9 Actionable Online Holiday Strategies and Tactics for Your eCommerce Business

Continuing our thread of holiday-centered blog posts, today we will look at how you can further prepare your online business for the holidays by utilizing these online holiday strategies and tactics. These ideas will help you generate sales, build a strong relationship with your customers, and close another year with a bang.

Inspire Holiday Spirit

Holidays are a time of year when people seek out joyful experiences and time with loved ones. So, it is important that you spread festive cheer to build the right brand image and increase seasonal sales. A good way to do this is to update your website design with holiday-themed background, messaging, and images. This simple change will let your customers know that you’re an established business that responds to the different festivities that are going on. You can also offer a holiday gift-wrapping service to further drive home the message that you’re a small business eager to help your customers with their holiday shopping every step of the way.

Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

79% of shoppers make purchases using smartphones, and the mobile eCommerce share is expected to rise in the future. If you want your eCommerce website to rank better, you need to offer a mobile-friendly responsive web design to your prospects. It ensures that every element inside your webpages is properly displayed with the right dimensions across all devices making for the best user experience. In addition to having a responsive design and simple navigation, you need to offer a clear CTA so users landing on your website can find the call to action button and pursue the desired action. Use contrasting colors and centralized placement for your CTA to promote your website and drive conversion on mobile devices.

Run a Holiday Campaign on Social Media

As noted previously, social media is a highly cost-effective form of advertising in the digital age. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to target your audience with highly customized content through a mix of regular posts and social media ads. If you want to further boost engagement, you can display your social media content on your website using POWR Social Media app. The app lets you share posts from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Vine, Vimeo, and more in a single gallery.

Offer Exclusive Holiday Deals to Your Email Subscribers

People are more likely to buy something if they see they’re getting a good deal on it, so be sure to offer discounts in your holiday marketing emails. You can drive the urgency behind the deals by adding POWR Countdown Timer app and Email Countdown app to your sales page and your emails, respectively. That will make them feel special and give them another incentive to buy from you. After all, this tactic could increase your conversion rate by 375%.

Offer Free Shipping

eCommerce orders have been said to improve by as much as 90% with free shipping. One way in which that could be achieved is by offering free shipping after a certain threshold which will entice customers to spend more money if they are close to that threshold. Alternatively, you could also offer 20% off a future purchase. Though that would most likely have a bigger impact on your future sales, not the holiday sales you’re trying to grow. Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to display it prominently on your site so shoppers know that you’re offering this to them as an extra incentive. POWR Popup app is perfect for that.

Offer Holiday Gift Bundles

People often find it hard to decide what to buy for their gifts. Make it easy for them by creating gift bundles specific for certain family members and friends. Further, create a promo email with gift suggestions and display products purchased together to give shoppers more ideas on what presents to purchase this festive season. A great way to display the products that you’re selling is by using POWR Image Slider app or Video Gallery app. Both apps let you showcase product images and explain the gift bundles in detail.

Tap into Video Marketing

Shoppers enjoy connecting with and buying from people with whom they can relate to. What better way to do that than through video marketing? Video marketing is on the rise as visual content becomes the main way in which people consume information. Start small by creating a YouTube channel where you share behind-the-scenes videos to remind your customers that they’re supporting a small business. That’ll present you in a relatable and wholesome light and make a lasting impression with your audience. For more video ideas, look through your company blog and see how you can repurpose your blog content for your YouTube channel.

Focus on Customer Loyalty

Repeat customers account for at least 40% of your sales, research says. Express your gratitude to those loyal customers by offering a customer loyalty program or even sending them a hand-written holiday card through mail. Through loyalty programs, you can reward customers for fulfilling profitable actions like writing reviews, sending referrals, and social sharing. Adding gamification to your customer retention efforts will make the customer experience and buyer’s journey even better. Employ leaderboards and quizzes to encourage shoppers to complete preferred actions and make the process entertaining.

Provide the Best Customer Service

As you know, 56% of customers choose a different shopping experience from last year’s Christmas period due to past experiences. So, it’s extremely important to provide consistent, high-quality customer service throughout the year, but especially during the holidays. What you can do before the season starts to cut down on support requests is to have a clear FAQ section and a simple Facebook chat ready on your website. They’ll answer all common questions your customers might have and give them a platform to communicate with you directly, ultimately helping to reduce any blocks to purchase.

This concludes our list of 9 online holiday strategies and tactics that you can implement this holiday season. A smart combination of these will boost your website’s traffic and sales before the end of this year.

If you need more guidance on how to create a powerful holiday marketing campaign for your eCommerce business, check out POWR’s free eBook: eCommerce 101: Tips For Using Holiday Deals to Increase Sales and Revenue. It goes into detail about how you can come up with a sound holiday marketing plan and what online and in-store marketing strategies you can use to generate sales and increase your business. We’re sure that with those ideas in mind, you’ll be ready to seize the most from this busiest time of the year.