With December knocking on the door, e-commerce website owners should be well into preparation for Christmas marketing. However if not yet started, here are three tips to get your marketing ready for the festivities.
Delve into the past
If you have a few years worth of data you can trawl through, it is worth taking some time to revisit it in order to identify some key information that may boost your sales this year. Firstly, do you have the contact details of previous customers? If so, it might be a great opportunity to send ‘we haven’t forgotten about you’ promotional codes or special discounts on products related to previous purchases. This is a good way of targeting customers who have had a positive experience with your brand but may have not purchased since. Also, this can encourage customer loyalty and recommendation.
Historical data can also assist with what to stock and promote for this year’s Christmas promotions. For example, looking at best selling products from previous years’ data can help to identify which products or services to push for this year. On the contrary, you could have a look at what products didn’t sell so well and if there are similarities such as colour and size, then this could give an indication of what to avoid and could ultimately save unnecessary expenditure.
Promotion and communication
Christmas is a time where consumers want to find the best deals. Creating special Christmas pages such as ‘stocking fillers’ can attract Christmas shoppers and help to shift some of the smaller tagged products. Traditional bargain promotions such as buy two get one free, as well as BOGOF offers and 50% sales are a great way to encourage visitors to buy more.
Once promotions have been set up onsite, it is crucial to communicate them to consumers. There are many ways in which this can be done from social media posts to e-mail marketing. Get the message out there through your mailing lists and social media followers. With social media posts, ensure to hashtag appropriately to get the best visibility and traffic. With email marketing, it is essential that the design and content is compelling.
Product and Category Optimisation
In order to gain maximum visibility for your site, it is important that consumers can find your ecommerce site and products in search engines. In preparation for Christmas searches, it is beneficial to ensure you product pages are SEO friendly. Some website owners spend too much time optimising the homepage and not focussing on category and product pages. During the Christmas shopping period, consumers are usually searching for specific products, and displaying in product search listings can increase conversions. It is also important to optimise category pages for people searching for ideas such as ‘Children’s Christmas gifts’ or ‘Christmas gifts for women’. In addition, special categories should be prominent on the website, especially within the navigation.
