As the Jackson 5 once said, “Santa Claus is coming to town!”
It is true. Santa is coming to town... but is your business prepared for his jolly arrival?
As the Christmas season approaches, consumerism explodes and people spend more money.
In fact, The National Retail Federation, estimates that the average American will spend $700 on household gifts, totaling more than $465 billion in Christmas season expenditures.
The 2018 Annual Deloitte Holiday Retail Survey also anticipates that 60% of all holiday shopping will be done online, which is great news for e-commerce businesses.
This, and the fact that November and December drive 30% more revenue than non-holiday months, makes it all too easy for e-commerce businesses to advertise their products and turn a profit from buyers that are so willing to participate in the holiday cheer.
So, I'll ask the question again.
Is your business ready to rack in increased profits from this year's holiday season?
If you aren't, don't worry!
As a present from Optuno to you, here's a complete and simple guide on how you can make more e-commerce sales in time for Q4.
Create a Christmas Deals Page:
There are three main types of consumers.
The most populous types of consumer are average spenders, who have no qualms about spending more or less for a product.
Next are “tightwads”, who are conservative consumers that will have a stroke if their favorite product rises a few bucks on the market.
Heavy spenders are last on the list, and like you've probably guessed, these spenders are able to spend much more than other consumers.
Do you know which spenders are the hardest to convert and also make up the largest percentage of your customer base?
Yep! “Tightwads” are the answer, according to Help Scout's report on Consumer Behavior.
This answer makes a lot of sense because consumers are naturally attracted to deals.
Since this is the case, your website needs to make it clear that you actually celebrate Christmas by creating a landing page solely to showcase your Christmas deals and special products.
Ultimately, creating a Christmas deals page is ideal for all of your e-commerce customers.
After all, average spenders won't reject the idea of spending less for what they want, the “tightwads” will get exactly what they want, and heavy spenders will have a broader capacity to spend less and receive more.
Thus, everyone wins!
Add a FAQ Section:
You may be asking yourself “how will adding an FAQ section to my website increase my Christmas e-commerce sales?” If so, read on.
Have you ever heard of the Buyer's Journey?
In the simplest terms, the Buyer's Journey is a conceptual roadmap that explains the journey consumers take from your homepage to checkout.
Many marketers claim the Buyer's Journey to be the Holy Bible of e-commerce.
Rightfully so, the Buyer's Journey is a widely-accepted marketing principle that actually works.
In order to save you the monotony of dissecting the Buyer's Journey, I'll just discuss how adding an FAQ section relates to this concept and how it can impact your sales.
Now, there are three stages of the Buyer's Journey, which are:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Once your Christmas deals page is online, your online customers will naturally pass through the awareness phase if they are interested in what you're offering and will start to consider if they want to move forward.
This is the most difficult part of conversion because you'll have to convince them of three important things.
- Your business offers the products they want.
- Your business offers the products they want at the price they want.
- Your business offers the products they want at the price they want more convincingly than your competitors.
In short, your customers are likely going to have important questions they'll need answered before they're comfortable giving your business their hard-earned money.
Do you offer free shipping? How long will it take my products to reach my residence?
These are questions your customers are likely to ask, and if you create a section that answers these questions in plain sight, you'll be giving your customers what they need to move on with their purchase.
If you already have an FAQ section on your website, make sure you update it with new information that relates to the holiday season.
It would be irritating to your customers if you never specified any possible delays with their shipments due to the massive demands of the Christmas season.
Write Buyer Guides:
Consider this…
81% of shoppers conduct research before making a purchase.
65% of consumers spend more than 16 minutes making product comparisons before buying.
Half of shoppers spend at least 75% of their total shopping time conducting online research.
How many times do I have to say it?!
Consumers love valuable information, especially before they make a purchase.
If you can provide them with this information, you'll be much more likely to achieve more sales.
Just ask Inflow. They created an e-commerce buyer guide that produced six-figure profits.
Need help writing your own Christmas buyer guide? Read this amazing guide.
Set Up Your Holiday Marketing Strategy:
Now that your website is in the holiday spirit and you have impressive content to woo your target audience, it's time to set up your holiday marketing strategy.
Since marketing is like a rubix cube to many e-commerce businesses, here are a few simple and creative tactics you can use to kick-start your marketing strategy in time for the Christmas season.
E-mail marketing: Create an effective email marketing campaign that leads your customers to the Christmas day sale. To achieve the best results, send an email every Tuesday leading up to Christmas Eve. Also, make sure you're sending personalized e-mails, as personal e-mails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversions by 10%.
Google ads: Once you create a dedicated Christmas deals landing page, you will automatically have a better ad quality score than your competitors that do not. This will help you reduce costs when it comes to bidding for highly popular keywords, such as “Christmas deals”.
Social ads: Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular social media networks for the holiday season. Focus on creating beautiful holiday-themed ads that will resonate with your target audience.
Need help brainstorming a creative way to advertise your business on social media? No problem!
You see, your social ads don't always have to advertise your business or products, they can also mention prizes and competitions you're offering.
Try creating a branded hashtag (ex. #optunochristmas) for your business and encouraging your followers to share this hashtag on social media in a creative way.
You can award the social media poster that uses the hashtag in the most creative manner with a free product.
It's a win-win situation. A potential customer gets a gift and your business gets added exposure on social media.
Christmas is Almost Here
Christmas is truly the best time of year for both business and consumers, and you can definitely take advantage of this wonderful season to boost your e-commerce sales.
Need some help in creating a website that's going to increase your chances of achieving e-commerce success this holiday season?
Click here to view Optuno's premium website packages to see how we've got you covered in time for Q4.
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