How to prepare your business for holiday season
Autumn is almost over. Winter is coming. Those who were looking forward to watching the 8th season of “Game of Thrones” got their gifts from HBO, and now are looking forward for the gifts from Santa Claus and the traditional watching of “Home Alone.”
Christmas tree decorations and New Year postcards have already began appearing in store windows and counters, creating a festive mood. People are thinking of how to please their relatives, lovers and friends. As everything can be presented as a gift, all traders will feel the impact of holiday season no matter what kind of goods they are selling.
So if you are an ecommerce website owner, then you must realize how seasonality matters and, for example, how to optimise your site for summer marketing. But while you may ignore some less prominent dates on the calendar, having no winter marketing would be not wise. The collection of winter holidays is a great chance to boost sales, and your competitors know this very well. Start preparing your campaign right now and we will tell you some basic tips on how to do it right.
6 tips to prepare business for holidays
Get prepared at advance
Make calendars for November, December, January and February. (Actually, it’s a good idea to have content calendars for each month). Plan some special offerings on the day before holidays. Decide when and how to congratulate your customers, and on what occasion. Among the upcoming dates in 2017-2018 to pay attention to are these:
- November 23 – Thanksgiving Day
- November 24 – Black Friday
- November 27 – Cyber Monday
- December 6 – Saint Nicholas’s Day
- December 12-20 – Hanukkah
- December 15 – Free Shipping Day
- December 24 – Catholic Christmas Eve
- December 25 – Protestant-Catholic Christmas Day
- December 31 – New Year
- January 7 – Orthodox Christmas Day
- February 2 – Groundhog Day
- February 14 – St. Valentine's Day
When looking through the above list, take into consideration regional and religious specifics. Create a user persona to know where your main audience is located and what holidays are celebrated there.
Create an atmosphere of warmth and celebration for your brand
Christmas is associated with family union — children, parents and grandparents all gathered around the fire-tree. As it’s frosty outside, everyone want home warmth and comfort. Therefore, in your winter campaign, which will be visible on the website, in advertisement, in e-mail letters, etc. use images of fireplaces, furry pets, knitted sweaters and socks, hot drinks and expressions of warm human relationships.
Make your website content plan
Plan at advance what articles you are going to publish on your website blog and what images to put on landing pages. Show your site visitors how your products can help them prepare for the holidays and enjoy them. Remember web design trends 2017 and draw graphics, shoot photos or videos to inspire users to buy your goods this holiday season. Keep content on your site fresh and relevant to current events and holidays.
Set your SMM calendar
Look at SMM trends 2017 and think ahead about what content you will post on your business pages on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. To manage all your social media accounts in one place, you can use Buffer, Hootsuite or other online services and set up your spreadsheets for SMM scheduling.
You should note that according to Instagram’s terms of service, it’s forbidden to automatically post to Insta from other apps. So you can use tools like Later for scheduling Instagram posts and get notifications when posting time comes.
Attract potential customers with advertisement
Advertisement is a way to reach new people outside the group of your subscribers on social networks and those who came to your ecom site from search engine results page. Ads help bring traffic from everywhere where your prospective consumers are.
Increasing awareness about your limited-period sales, limited-collection sales, discount coupons or just existing assortment of goods that can be useful this holiday season. Optimize your Facebook ads. Create simple but catchy banners for banner advertisement across the web. Shoot a promotional video that touches the hearts of your clients.
Send e-mails to your customers
You probably already have a long list of email addresses. Your old clients will be pleased to know that you value their loyalty, remember and care about them and wish them well. Also, many people will be glad to find out about your lucrative and helpful special offerings. So, both inform and congratulate them via e-mails.
You can create a few templates for different mailing groups, for example, for existing and potential customers, or for people interested in different group of goods. Moreover, you can put the receivers’ names and surnames in the heading, if you have the information in your database. This way newsletters allow you to make your message more targeted and individualised.
So start planning your marketing campaigns for the holiday season and preparing your online store for a influx of a customers ahead of the largest sales season of the year. If you have some technical issues concerning your e-commerce website, leave those worries on our company. Merry upcoming Christmas, and happy coming New Year!