There’s no denying the power of good deals, they allure shoppers and boost sales numbers for sellers and retailers. As is the case every year, the upcoming holiday season of 2019 is going to be a huge event for shoppers in the United States who will be hunting for good deals and great discounts.
To add some context, in the year 2018 alone, consumers spent a total of $850 billion between Thanksgiving and Christmas! Online sales contributed to more than 50% to this growth, and eCommerce sales increased by 17% as compared to the previous year. Black Friday cashed in $5 billion in the U.S. and Cyber Monday touched a whopping $7.9 billion!
No wonder sellers in the U.S. are already on their toes to cash in on the season of shopping. Numbers aside, if you’re here, you probably are an eSeller looking for actionable tips to build a solid Thanksgiving and Black Friday eCommerce marketing strategy and boost sales. Turns out, you’ve come to the right place because we have put together 5 tips to help you get to your goals –
- Attract shoppers to your online store for Thanksgiving and Black Friday
- Boost eCommerce sales on Cyber Monday
- Store optimization for the Holiday season
Do these sound like your goals for the upcoming holiday season? Then our tips will help you achieve high revenue and strategically meet your sales goals.
Tip 1 – Reach Out to Existing Customers
Cashing in on your existing customer base is the easiest step to boost sales during the holiday season 2019. They already know your brand and the products you sell, so it makes sense to keep your existing customer base at the center of your eCommerce marketing strategy.
How to get your existing customers to spend on Black Friday and Cyber Monday?
The answer is to start pitching them in advance because you don’t want them to head elsewhere for holiday deals. Use channels like social media and email marketing as part of your Black Friday eCommerce strategy to show the deals and discounts you have in store for them.
- Prepare an email list and segment it according to the holiday events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Use personalized subject lines and give exclusive deals to existing customers and extra discounts to loyal customers.
- Schedule and send emails based on different time zones for maximum open rates and conversions.
Tip 2 – Set Up a Referral Program
Another smart way to get the maximum value out of your existing customer base is by setting up an attractive program that rewards them for referring.
For example – to boost eCommerce sales on Cyber Monday, you can float extra discounts and exclusive deals for shoppers who refer a friend, co-worker or a family member on Black Friday.
Since there’s only a two-day gap between the two dates, your existing customers would love to refer someone in exchange for more savings. You as a seller will get to sell more and further build your customer base during the holiday season.
Think of it as killing (or selling) two birds with one stone and a lot of smart eSellers follow this trick. You can plan out your referral rewards campaign in this way –
- Pre-season: before the holiday itself, a week or ten days before to build hype.
- Launch day: on the specific event or holiday, to boost sales quickly.
- Post-season: a week after the season to clear stocks and inventory.
Tip 3 – Revamp Your Landing Page
Looking for Black Friday promotion or Cyber Monday marketing ideas? Start with optimizing your landing page first. Your landing page is the first thing shoppers will see, so you better make it look attractive, engaging and optimized.
To make it look attractive – give your online store a holiday makeover. Use holiday-specific banners for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. Let shoppers know you are ready for the season with great offers.
To make it engaging – include holiday themed copy and content on your website. For example – for Black Friday, use phrases like ‘Black Friday Sale’, ‘Best Black Friday Deals’ and similarly for Cyber Monday and Christmas. This way you can bring a festive spirit to your online store and attract shoppers.
To make it optimized, use the following eCommerce store optimization tips for the holiday season –
- Optimize your online store for desktop, mobile devices and tablets. Shoppers don’t want an unresponsive, slow loading website during the holiday rush. Give them a smooth and easy-to-navigate shopping experience to avoid conversion drop-outs and reduce cart abandonment. Also, be prepared for higher traffic volume during the holidays.
- Run discounts on popular products for each holiday. For example – products like televisions, smartphones, computers, etc. sell like hotcakes during the season. Make sure your eStore has deals, discounts and offers running on these products. People usually buy the same stuff every year, so it’s good to stock up on them in advance.
- Optimize your online store for holiday-specific search terms or ‘keywords’. Almost half of the online searches start with a keyword or phrase and if your store can rank higher on search engines, you get more visibility and sales. Include popular keywords like ‘Black Friday deals’, ‘Cyber Monday offers’, ‘Christmas Gifts’ etc. in your product listing pages, titles, and descriptions.
Tip 4 – Play With Buyer Psychology
Selling is a lot easier when you know what makes people ‘buy’ things in the first place. Yes, the rush of holiday sales is a huge motivator to buy stuff, but buyer psychology goes a lot deeper than just deals and discounts.
Buyers are people, just like all of us and they too are driven by impulses and irrational decisions. As an eSeller, applying buyer psychology to your eCommerce holiday marketing strategy is an art. Below we’ll discuss a few ways on how you can use it to your advantage –
- Create a ‘fear of missing out (FOMO)’ – buyers are often looking to get their hands on great deals and fear missing out due to the seasonal rush. You can use popular hooks like ‘countdown deals’, ‘last-minute offers’ and ’till stocks last’ to help buyers quickly make the purchase decision. Once they know they’ll miss out on a great deal, they’re twice as likely to buy it.
- Put social proofing in place – social proofing works as a way to build trust among shoppers and help them make a purchase decision. People often like to know how a product works and the best way to do that is to know what other shoppers are saying. To execute this, utilize the power of customer reviews and testimonials. Let shoppers know what others think about your product, service and overall brand.
- Help people save time – the holiday season is usually busy and deciding what to buy can take time. As online sellers, you can use this buyer psychology to your advantage. If you can help people save time with their decision making, they’re more likely to trust you. To implement this, create evergreen content around popular topics like ‘holiday gifting guide for men’, ‘top 10 tech deals for Cyber Monday’, ‘best holiday gifts for moms’ and so on.
- Sweeten the deal – to sell more products, tap into the classic buyer mentality of ‘buy more to save more’. Offering extra discounts on product bundles is a great way to upsell. You can also cross-sell by suggesting products related to the one being considered by a buyer. Giving ‘free shipping’ and ‘same-day delivery’ are two more great ways to sweeten the deal and nudge people to buy from you.
Tip 5 – Use Social Media Marketing
Smart online sellers know that millions of people are talking about holidays like Black Friday, Thanksgiving and Christmas on social media, so they use social media as part of their selling strategy.
But don’t just jump into pushing posts on social media, take some time to think of some marketing themes, ideas and draft a holiday marketing strategy.
Once you have a plan in place. here’s how to use social media as part of your Black Friday marketing strategy or Cyber Monday marketing plan
Find your most popular social media channels first. Know where most of your fans and followers are and then plan your marketing strategy accordingly. To reach out to new audiences, research about their age, demographics, etc. and find out which social media platforms they use most often.
Segregate your marketing plan according to the target audience, and come up with different campaigns for events like Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and so on. Plan your social media posts specifically for each event using the relevant hashtags. This way you can manage content for each holiday event easily.
Find out about the most popular times to post on different social media channels and promote your posts accordingly. Mix the content nicely and try to get creative with videos, gifs etc. Usually, social posts that have an emotional feel to them attract buyers easily. Also, run paid and promoted posts on your best product deals and discounts.
In Conclusion
The festive holiday season is all about the sales – and now that you know the tips and tricks to stand out from the competition, it’s time to get to execution mode.
Right from eCommerce listing optimization to holiday-themed marketing and more, it’s important to ensure perfect execution. The competition online is already stiff and it’s only going to get tougher during the holiday season – so it makes sense to start preparing now if you want to boost holiday sales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the entire 2019 season.
Summarizing our simple and useful tips for online sellers who want to make the most of the upcoming holiday season –
- Landing page banners are the first point of contact – make sure to leave a good impression with holiday specific banners and content.
- Don’t give shoppers a reason to complain about your online store experience – make your site fast, responsive and well-optimized for the holiday rush.
- Leverage the existing network of your customers and loyalists. Reward them for referring friends and family to your store.
- Start using social media aggressively as part of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing strategy. Create a buzz among your fans and followers for the season.
- Use the power of psychology to give subtle but effective nudges to visitors and turn them into shoppers. Don’t overdo it though or else you’ll come across as too needy or pushy.
All in all, these are tips, which if executed nicely, will give you the results you’re hoping for. Of course, every eCommerce seller wants to boost sales during Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the entire holiday season, but not every seller gets the execution right.
Speaking of executing these tips perfectly, sometimes it can be tough to find the time and resources required for the job. Online sellers already have tons of things to do, and making time for marketing, planning and store optimization can be a tough task.
At SunTec India, we understand the pain points of eCommerce businesses, which is why we’ve been serving as a trusted partner for global sellers who want to outsource the ‘non-core’ tasks to a reliable and professional pool of talent.
There are millions of online sellers preparing for the same race, and if you want to win it, it’s time to outsource the less important but critical business tasks to our experts.
Whether you need perfectly optimized eCommerce product listings or want stellar, professional-level product photography for the holidays, our dedicated team of professionals can take your online store to the next level with our wide suite of services including –
- Catalog Processing
- Image Editing
- Product Description Writing
- Product Upload
- Amazon/eBay Listing
- SEO/Digital Marketing
No more guesswork, with SunTec India, your online store is in safe hands. Get in touch with us for a quick chat and let us help you have a successful holiday season.
Write to us at info@suntecindia.com today!