The holiday season presents a unique opportunity for small businesses to earn increased revenue. In comparison to other parts of the year where businesses need to invest heavily into convincing customers to make purchases, during the holiday season, customers themselves look forward to spending their hard-earned dollars on buying gifts for family, friends, colleagues, and themselves! A good holiday marketing strategy will play a key role in making the best of this opportunity by increasing your customer base and making a high number of sales.
In this article by Lets Ecommerce, we’ll explore the best marketing strategies entrepreneurs can use to promote their products/services in the e-commerce industry.
1. Get Seasonal Early
It is common for brands to start holiday schemes at least a couple of weeks before the festival. Similarly, there is a large chunk of customers who prefer to complete their holiday shopping early to avoid the peak time rush. By starting holiday offers before competitors, your business can attract more customers and experience an increase in sales as early as a month before the season officially begins.
Additionally, this provides you the freedom to experiment with offers such as discounts, loyalty programs, one-day offers, etc., and find those that work best with your target customers.
2. Provide Holiday Discounts
While customers are willing to spend more during the holiday season, offering discounts will play a big part in doing so. Increasing the prices of your products might sound like a good idea to improve margins, but in reality, it will have a negative impact on sales.
Take stock of your inventory and margins to devise the amount of discounts that can be provided on products. Use the holidays to sell old inventory at a reduced price and focus on selling large quantities of new inventory at a discounted price. In totality, the business will earn a profit and develop a healthy bottom line.
3. Offer Product Combos
Get creative with the type of combos your business can offer, as this is a great way to increase footfall to the store and upsell customers. Here are a few types of combos to consider:
- Buy 1 Get 1 Free: This is a classic combo that motivates customers to purchase more during their visit to your website.
- Buy 1 Get Something Free: This method leverages the power of free i.e. motivating customers to purchase something they normally would not by offering an item for free. Consider pairing your premium products with those with limited sales or a new product you want customers to sample. Giving products for free can help to create a buzz about the brand and increase sales. To personalize the offer, consider allowing customers to choose from an array of products they can get for free.
4. Create Gift Guides
A holiday gift guide is a great tool to help customers make buying decisions. Additionally, a guide can be used as a catalog to promote products and offers and provide customers with a personalized shopping experience. Using AI tools for your e-commerce store will make the personalization process easier, as the tool will use customer information collected in your CRM (customer relationship management) tool to refer to products while the customer is browsing your website.
Furthermore, break down your customer base into target segments such as young adults, parents, couples, etc., and create gift guides for each. Create an email marketing campaign to share these guides with customers during the build-up to the holiday season. If the first wave of guides gets a lower-than-expected response, create new ones and re-share them with customers.
5. Leverage the Power of Social Media
According to research by Retail Touchpoints, 76% of customers make a purchase after watching advisements on social media. Hence, by leveraging the power of social media, you can promote products to a large audience and encourage them to choose your brand over competitors.
To increase the efficiency of your social media campaigns, focus on creating holiday-centric messaging. For example, if you sell clothing products for the whole family, your advertisements should include images of a happy family enjoying festivities. Additionally, remember to include a CTA (call to action) such as ‘Buy Now!’ that encourages customers to take action after viewing the ad. Prominent platforms to consider advertising on include Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Google.
6. Have a Strong Meme Game
At one point in time, memes were only used as a medium to share jokes, but in 2022 meme marketing is used by large and small corporations alike to interact with customers and promote products. Additionally, it is fairly common for memes to go viral on social media, even if they’re made by businesses with a low follower count. Not only does this help to promote products to a large audience for free, but also increases brand awareness on social media.
If you’re new to making memes, don’t fret, as you can use a meme tool to create content for your brand. A meme tool will provide an array of customizable templates to choose from that can be used for feed posting, stories, and paid advertisement campaigns.
7. Partner with the Right Influencers
Influencers are individuals that have a large social media following and have the power to convince their followers to make a purchase. Here are some key insights reported by the Digital Marketing Institute regarding the power of influencer marketing:
- Up to 49% of customers depend on recommendations from influencers to make purchase decisions.
- 70% of teenagers trust social media influencers more than traditional celebrities. This is because social media provides teens a platform to regularly connect with influencers which helps to build trust.
- A staggering 86% of women use social media to gain advice on product purchases.
As there are thousands of influencers spread across various social media platforms, it is important to choose those that are a good fit for your brand. For instance, if your target audience is teens, look for young influencers with a large following on Instagram or Snapchat. Similarly, for adults, prominent influencers on Instagram and Facebook can be considered.
With the holidays right around the corner, now is the best time to start your holiday marketing campaigns. Rather than putting your eggs in one basket, experience with various strategies to find the one that clicks.
This can include meme marketing, influencer partnerships, store discounts, and more.