While sunscreen and sand are at top of mind for most folks this time of year, online business owners should already be thinking of the holiday shopping season. Creating promotions and programs that increase a few key metrics for your business are important to consider now for a successful holiday shopping season. To achieve super holiday sales, following are several ecommerce elements to consider.
- Increase in organic and paid website traffic – more visitors now should continue to translate into increased site traffic during peak shopping season of November and December
- Conversion rate increase for first time visitors/buyers – this may not seem like a holiday promotion or an action that can impact holiday shopping, however with an increase in conversion rates now you have a larger pool of customers to market/remarket to during the holiday shopping season
- Order total increase – again, not a clear connection to holiday promotions, though consider this: an increase in order totals now gives you a larger revenue stream to work with during the peak holiday season allowing you to provide deeper discounts on pricing or invest additional revenue into marketing programs
- Gift certificate/card program focus – creating a strong gift certificate/card program now gives your customers a reason to come back and spend those certificates on your site during holiday shopping
Turning our attention to specific action items related to promotions to work on now, the short list should include:
- Creating marketing/email content – getting messaging done now gives you time to focus on the logistics of increased orders, phone calls, and emails during peak shopping season. Using a professional email marketing program (like Mail Chimp) that is integrated with your ecommerce solution makes content creation a snap allowing for emails to be scheduled for delivery in the future.
- Planning out promotions/discounts calendar – knowing what promotions you plan to do at what time of the holiday shopping season will allow you to plan inventory levels appropriately
- Tidy up customer data – bad/incomplete data will make holiday promotions difficult or impossible to deliver;
- Social/mobile –if you aren’t utilizing social media and mobile versions of your site, you are missing out on revenue. Be sure your social accounts are connected to your ecommerce platform now in order to use these channels for promotions during the holiday season. If you already have social and mobile set up and running well then now is the time to start testing some promotions in these channels
As online retail buying continues to grow year over year, in particular during holiday months, planning your holiday profitability programs and promotions should be a focus starting now. These will be a breeze to execute in November and December with some thought dedicated to the topic now.
Mike Auger is chairman of the board and chief strategy officer of Pinnacle Cart, a hosted shopping cart and ecommerce software application that allows you to create, manage and effectively market your business. For more information, visit pinnaclecart.com.