It’s that time of year again when we need to start thinking about the holiday season, the sooner you start planning, the less stressed and the more successful you’ll be. Last year, Cyber Monday set the mark as the biggest shopping day in U.S. history, combining with Black Friday to generate $7.9 billion in sales. With these and a handful of other spending occasions falling during the holiday season, online retailers have a strong chance to make the holiday season their most profitable time of the year.
1. Plan Your Marketing Calendar
First things first, mark down the important holidays so you can plan your marketing campaigns later. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the stand-outs of the season, there are other shopping occasions that shouldn’t slip your mind. Here are a few you can put on your calendar:
2. Plan Your Holiday Specials
Next on your to-do list—choosing what types of specials your store will offer this holiday season. Here’s a list of ideas that have proven to be successful for online stores. We’ve found that choosing one or two of these will help engage your audience and bring in new customers.
- % or $ discount
- Free shipping
- Flash sale
- Giveaway or contest
- Promo code
Tips on Updating Your Marketing Strategy:
- Use the power of pop-ups to promote customer engagement. For example, “buy more, get more.” Or, “Free Shipping with a $XYZ purchase.”
- Offer your customers a “gift with purchase” promotion. This is an exciting promotion for your customers while also getting additional products of yours in front of new customers
- Create “frequently bought together” bundle deals. These are great to feature in your social and email campaigns.
- Communicate urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out). Use terms such as “online only”, and “ends tonight!”
Deciding Which Products To Push
After deciding on the deals you choose to promote, start thinking about which products you’d like to push. You may want to promote Holiday themed items, your best-sellers, or possibly try getting customers interested in slower selling items.
If you’re looking for some selling inspiration this year, here’s a list of teelaunch products that have been on trend in previous holiday seasons:
Personalized:
– Mugs (Magic mugs coming soon!)
– Monogram Beanies
– Canvas Prints
– Fleece Blankets
Standard:
– Themed Shirts (Try your hand at creating easy shirt costumes for
Halloween!)
– Oversized print apparel (Great for creating one-of-a-kind Christmas
sweaters)
– Hooded Blankets
– Combo Apparel (Let your customers kill two birds with one stone by
pairing apparel items together–their customers get two gifts, and you get
two purchases)
3. Get Going on Those Social Posts
Displaying holiday deals on your site is often not enough to reach the sales you want for the season. People will often forget what they’ve seen so that’s why you need to remind them with social posts. The most popular social media channels for ecommerce businesses are:
When creating copy for your holiday social media posts, remember that each channel is used for slightly different purposes.
For example, Twitter is a platform where people voice their opinions, discuss public events, and make company announcements. Pinterest, on the other hand, is purely visual and is used for design or lifestyle inspiration. And Instagram selling works best when you draw viewers in with visuals and leave your announcements in the caption.
The great thing is, you don’t have to take all the product photos yourself. Use the teelaunch mockup generator to create and download hi-res snaps of your products. We also like to use sites like Unsplash and Pixabay if we need more general visual material to market products with.
3. Announce your Deadlines
Before holiday shopping is in full swing, make sure your customers know about the most important dates: order deadlines. For example, here are some cut-off dates for teelaunch that you should keep in mind:
Use these dates as part of your promotions and make sure your customers understand what they mean.
4. Last-Minute Shoppers: How to Sell in the 11th Hour
Here are 11th-hour tips you can use all the way up to your delivery date.
- Put together a “12 deals of Christmas” offer: Offer a new deal each day leading up to shipping cutoff. Reveal one deal each day to drive repeat visits. Schedule content in advance to relieve the burden of daily content slot swaps.
- After the shipping deadline date: Push gift cards or special promo codes after the holiday shipping cutoffs.
Remember that every day counts as we are fast approaching the holiday season. The good news is we have a solid product catalog and support staff that’s with you every step of the way.
Stay tuned for our next holiday blog posts as we dive further into this years trending products.