Continuing our thread of holiday-centered blog posts, today we will look at how you can further prepare your online business for the holidays by utilizing these online holiday strategies and tactics.
These ideas will help you generate sales, build a strong relationship with your customers, and close another year with a bang.
Best Online Holiday Strategies for Your Ecommerce Business
- Inspire Holiday Spirit
- Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
- Run a Holiday Campaign on Social Media
- Offer Exclusive Holiday Deals to Your Email Subscribers
- Offer Free Shipping
- Offer Holiday Gift Bundles
- Tap into Video Marketing
- Focus on Customer Loyalty
- Provide the Best Customer Service
1. Inspire Holiday Spirit
Holidays are a time of year when people seek out joyful experiences and time with loved ones. So, it is important that you spread the festive cheer to build the right brand image and increase seasonal sales.
A good way to do this is to update your website design with holiday-themed background, messaging, and images.
This simple change will let your customers know that you’re an established business that responds to the different festivities that are going on.
You can also offer a holiday gift-wrapping service to drive home further the message that you’re a small business eager to help your customers with their holiday shopping every step of the way.
2. Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
79% of shoppers make purchases using smartphones, and the mobile eCommerce share is expected to rise in the future.
If you want your eCommerce website to rank better, you need to offer your prospects a mobile-friendly, responsive web design.
It ensures that every element inside your webpages is properly displayed with the right dimensions across all devices, making for the best user experience.
In addition to having a responsive design and simple navigation, you must offer a clear CTA so users landing on your website can find the call to action button and pursue the desired action.
Use contrasting colors and centralized placement for your CTA to promote your website and drive conversion on mobile devices.
3. Run a Holiday Campaign on Social Media
As noted previously, social media is a highly cost-effective form of advertising in the digital age.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to target your audience with highly customized content through a mix of regular posts and social media ads.
If you want to boost engagement further, you can display your social media content on your website using POWR Social Media app.
The app lets you share posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Vine, Vimeo, and more in a single gallery.
4. Offer Exclusive Holiday Deals to Your Email Subscribers
People are more likely to buy something if they see they’re getting a good deal on it, so be sure to offer discounts in your holiday marketing emails.
You can drive the urgency behind the deals by adding the POWR Countdown Timer and Email Countdown apps to your sales page and your emails, respectively.
That will make them feel special and give them another incentive to buy from you. After all, this tactic could increase your conversion rate by 375%.
5. Offer Free Shipping
eCommerce orders have been said to improve by as much as 90% with free shipping.
One way in which that could be achieved is by offering free shipping after a certain threshold which will entice customers to spend more money if they are close to that threshold.
Alternatively, you could also offer 20% off a future purchase. Though that would most likely have a bigger impact on your future sales, not the holiday sales you’re trying to grow.
Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to display it prominently on your site so shoppers know that you’re offering this to them as an extra incentive. The POWR Popup app is perfect for that.
6. Offer Holiday Gift Bundles
People often find it hard to decide what to buy for their gifts.
Make it easy for them by creating gift bundles specific to certain family members and friends.
Further, create a promo email with gift suggestions and display products purchased together to give shoppers more ideas on what presents to purchase this festive season.
A great way to display the products that you’re selling is by using the POWR Image Slider or Video Gallery app. Both apps let you showcase product images and explain the gift bundles in detail.
7. Tap Into Video Marketing
Shoppers enjoy connecting with and buying from people with whom they can relate to.
What better way to do that than through video marketing? Video marketing is on the rise as visual content becomes the main way in which people consume information.
Start small by creating a YouTube channel where you share behind-the-scenes videos to remind your customers that they’re supporting a small business.
That’ll present you in a relatable and wholesome light and make a lasting impression on your audience.
For more video ideas, look through your company blog and see how you can repurpose your blog content for your YouTube channel.
8. Focus on Customer Loyalty
Repeat customers account for at least 40% of your sales, research says.
Express your gratitude to those loyal customers by offering a customer loyalty program or even sending them a hand-written holiday card through the mail.
Through loyalty programs, you can reward customers for fulfilling profitable actions like writing reviews, sending referrals, and social sharing.
Adding gamification to your customer retention efforts will make the customer experience and buyer’s journey even better.
Employ leaderboards and quizzes to encourage shoppers to complete preferred actions and make the process entertaining.
9. Provide the Best Customer Service
As you know, 56% of customers choose a different shopping experience from last year’s Christmas period due to past experiences.
So, it’s extremely important to provide consistent, high-quality customer service throughout the year, but especially during the holidays.
What you can do before the season starts to cut down on support requests is to have a clear FAQ section and a simple Facebook chat ready on your website.
They’ll answer all common questions your customers might have and give them a platform to communicate with you directly, ultimately helping to reduce any blocks to purchase.
Conclusion
This concludes our list of nine online holiday strategies and tactics that you can implement this holiday season.
A smart combination of these will boost your website’s traffic and sales before the end of this year. We’re sure that with these ideas in mind, you’ll be ready to seize the most from this busiest time of the year.
