Chris Reeves from Frooition, the world’s leading eBay design company has just released part 2 of ‘Your Business Christmas List’, a fantastic list of suggestions, tips and tricks to help maximise your Christmas sales!

Welcome to part 2 of ‘Your Business Christmas List’, a fantastic list of suggestions, tips and tricks to help maximise your Christmas sales!

So you’ve prepared your promotional calendar, sent your first campaign and planned for a strong busy period with your suppliers, couriers and work colleagues. So what’s next? … November.

November

November is the busiest month of the year for Ecommerce Christmas sales and that means you need to be heard and heard in the right way, consider the following:

Communicate

With 95% of all problems being down to poor communication, get ahead and ensure you communicate with your customers every step of the way. You can easily resolve many client problems and concerns by simply keeping them in the know, and if they do complain they will be in a much better mindset having been updated throughout the order process.
Consider:

Auto responders.
Courier SMS alerts.
Making your returns policy prominent and more transparent.
Client courtesy calls.
(Not only will this enhance your customers perception of your business but it will go some way to improving DSR’s, increasing customer loyalty and generating future referrals, all in all this means more sales!).

Stand Out

This is the busiest period of the year and your prospective clients will be surrounded by Christmas promotions and special offers; look at your website and your marketing and ask yourself, ‘what makes me stand out from the crowd?’ and ‘why should a client buy with me as opposed to a competitor?’. Does your existing website and marketing answer these questions? Ensure your marketing conveys your business proposition.
Consider:

What are the top three benefits for buying with you? Is this visible on your website and in your sales communications?
Do you offer gift receipts? This is great way to increase buyer confidence and push season relevance.
Can you offer guarantees? Guarantee marketing is a very powerful form of marketing and helps to reduce the customer’s perceived risk of buying with you.
“A simple guarantee such as a 30 day money back guarantee is a great way to inspire additional buyer confidence“. – Chris Reeves

Stand Out More

I can’t stress how important this is. If a client is looking to buy the same product that is supplied by you and a competitor what compelling reason do they have to buy from you over them?
Consider:

Bundling deals.
Gift cards.
Loyalty programmes.
Free delivery.
(On this product, their next purchase or if they spend a certain amount with you).
Offering different delivery options to meet your clients needs.
Reviewing your pricing strategy.
(Be careful here, this doesn’t mean to simply be cheaper than your competitor as this can quite easily turn into a pricing war and then you’ll both risk profits.)

Prepare for the worst
Unpredictable winter weather can easily delay consignment deliveries, take the time to plan for these situations today for a smooth operation later.

“If you don’t put the plans in place for a disaster you’ll suffer a double disaster”. – Chris Reeves

Prepare website banner alerts i.e. courier delays due to poor weather conditions.
Prepare pre-client email responses.
Consider updating product shipping times in your cart system to accurately reflect delivery times.
Consider adding a special section to your website dedicated to tracking orders. This can be a nice help page to direct clients to and could provide the latest news on delivery delays from your couriers, links to courier tracking pages or even status updates from yourself.

Black Friday (November 23rd) – is typically one of the busiest days of the year for high street shopping.
It’s the first Friday following thanksgiving in the US and is traditionally known as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

Fact: “64% of buyers research their products online before buying them”

Your online Christmas marketing and special promotions need to be in full swing for Black Friday in order for you to benefit from the additional online traffic.
Consider:

Offering online only deals.
Free up sells and complimentary gifts with every purchase (bundling).
Customer loyalty incentives.
Free delivery.
(On this product, their next purchase or if they spend a certain amount with you).
Gift Cards
Buy One Get One Free deals (BOGOF’s)

Cyber Monday (November 26th) – is the first Monday following Black Friday, and is typically known as the busiest online ecommerce day of the year.
Again, it’s at this point your online Christmas marketing should be in full swing working 24/7 to drive relevant sales traffic to your website.
Consider:

Email campaigns.
Display banners.
Customer referral incentives.
Socially optimise your website to allow sharing through Facebook and Twitter – Friends share similar interests which means your recent client is likely to be associated with someone who could also benefit from your products.
Social promotions and competitions to increase product awareness and brand exposure.
“Social marketing and product awareness has the benefit of potentially going viral!” – Chris Reeves

November Example Marketing Activities Guide

6th November Website Changes:
Your website should now convey a feeling of Christmas in its full entirety; consider changing all of your top level product categories images to Christmas lifestyle images relevant to those products.

“Relevance is key for maximum engagement” – Chris Reeves, Senior Marketing Executive, Frooition

Remember to keep your site fresh and change your main website hero on your homepage to a different Christmas lifestyle image.

6th November Website Changes:
Ensure you have active Christmas promotions with supporting website banners and website call to actions.

6th November Email Campaign: Special Christmas Promotions

Consider leading your campaign with a product or category specific promotion. Leading with a very strong promotion can cause a rippling effect in your target market. This is a great way to drive increased awareness and traffic to your website.

20th November Email Campaign: Focus on exclusive themed promotions to detract from high street sales and other online competitors i.e. Christmas Weekend Madness – Huge Online Savings– This Weekend Only.

23rd November: Black Friday

26th November: Cyber Monday

Consider design with confidence…

Remember, the more confident the prospective buyer, the more willing they are to spend money with you; consider sourcing a professional design company to enhance your brand – Frooition are such a company who through powerful design can position your store as a major online brand increasing buyer confidence and increasing sales by up to a massive 30%!

Missed Your Business Christmas List Part 1 (October)? Click Here

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