7 Strategies to Make the Most of the Holiday Season

Fortune magazine quoted that digital sales were set to reach $95 billion this holiday season…Are you ready?

It’s time to start implementing your revenue-boosting holiday season strategies so that you can cash in on those Christmas sales.  Here are 7 quick strategies to get you ready to cash in on the biggest shopping days of the year before peak shopping traffic hits your online stores.

1. Incentivize Early Shopping

First things first: get your regulars shopping early. Getting pre-orders will ensure you’re more organized when the mayhem starts, as well as incentivising sales conversions. You can do this by offering a unique promo code on your website or via a marketing email, that is valid until the end of November. Or if you’re not already offering free shipping, offer free shipping for a limited time only before peak season.  

2. Sort Gifts Ideas by Budget

So often, online Christmas shoppers have a budget in mind, but may not have a specific item in mind. Encourage holiday shopping by adding a gift ideas product landing page to your site, sorting products into subcategories such as gifts under $20, $30 or $50 or by “gifts for him” or “gifts for her”. Push this page using online marketing, social media and your full email database.  

3. Offer Personal Gifts for the Holidays

Who doesn’t love gifts over Christmas? So why not start with your customers! Instead of running profit hurting promotions, incentivise more shopping this holiday season by offering a free product for shoppers who spend over a certain Dollar amount. If you’re selling fitness clothes, throw in a free branded (your brand) shirt, for example. The possibilities are endless.

4. Bundle and Up-Sell to the Max

People are buying gifts for more than one person. They are buying for family, friends, co-workers, bosses, employees, teachers, etc. Bundle products together to encourage more spending on your site while offering gift ideas to shoppers they may not have thought of. You can do this by offering a package of products slightly cheaper than if shoppers buy them individually. Or suggest similar products to add onto a gift or other products that could make gifts for others during the checkout processes.

Toys “R” Us have great checkout strategies that include free shipping over a certain spend and a recommended products section for upselling, and with the holiday season around the corner, you are just in the nick of time to implement similar upselling tactics that actually add to the user experience as well.

5. Don’t Forget Your Loyal Customers

Treating your loyal year-round customers this holiday not only gets them thinking of you when they hit the online stores for Christmas, but gets you customers for life. Reward them with an exclusive VIP pre-holiday discount or by sending a select few a small personalized gift and you will be rewarded long term. They may even post about you on their social platforms, giving you free and valuable brand exposure over the holidays.

Have a look at this Gary Vee video where he speaks about over delivering, even when the customer is angry, to bring life-time value.

6. Rev Up Relevant Content

Use your blog to bring in customers by creating content within your niche relating to holiday season shopping topics. This can include anything from DIY project ideas – if you’re a supplies online store – or healthy holiday recipes – if you’re an online fitness or wellness store. Pinterest has a host of DIY Christmas ideas and recipes.

There are tons of ways you can offer your customers, potential customers and social followers valuable, relevant information around the holidays to keep your brand front and center in their minds. Plus it’s great for SEO – win, win! Not to mention making use of your mailing list you’ve been working so hard to build up through the year using strategies such as Exit Pop.   

7. Offer Gift Cards

A report from last Christmas showed that over 60% of people would much rather get a gift card for a gift. Introducing gift cards is a great way to convert more holiday season sales. If you’re a Shopify eCommerce site, they already offer an integrated gift card system.

 

For wordpress, you are able to offer this using simple eCommerce WordPress Plugin such as WooCommerce – Gift Cards. This will not only offer an additional way for you to convert a visiting shopper to a sale, but get a new customer out of the receiver of the voucher. All eCommerce platforms offer this option for online stores. We recommend  adding it to your site not only for the holiday season but all year round.

There you have it, 7 tried and tested strategies you can use to make the most out of this shopping season. Stay tuned for more converting tips and tricks and if you have any questions, post them in the comments below.

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