Holidays are those times of the year when the favorite items saved in the wishlist get converted into a cart list. Yeah! Holidays mean shopping where everyone likes to wear trendy clothes and show off their luxurious lifestyle to the World.
And, in turn, become the best time for brands as well. Like, during Amazon Great Indian Festival Sale in 2018, Amazon claimed that three out of every four smartphones sold in the country were on its online marketplace. On the other hand, Flipkart claimed that it recorded the best ever record to its five-day Big Billion Days (BBD) sale.
Hence, it proves that holidays can turn out to be the most eventful time for e-commerce brands or sellers. The holiday season is just like another shopping season for customers but if you are a seller or vendor or retailer, it means the most profitable period of the year.
India’s E-commerce revenue is expected to jump from US$ 39 billion in 2017 to US$ 120 billion in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 51 percent, the highest in the world. (Stats provided by IBEF Org) And, it will keep on increasing during the holiday seasons. Therefore, if you want to make it big, planning well in advance is the best strategy.
While there can be so much on the list to take care of while marketing strategy for e-commerce, you might end up missing out on certain trivial things. At least, there is a possibility. But you need not worry.
We are here for you with an expert guide that will help you get your store prepped up for you to cash in on the Holiday season.
So, without wasting any time, let’s get rolling!
1. It’s the right time for Migration now
If you are unhappy with your existing eCommerce platform? Planning to move it to Magento or Shopify Plus? Well, now is the time to do it.
Shoppers really don’t love the idea of slow loading pages and typically when they have a big shopping list. They would like to receive the fast-paced loading along with simplistic shopping cart experience. Site slowdowns and glitches really turn them down and might ultimately cause you huge losses. Now that peak holiday season really calls for more traffic and business, you cannot simply risk offering your customers with the experience that they definitely do not welcome.
So, if you are planning to migrate your store onto a new platform, it’s the right time to get your eCommerce App development company into the picture and get the latest version rolling in ASAP.
Be it new hosting or another technical change that you have been looking forward to since long, any back-end changes, or ANYTHING, handle them before your site goes live for the big days.
After all, we don’t think you’ll really like the customers dropping by.
2. Celebrate the era of automation and let your shoppers do too
The holiday season is the most critical time of the year, at least for eCommerce companies. And with shopper’s expectations adding up, it gets all the more demanding. You might need to send emails, print shopping bills, keep the database updated, manage inventory, and what not. Small but vital things keep adding to the list and that too at a rapid pace.
But, with automation tools, you really do not have to worry much. You can simply use the tools like MailChimp to automate the email communications, including the abandoned cart emails, sending discount information to the users, and whatever you can think of.
What else?
You can also help the visitors relish best of the experience using Chatbots or AI-powered assistants. Not only will it cut down the cost of customer service executives, but also send promotional messages and coupons, and even assist the users thereby augmenting the sales.
You can simply shed off that extra burden off your shoulders by employing a chatbot app development company or maybe a ChatBot building platform.
Now that you are sorted with the customer experience, we would also like to remind you that you need to attract them. And, with most of them live on social media, why not find them there. The best part is, you don’t need additional resources for this. Get the social automation tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. to increase your brand presence and get in more ROI.
3. Develop discounts and sales on time
While browsing the internet, we came across a quote that said, “If I buy something without a discount, I feel cheated.” Well, it really makes sense, to a shopper and typically in the holiday season. While shoppers have the reason for running wild in the shopping marathon, you definitely need to ensure them with the essential supplies that tempts them to run wild.
The best game plan to ensure this runs through the well-crafted discounts and offers. Allure your shoppers with mouth-watering discounts, gifts, promotional offers, and all such stuff. You can also think about some proposals like “buy one get one free,” fascinating limited period offers, a 50 percent off a site-wide blowout, flash sales, or daily deals on sections.
And… we do have a pro tip for you…
“Create a sense of urgency in your shoppers with limited period sales and make sure they know it.”
And how they’ll know? Social media, email campaigns and and and… How about giving them well-in-advance information by speaking your words through landing pages?
Yes, time to call up your web or mobile app development company.
4. Do not forget your inventory
Inventory tracking is of paramount importance for your eCommerce store. Once you are done planning your deals and discounts, perform a physical count of the materials you currently have in store. Make sure you have enough not to let your customers down. Perform a thorough inspection that includes the comparison of the last year’s data. But that’s not something you can entirely rely on.
Get your team to understand and integrate the eCommerce growth statistics, and plan up your eCommerce inventory management to ensure glitch-free holiday season sale. On that note, do you think that’s it for inventory management? Are you sure you are not missing out on anything?
Well, yes, you got us right? Take care of the items that you need like delivery labels, boxes, stickers, packaging material, wrapping paper, and…. Can you think of something else? Then yes, that as well.
5. Marketing materials should be handy
Okay, so now that we are almost done preparing our eCommerce marketplace, it is a no-brainer that we need it to be a successful endeavor. And to ensure that, effective marketing is a must. You can’t just let your shoppers slip from your hands because they don’t even know about your sale. Pick up your previous sales schedules and get started. Pinpoint the areas you lagged in and the areas that you excelled.
What is the USP of your competitor’s strategy? Include it. Where do they lack? Make sure you don’t do it.
Divide your planning into two categories: Direct Marketing and Content Marketing.
With direct marketing, we mean the following:
- Landing Pages: Talk to your eCommerce developers and create dedicated landing pages for specific promotions that help visitors land on the sales items in the easiest way possible.
- Email Marketing: Allure the customers with aesthetically pleasing email templates talking loads about your sale, coupons they might be interested in, and other relevant information. Once done, get your plan into action as we mentioned above.
- Paid Advertising: Reach out to your PPC experts to get the best range of appetizing ads live for your customers.
Now that you are done planning up direct promotions, here is how you can start with your content marketing strategy:
- Your Website: Prepare up the critical pages of your website strategically. Identify the pages of high importance and the ones that don’t attract much traffic. For instance, a user will be more concerned with the payment and product’s page rather than the About Us section. Ensure that you get your website checked by the team of expert developers and testers.
Besides, set up the banners and headers with a holiday theme or event. - Social Media: Plan up your social media strategy. Schedule your posts and ensure to use eye-popping images.
Take Away
“A stitch in time saves nine.”
Waiting until the last moment does you no good. Start preparing up using these tailor-made online marketing strategies and get the ball rolling in your court. The holiday season is a marathon and not a sprint.
Prepare your brand early to ensure smooth operations, crew sanity, and most importantly customer satisfaction.
Get the elements mentioned above sorted out to ensure a rewarding holiday season, not only for you but also for your customers.
