Everyone knows by now that retailers will generally always be most profitable during the holiday season because that’s when shoppers spend the most. Knowing that to be the case, means you need to maximize your seasonal sales because there will certainly be leaner times ahead through the dog days of the off-season.
Developing a seasonal marketing plan can be a great first step toward boosting sales and making the most of the busiest shopping time of the year. Here are some tips you may want to consider for inclusion in your own seasonal marketing plan, so you can be as profitable as possible while consumers are in a spending mood.
Provide an Enjoyable Shopping Experience
If you can provide your customers with an enjoyable shopping experience, they are likely to spend more while they’re on your premises, and they will also probably come back again because they appreciated the experience the first time. For example, a supermarket might want to post some delicious holiday recipes that will introduce variety and make preparation time easier for shoppers. This is something that might be very helpful for shoppers, and it could also provide motivation for them to purchase more food and come back more often.
Be Grateful for your Shoppers
Even your most loyal customers may be tempted to shop elsewhere during the holiday season, simply because they spot a better deal at another store, or because they’ve seen something, in particular, they want to buy there. That means you need to do some things to get your store back in their minds, so they’re thinking about you when it comes to making purchases.
One of the best ways to do this is to express your gratitude to holiday shoppers, and show them how important they are to your business. There are tons of ways for you to express your gratitude, starting with a simple thank-you email or heartfelt post. You can also run sales or offer discounts for customers in your loyalty program or offer volume discounts to those who make larger purchases.
Kick-off your Marketing Plan Early
Don’t make the mistake of deferring your marketing plan until the season is well underway because by then you will have already missed out on a significant number of purchases. Well before the holiday season arrives, you should have your marketing strategy in hand and should be thinking about how it can best be implemented.
In fact, it would be a good idea for you and your marketing team to begin strategizing as soon as August or September, so that you’re ready to hit the ground running by the time the season arrives. There’s no reason why you can’t launch your seasonal marketing plan in October or November. Keep in mind that a great many holiday shoppers do their shopping early so as to avoid the rush. You can take advantage of all these consumers anxious to spend, by implementing your marketing plan as early as possible.
Consider Setting Up an Online Showroom
Think about how effective it is for a car sales dealer to have a showroom with a number of vehicles on display for the scrutiny of potential buyers. You can take that same concept and create an online showroom where you can display all the different aspects of your products, especially those which are more expensive, and which consumers are likely to want to investigate closely.
This is an idea which takes several months to develop fully, so if you haven’t started already, you should keep it in mind for next year. You will need a team of photographers and marketers who can work together to fully display all angles of a particular product at your online showroom. This should have the same impact as an auto dealer showroom because it will provide potential buyers with the opportunity to kick the tires on a product before purchasing.
Include Email Marketing
It’s important to keep in mind that during the holiday season, many consumers are extremely busy, traveling around town and shopping at various outlets. That means they won’t have a whole lot of time to dedicate to in-person meetings or phone calls, but they will always make time to check their email inbox. You can make sure that you have a presence in your target audience’s email inbox, by sending out whatever sales promotions or discounts your offering through the season.
Most holiday shoppers are looking for a bargain in the first place, and if you have one delivered right to their doorstep, it’s very likely that they’ll take the time to read it and consider it. Make sure to keep your email simple and very understandable, so that it doesn’t get quickly discarded. Make your offer plain and appealing, so that more of your target audience customers will actually read it and take it into consideration.
Retarget Customers
Almost a whopping 96% of all potential customers will abandon a website without making any kind of purchase. The flip side of that statistic means that only four people out of 100 who visit your website will actually buy any of your services or products. You can increase this percentage significantly by making use of email marketing and a remarketing ad campaign. For example, if shoppers provide their email address to you but don’t go through the checkout process, you can send a follow-up email to them to encourage them to take another look. This might spur them to revisit their shopping cart and actually complete the purchase.
Remarketing centers around consumers who have previously visited your site and offers them something new or unique which might spark their interest. You may have to narrow down your audience to just a few product pages when doing this, otherwise, it can get to be a bit overwhelming.
While you are engaged in remarketing, make an effort to determine why users abandoned your site, and if it’s something you can correct or improve upon, make sure to do that, so as to improve the experience for your shoppers.
