Children and golddiggers across the nation are writing out their lists to Santa Claus. This is great news to retailers, especially those that have felt the wrath of Amazon. The fourth quarter is when many digital retailers finally hit the black, and a mistake here can mean losses for the year. Needless to say, you need to stay ahead of the curve if you want to win in this extremely competitive environment.
More and more shopping during the holiday season will be done in the digital world. Black Friday shoppers in 2017 spent US $5 billion – on that single day alone. Even if you have a brick and mortar store, the following tricks will still work for you. Take these best practices to heart to make this holiday season a real treat for your business.
Remarketing
If you have an online presence that is alongside your brick and mortar store, you should have a remarketing program to connect the two. Start your campaign as far ahead of the holiday season as possible, up to two months ahead. Once you get into late October, your sales should allow you to re-up on that program until the New Year celebration.
If you have your data from last year’s holiday season, you may be able to better target your initial prospects for a remarketing campaign. You should also gather data from the current year to revamp next year’s marketing campaign.
Take it to Your Customers
The more convenient you are, the better your chances of converting the customer that you draw in. The online space is all about taking the sale right to the digital doorstep of your prospect.
If you are a traditional retailer, moving online is the only way to compete with the lean, agile digital retailers that will otherwise take your sales this holiday season. You can actually use the techniques of your competitors to help anticipate the desires of your target audience.
Multivariate Promotions
You can test promotional techniques more quickly online, so do it! Run every ad campaign that you have in your head instead of choosing one. Quantify the results and choose the one to continue based on data rather than on a gut feeling.
You can use time sensitivity, incentives and holiday bundles on separate pages to see what works best. The buyer profiles that you create will help you moving forward in future marketing campaigns as well.
Control Your Costs
It is also much easier to control your costs online. Not only can you track every penny using free analytics, but you can also limit the budget that you spend on an ad campaign down to the penny.
You can also target your core audience more precisely in the digital space. You will have to get around $1.1 billion worth of ad spending to make a substantial impact. Don’t worry. You can do it by learning the techniques of long tail keywords and buyer profiles.
It is no secret that consumers are moving into the online space. Take advantage of this rather than fearing change. The best practices above will ensure that you get your piece of the pie this holiday season – and maybe even a little bit more.
