Holiday Marketing Strategies to Boost Revenue [7 Tips]

This article will discuss 7 holiday marketing strategies that increase conversion, order values, and more during the most important sales period of the year.

 

Ecommerce retailers all over the world are busy preparing their holiday marketing strategies. However, there are many innovative ways to drive traffic to your site and increase conversions. This is particularly important in a difficult year for the industry, where every sale matters.

These 7 personalization strategies will help you make the most out of your next sales month as you restructure your game plan.

1. Make use of the wisdom of the crowd to highlight the best sellers and make product recommendations

They’re all there – those people on your gift list that you love deeply but don’t know what to get. The gift buying process is where the wisdom of the crowds is most useful. You can make it easy for customers to buy by showing them the best-selling products or identifying gifts that are suitable for their age or recipient.

These thematic browsing options should always be highlighted on mobile. This will help customers to navigate their site. Be careful not to highlight your ‘Gifts For Dad’ gift guide on an animated cartousel. This isn’t possible on desktop. Hovering over a slide on a desktop will cause it to pause. However, on mobile this is impossible. Customers may accidentally click on the wrong slide, and leave your site.

You can highlight the best sellers or show items that are often bought together. This will reassure buyers that they have made a wise decision and may increase average order value. Reviewing the product is a great way to answer common questions right on the page. It could also prevent future returns, which we will cover in a later section.

 

2. Search friendly design for your website

Although Search is the most popular method for product discovery on mobile, it is also the most problematic element of mobile shopping sites. Search was most often the reason that shoppers wrongly concluded that the site didn’t have the product they wanted.

To make your search work for mobile shoppers, you should:

• Always give shoppers the opportunity to search within the specific category they are interested in
• Shoppers can filter search results down to the category level, e.g. Allow shoppers to filter the search results to Jewelry instead of all results for gold.
• Make sure your search function is able to handle misspellings or synonyms. 70% of ecommerce searches fail to return the correct result if the customer uses exactly the same word as the site (e.g.’mobile case’ instead of ‘phone case).
• Support thematic searches such as “Gifts for Him”
• If you don’t get the desired result, always suggest alternative solutions and suggestions.

 

3. Leverage user-generated content for stronger social validation

A consumer will expect multiple high-resolution images of the product once they have found it appealing. This expectation is essential during holiday season, when there is high competition and shoppers are constantly hopping from one site to the next looking for the perfect product.

Here are some quick tips for adding images to your website to promote your products:

1. Images should be taken from many angles and include close-ups so that all aspects of the product are visible.
2. To increase cart volume, include more than three to five images per product page.
3. Multiple product images can help reduce product returns. This is because the shopper can clearly see what they are buying, which minimizes unwanted surprises.
4. To help shoppers visualize the product better, you can include a product video.

You can make it easy for customers to buy by showing them the products that are popular or suitable for their age or gift recipients.

Tip:User generated photography is one way you can transform how your products are presented to shoppers. You can find 6 top product recommendations on key pages of your website.

 

4. Pre-exit holiday content can encourage shoppers to stay on your website.

Many shoppers are unable to decide what the best deal is at any given time. The chances of shoppers landing on your website and leaving empty-handed during holidays are greater than ever because brands compete to offer the best products and offers.

It’s sometimes called bribery or incentive, but if you can lure your customers back to your site with a compelling offer, it could make the difference between losing them to your competitors and converting them into your customers.

The pre-exit popup.

Conversion is a once-disregarded tactic that can help you keep your customers engaged with your brand. With behavioral targeting, you can keep indecisive customers onsite by creating a customized exit popup that is based on the individual’s browsing history and interests.

, for example, can receive a pop-up with a discount code for first-time customers. This helps to build trust and a positive experience. This is a great opportunity to get their email address so you can send them the discount and increase your email list.

A returning visitor may see products that they have previously browsed in order to encourage a purchase.

Visitors who are about to leave your website may be attracted by the products they have either added to their cart (if they have any) or viewed.

 

 

 

5. To increase your order value and conversion rate, clearly display your product discount codes

Discounts should be displayed on every page of your website. However, some retailers have trouble finding the best way to do this without affecting other products sales.

A way to increase holiday sales, especially when you are using Black Friday strategy where shoppers look for the best deals, is to make your discounts as visible as possible. Modify your styling to show the product’s original price, cross-out or the exact percentage you would save. This subtle change can have a huge impact on order value and drive the discount home.

 

 

6. Maximize email marketing’s rise during the holiday season

 

42% of buyers prefer emails with personalized content. These emails can boast an impressive average click through rate (CTR) 24% and a conversion ratio of 6%. Nosto’s Personalized Widgets allow you to personalize each email by using the customer’s previous purchases or visits.

Below you can see how meli melo, a handbag retailer, highlights both the most popular and the least-browse products. This maximizes the chances of shoppers finding the right product for them. This approach can be combined with a discount code, or additional sale promotion during the holiday period to increase conversions.

Email to abandon cart

Cart abandonment email is a great way to counter high abandoned cart rates at this time of the year. They are GDPR compliant. Vulpine uses an exit intent pop-up to collect email addresses. This allows shoppers to return to their items by directly emailing them. This solves many problems. It allows shoppers to keep track of their items on multiple devices ( 61% of people browse on mobile and then make a purchase on their desktop), and it allows them to email their wishlists to their friends.

Tip In just a few clicks, you can create a “We miss You” email campaign with Nosto!

Your holiday email marketing checklist

• Match your sales type to your customer demographic
• Personalization can help you optimize your email marketing campaign
• Set up an email collection system on your website
• Make sure your emails display correctly on mobile devices

Extra holiday hints

• Don’t let your customers see your less profitable products first when you host a sale. You want them to know why they are there, so make sure you clearly announce your sale on the front page.
• You can delight long-standing VIP customers by offering them something extra (e.g. early sales access, discount or special pricing).
• For a stress-free holiday, automate as much as possible now
  period!

Unrelated, but still very important: If your business is located in the EU, Please visit our blog to learn how you can ensure your email marketing is GDPR-compliant. You can be confident that you will be both compliant AND effective this holiday season.

 

7. After the holidays, managing and leveraging product returns

Your business will likely hold a January sale to clear out stock and make room for new inventory in January. It’s important to provide a great customer experience, and to make long-term customers out of people who purchased from you last year. This will help keep momentum going. One reality that ecommerce retailers must face is product returns.

We are no longer able to fake a smile of gratitude upon receiving unwanted gifts. UPS, the delivery company, has even christened the 5th January National Returns Day. This day saw shoppers return 1.3 million packages to UPS on that day and over 5.8 million packages in the first week of January.

This doesn’t necessarily have to sound like bad news ….

The study also showed that 45% of online return customers made additional purchases. This could be their first contact with your store. While a bad return process will not stop someone from returning, it can stop them from shopping with you again.

How can you make a positive first impression? Online shoppers cited free returns shipping (60%) and a hassle-free policy (51%), as the top three factors for a positive returns experience.

Increase your life expectancy

It is tempting to believe that someone buying a gift might not be your target market throughout the year. This is because the purchase was not based on their interests and likes. Don’t rush. RJMetrics found that 23% of ecommerce businesses acquire new customers in the holiday period. This is compared to the 17% average of new customers over the two-month period. These customers had a 13% lower lifetime worth (CLV) than the average ecommerce business. However, this is not too bad considering the substantial increase in customer acquisition.

There is a lot of data that shows that reengaging old customers is cheaper than going after new ones. Yet, 44% of businesses10 are more concerned with retention than acquisition. While creating a positive customer experience through things like returns is one strategy to do so, re-engaging customers who have dropped off your radar requires something more proactive.

‘We Miss You’ emails

Here is where your holiday marketing strategy’s email component comes back in. You can encourage a second purchase by sending out emails containing other gifts within days of the first purchase. 42% of them made their second purchase within the next 10 months. It is worth reminding customers about your store, no matter what time it may be.

The lesson is? The overall lesson? ).

Get your holiday marketing plan started by getting ready for Black Friday.

Now is the perfect time to kick your holiday marketing strategy into high gear, with Black Friday just around the corner. To share our top tips and tricks for optimizing your site, we’ve launched a special midyear roundup of ecommerce strategies. These tips will help retailers drive more traffic, conversions, order value, and other factors to increase performance during a competitive sales period.

source https://www.nosto.com/blog/holiday-marketing/