“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.” 🙂 We are all finally getting ready for the holiday season. It’s the same with entrepreneurs. Some have already started their Christmas campaigns and encourage us to choose Christmas gifts. Some are still waiting for the Black Friday madness to come. Christmas is important for most of us, especially if you run a business. In the e-commerce world, there is also a holiday season. If you run an e-commerce business look at the numbers below. You need to know why Christmas time is so crucial for your social media: According to Wordstream statistics:
- 76% of mobile shoppers change their minds about which retailer’s or brand’s products they want to buy after doing research online.
- 8 in 10 holiday-shoppers are influenced by online activity before making a final decision about what to purchase.
- 68% of shoppers visit YouTube on their mobiles to decide what to choose.
- 1 in 3 holidays consumers report that holiday weekend purchases were driven by promotions
The numbers speak for themselves. It’s Christmas fever in stores before the holiday season. Many brands face a challenge to meet their customers’ requirements and sell as many products as they can. It is a way to get some new loyal customers for a long time.
A few weeks before Christmas is a real demonstration of marketers’ skills and creativity. During the holiday season, customer behavior grows every year. There is an opportunity to stand out with a new, creative campaign filled with Christmas spirit to generate more website traffic.
Tips
You can read some handy tips in this Growcode article about Black Friday. We know that Christmas is preceded by even greater shopping madness than Black Friday but a few of them can be useful.
- Advertisement of Christmas offers on your homepage and dedicated Christmasy landing pages
By sending customers e-mails about holiday offers, most of them will click on dedicated landing pages or your homepage. Do not waste time or an opportunity, and add discount codes or repeat what is in the dedicated Christmas offer. Landing pages must be clear and meaningful for customers to be impressed and remember it. - Showing your discounts on category pages
In addition to highlighting prices on the home page, you should also highlight them on the category pages. This way you will make sure that every customer knows about your offers. Check if promotional prices are highlighted enough (bright colors will work well). - Showing your client discount on checkout
If your customer sees how much he has saved, he may want to save more 😉 Remember that checkout is one of the most “dangerous” parts of your store. One in four people gives up shopping just after the checkout has started. The display saved money on the checkout page just like Shopper so that the customer has no doubt that he is saving.
Expert advice
We’ve asked some experts what advice they would give to those who are preparing their businesses for Christmas season:
Adam Hempenstall, CEO Better Proposals said: “The one golden tip to consider during the Christmas shopping season is to pay close attention to your shipping. Everyone will be offering discounts and promotions, but the target market you want to attract are people who are in a hurry to buy something because Xmas is just around the corner. If you can offer overnight shipping (or whatever equivalent of it in your country) and promote that aspect of your offer, you are sure to get a lot of interest. Even if your competition has a better offer in terms of price, your customers will appreciate the convenience and speed of shipping.”
There is also some interesting advice from Levi Olmstead, owner at Levi Olmstead, Director of Marketing at 2ndKithen to set up recommendation pages.
| E-commerce sites have higher amounts of visitors viewing product pages in the holidays – and you want to maximize your page visits and product sales. Setting up high converting and relevant recommendation CTAs from similar product pages is a miss for many e-commerce brands. Be sure to A/B test recommended products before peak season to convert for transactions.’ |
Hugh Beaulac, content manager and SMM consultant at MC2:
- What should e-commerce business take into consideration when preparing for the Xmas shopping spree?
“The holiday shopping season can bring great business results. However, it’s important to know your customers well to suit their needs and wants. Consumer behavior is changing. With the popularity of social shopping, more and more customers discover and buy new products on social media. Thus, it’s important for e-commerce businesses to showcase their products on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest to hook the attention of holiday shoppers and therefore increase sales.”
- What is “the one” golden tip that can help the e-commerce biz hit the jackpot during the pre-Christmas shopping season?
“Consider thoughtful shoppers. It’s no secret that people want to choose perfect holiday gifts, so 57% of them look for helpful recommendations or suggestions for gifts. While there’s no one-size-fits-all product that can satisfy every customer, you can create holiday gift cards so that people can choose whatever product they want. Moreover, 59% of holiday shoppers claim that gift cards are the most popular items on wish lists, according to the latest statistics.”
Nikola Baldikov, Digital Marketing Manager at Brosix advises :
| ‘When preparing for the holidays, perhaps the most important thing is to not wait until the last minute to get your website geared up for the season! Of course, most of the shopping will be done closer to the holidays. By getting things up and running ahead of time, however, you can begin engaging your customers early on. Use it as an opportunity to offer early bird type deals in order to space things out a bit more. When getting things set up, also make sure to pay attention to your website’s capacity to handle high volumes of traffic. Failing to do so is a frustratingly common mistake that many businesses make, especially around the holiday season. Nothing turns customers away from a holiday e-commerce shopping spree quicker than a slow website load time.’ |
| One thing that’s vital for the e-commerce businesses to think about in pre-Christmas prep is making the shopping journey for your customers as easy as possible. Christmas shopping brings out the worst in all of us, and having to order from multiple online stores can be a complete pain; consider grouping your products into wider present categories. Pull together a list of suggestions for certain personas, promote these pages as curated gift selections. For a lot of people, time is more important than money, and by curating your products you’re providing people with easy solutions to Christmas shopping. It sounds silly but having a full grasp on your timelines before Christmas is really important. Not only should you know the last shipping dates, but you should be aware of how long products will take to produce or replenish if you sell out. Having this information to hand ahead of the rush will allow you to focus on delivering a great customer experience when it matters most.” – Alice Corner, Video Marketing @Venngage |
We’ve asked Daniela Turcanu, Senior Marketing Manager at Walls.io about prepping for Christmas season. She identifies 4 common mistakes that you should avoid:
| Mistake #1 Making major updates to the website days before Christmas The most important mistake to avoid is making changes to your website just days before launching a major marketing campaign. This includes coding updates, new features, updates to the payment system or anything that can affect site availability and speed. You need to test every change thoroughly, otherwise, all the work you’ve put into your campaign will have been in vain. Mistake #2 Overcomplicating the checkout process During the holidays, it’s important to reduce the number of things shoppers need to agree to, fill in and read during checkout. You may want to disable anything that stands between the buyer and the product, anything that isn’t specifically related to your Christmas campaign. Mistake #3 Leaving the users on their own During the hectic Christmas period, shoppers need guidance. It’s pretty hard to come up with the perfect present idea and that’s why you should help them find the right present. Give them ideas, curate gift guides and try to save them time. Mistake #4 Not being clear about delivery times and return policies If shoppers don’t think that gifts will arrive on time, they’ll abandon their shopping carts. Set a delivery cutoff date for the holidays, and remind your customers about it to ensure they receive their orders in time for the holiday season. It’s also important to have a clear return policy and give shoppers extra time to make returns or exchanges during the holidays. They will feel more secure with their purchase. Make sure you avoid these critical mistakes and you will have a profitable and happy holiday season. |
Kalo Yankulov, Co-founder Encharge.io also has advice on how to prep for the Christmas season:
“Put together a thorough plan with a schedule that includes sending date, goal, and target audience (list) for each email. You want to have at least 5-7 emails before and around the Christmas date:
- One email 3-5 days before Christmas, ramping up anticipation for your Christmas deals. This email is an opportunity to announce your exclusive deals and make the delivery options clear.
- 24 hours before Christmas.
- Official “open cart” email on the Christmas with your gift cards and discount.
- “24 hours left to take advantage of your Christmas discounts” warning email
- And a follow-up email a day or week after Christmas — with your new holiday clients, you’re looking for an opportunity to build loyalty and advocacy. Provide value in the form of additional discounts or “early-bird access” to new products. You want to get these people to stay as long-term customers!”
We hope that thanks to the advice above, you will be a hit this holiday season. Use everything you’ve read widely, and get ready for this special time of the year. Have a well-prepped Christmas season at your store!
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