As people prep for holiday gifting, your small business has the opportunity to capitalize on the most wonderful time of the year. More customers are buying gifts online than ever before, so this can be a lucrative period for your eCommerce business.
“The holidays are critical for nearly all retailers in the U.S., but especially [eCommerce],” Sean Digler writes in Power Digital Marketing. “It’s not uncommon for online retailers to generate 50% of their yearly sales in the last three months of the year. It’s easy to understand why. Traditional holiday shopping is a hectic experience with Christmas music on endless repeat, bad weather, no parking, crowds, and a huge amount of inconvenience and stress.”
Your eCommerce website can be the solution that shoppers are looking for, but only if you put in enough marketing leg work.
The following tips can help you take advantage of holiday marketing to bring in more customers and more revenue.
Build your holiday marketing budget in advance.
Since this time has the potential to pull in significant revenue, it’s important to reserve an appropriate amount of money for marketing efforts. This will give your marketing campaign the full boost it needs, and you won’t risk running out of budget money.
Plan a relevant editorial calendar.
Worldwide, 72% of marketers say that creating relevant content is the most effective SEO strategy. And the holidays are a gold mine for content ideas. Make this content relevant, engaging, and perhaps even longer than usual. Your readers are in the holiday spirit, so you want to compel them to share.
Remember email marketing.
This is one of the best times of year to promote sales and giveaways. Email marketing can be a great way to promote these offers. So, even if you are focused on blogging and social media, be sure to give email a little extra time as well.
Make your social media shine.
Social media during the holidays is all about visuals. Adjust your images to be seasonal, bright, and warm. Users seek content that makes them feel good, and this just might influence their buying decisions as well. Social media giveaways and other engaging posts can also be highly effective this time of year.
Use Pinterest well.
This social media platform is a very popular place to search for gift ideas. By creating a Pinterest page for your business, people can click into your website when they find your products in their feed. This is a simple, but often overlooked, way to reach customers.
By putting extra branding effort and promotion into all your marketing platforms, you can turn web users into customers. And this can make your holiday marketing the most effective strategy of the year.
“Marketing during the holidays is really about finding the gaps you need to fill and how to better support your customers,” Anna Crowe writes in Search Engine Journal.
Where are your business’s gaps?
Kelsey R. is a writer and an avid world traveler. When she’s not writing or listening to 80s music, you can find her exploring different countries, taking selfies with her dog Lady, and in constant search for the perfect brownie recipe.
