive traffic, conversions, and AOV on those days. Also, prepare for out-of-stock issues by implementing back-up/alternative logistics. This may require working with a fulfillment partner and/or adding extra storage space. Lastly, create visually-appealing marketing collateral like banners, images, and videos to promote your ecommerce holiday sales.
2. Create a Holiday Email Strategy
Email is one of the most effective ways to drive holiday traffic and sales for ecommerce. By creating a series of targeted marketing emails that are catered toward your customers’ spending habits and shopping interests, you can deliver powerful messaging that is much more effective than a single banner ad or social media post.
Segment your email subscribers by demographics, product categories, or even the frequency of their purchases. This allows you to target them with specific products and offers that they may not see otherwise. For example, you can target year-round shoppers with naughty or nice messaging while rewarding frequent buyers with VIP previews and exclusive sales.
It’s also important to monitor your competitors and learn from their holiday strategies. Get on their promotional email lists, follow them on social media like Instapro, and visit their websites to see what tactics are generating the most engagement. Don’t copy their strategy exactly, but use this research to inform your own campaign planning.
3. Create a Holiday Website
The holidays are a critical time of year for ecommerce brands. A successful strategy can mean the difference between flat or declining year-over-year sales and transformational business growth.
To stand out amongst the competition, add a festive twist to your website. This includes a winter-themed logo, seasonal imagery, and holiday messaging. This will create a great first impression and make it easy for customers to find the products they are looking for.
Adding gifting options to your online store is another way to simplify the shopping process for your customers. This could include offering gift cards or letting customers purchase gift items separately during checkout. This will increase conversions and build customer loyalty for your brand.
4. Create a Holiday Marketing Campaign
The holiday season places unique demands on ecommerce. From Black Friday to Cyber Monday, consumers invest heavily in both one-off products and recurring subscriptions, driving sales that continue throughout the year. As such, it’s important for subscription merchants to start planning their holiday digital strategy well in advance.
Start by determining which of your bestselling products you’ll feature this holiday season and which will go out of stock quickly. Make a plan to mitigate out-of-stock issues and promote alternatives using internal links, out-of-stock labels on the website, and email marketing.
You can also promote product bundles on your social media channels and utilize abandoned cart emails, which have a high conversion rate this time of the year. The content you share on these platforms will vary depending on your audience, so be sure to tailor it accordingly. In addition, it’s important to keep an eye on your competitors and learn from their strategies. Join their email lists and follow them on social media to stay updated on their promotions, new products, and customer service initiatives.
