Well October has finally come, and that means it’s time to start gearing up for the holiday season. Every e-commerce website needs to do something to help capitalize on the amount of money people are willing to spend during this brief period, even high-risk sites. Everyone loves vape mods, or premium cigars in their stockings, right? We have gathered some resources from around the web to help you gain as many new – and repeat -customers as possible this holiday season.
Cyber Monday is for high-risk websites too!
When it comes to Cyber Monday, there are some specific things you should have in mind, and this article from Bootstrapping E-commerce is a great place to start. For example, instead of having your deals on Cyber Monday only why not take the entire week to try to convert using extended deals and other smart tools?
Retain what you gain
Customer retention can be a big win for any e-commerce site. Once you get customers who choose to shop at your web store repeatedly and regularly, it’s easier to get referrals and hopefully more regular customers. Picture being an e-juice site with a 70% repurchase rate?! That is a much nice way to earn a living that burning through one time buyers. This philosphy is essential during the holiday season when the opportunity cost of losing your hard earned holiday traffic is at its peak. Conversion Sciences has an article detailing four ways to increase your customer retention. Where do you think these customers will check first on Cyber Monday for great deals? The more recurring customers you have, the higher the potential for making sales. Here is another good set of tips from Kissmetrics that you might find helpful.
Remarketing for the holidays
In the on-going effort to increase your sales, consider remarketing. Another great article from Bootstrapping E-commerce gives us insight into exactly how to go about remarketing to potential customers. This is especially useful for abandoned carts, as these are people who were already interested in your merchandise. How can you entice would be customers back to close the deal? Figuring that out can go a long way to helping you catch every potential customer during the holiday season.
Holiday SEO, email marketing, and mobile
Your SEO should be on point at any time of year, but make sure you have it in tip-top shape for the holidays. eCommerceFuel has some good tips on boosting SEO ranking without using links, very useful especially if you need a boost in rankings.
As we know, several factors effect SEO and website traffic in general here are some useful tips from Practical Ecommerce that could help you grab more traffic from the holiday flow.
Is your site mobile-friendly? One would assume that it is, but you may want to double check how well it works. See if there is anything you can do to improve your mobile presence ASAP because according to this article from BigCommerce.com over 31% of sales are taking place on mobile devices, nearly 1 of every 3 sales, and if your website is fussy at all, you might lose a lot of sales over the holidays.
Think about refining your email marketing tactics for holiday shopping. This article from Social Media Today gives you some tips for the upcoming holiday season; it’s important to remember to find current blogs and articles for these tips, as SEO and digital marketing has changed so much over the years, it might hurt your efforts to use outdated methods. Another thing to consider for mobile-friendliness is your email marketing. Will your customer’s email client show the beautiful design you worked so long and hard for, or will it just load text and come off as only another junk email? This helpful ClickZ article helps you optimize your emails for mobile users, giving you an edge your competitors might not have thought of.
Consider paying for it
Don’t forget the tried and true method of advertising. Buying ad spots specifically on search engines like Google and Bing can bring in huge numbers to your site if executed properly. Before you dismiss Bing prematurely, read this article from Practical Ecommerce detailing why you should reconsider advertising on Microsoft’s search engine. This holiday season you will want shoppers from every major search engine, not just Google. Don’t miss out on this chunk of the market that might be bigger than you think.
Content marketing is still king
If your website uses content to help sell your products, make sure you are using up to date methods. Consumers can catch on to specific means of promotional advertising and avoid them, so it’s good to learn and change your tactics every once in a while. We found another good Practical Ecommerce article with three methods of content marketing you may not have considered. When selling for the holiday season, another technique you might want to consider is describing how great your product might be for family or friends as a gift. Give it some thought as to which products might benefit from that tactic and try not to overuse it.
Hopefully, all or some of these articles will help you increase your sales this holiday season. Better get to work before it’s November and the holidays are right on our doorstep!