Making a List and Checking it Twice—A Holiday Prep List to Help your Online Store Part 1 of 2
This blog is Part 1 of 2. To read Part 2, please click here.
Retailers need to address holiday preparation as early as possible to ensure a successful season. It is never too early to get ready for the holiday season. In the wise words of Benjamin Franklin, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Ensure your online store’s success this season by following these holiday prep steps:
Mark Your Calendars!
It’s important to plan teasers, promotions, and follow ups ahead of time. Through these measures, you can establish a strong following for your online store before the start of the holiday shopping season. You can almost certainly count on this fan base of customers to return to your store to make their holiday purchases. Mixing multi-day sales with flash sales and happy hours can help you maintain momentum once it is closer to the holidays, and will keep your customers engaged. It is also important to make sure to set dates that align with your marketing calendar from last year. By doing so, you will be able to better to plan for this years goals
Prepare with Pre-Testing
Test item and category-specific promotions throughout the year to know what works best. Eliminate any roadblocks that would deter your customers from making a purchase or from returning to your site for their holiday shopping. By knowing what impacts your conversion rates ahead of time, you can collect data to know what works best for your customers. A better experience on your site means a higher conversion rate, which in turn translates into increased sales, making both you and your customer happy.
Understand Who your Customers are and What They Want
Who doesn’t like a good sale? But you can be promotional without giving away more margin then necessary. By identifying behavioral purchase patterns and offering the right promotions to the right customers, you are more likely to attract those customers to buy from your site. Recognize which customer groups want discounts and what others may be more interested in exclusive items and previews. Take the opportunity to surprise and delight your best customers to make them feel special. Personalizing promotions as much as possible will build customer loyalty and repeat business.
Tidy up your Tags
Ensure your tags, events, goals, funnels, etc. are all set up before the start of the season, and monitor them regularly. This will allow you to more quickly respond to budding behavioral trends. Also, by streamlining these items, you will be able to more accurately measure seasonal performance year over year.
Use Reminders to Reconnect
Escape the negative effects of shopping cart abandonment by sending triggers to users who have placed items in their online shopping and have exited the site. Test new product and back in stock triggers. And retargeting does really work.
Danielle Savin is the Director of Digital Consulting Services at LYONSCG, working with client teams to help define scope and recommended approach for major digital projects and retail strategy for clients. Danielle has spent over 15 years in the eCommerce industry and has seven years of digital consulting experience. Danielle loves traveling and is a champagne enthusiast.
