7 Brilliant Holiday Marketing Ideas to Boost eCommerce Sales This Holiday Season

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Shoppers eagerly wait for the holiday season to buy their favorite products at big discounts. In fact, holiday retail sales crossed the $1 trillion mark in 2018. By implementing an effective holiday season marketing strategy on time, you can easily attract and convert these shoppers into customers.

Here are seven effective holiday marketing ideas to boost eCommerce sales during this holiday season.

1. Personalize Your Website

Personalization is the single biggest factor to attract potential customers. Create compelling and eye-catching landing pages this holiday season and fill them with offers that your visitors can’t resist.

Once you have created compelling landing pages, it’s time to focus on content personalization.

Here are some ways to improve content personalization on your site:

• Assess your audience’s needs and prepare offers that match those needs.
• Welcome customers by name and make it easier for them to buy the products they last browsed on your site.
• Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to get a detailed report about your visitors. You can identify the product pages they visited, the products they searched the most, and how long they stayed on a particular category page.
  This will help you provide offers that your visitors are most interested in. For example, you can prepare a list of the most searched products on your site and create special-offer banners to attract your audience. This will not only boost your sales but also increase customer satisfaction.
• Use clear call-to-action buttons and design them keeping in mind your mobile audience. Remember, many people visit your site via mobile devices so optimizing your CTA buttons for both desktop and mobile is of the utmost importance.
• Reach your customers at every stage of the buying journey. Optimize your website for every micro-moment starting from product research to product buying.
• Add a Seasons greetings message with the name of the customer to maximize the impact of your overall message.
• Instead of displaying a “sold out” message below the products that are sold out, let your customers know when it will be back in stock. Add a similar products tab on the same page.

Amazon does this brilliantly. It personalizes the website for every user based on their past browsing behavior. For example, it displays items related to your browsing history. It also offers extra recommendations depending on your last orders.

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2. Improve Your Website Navigation

When you help your customers find the products they’re looking for, you increase their chances of converting, especially during the holiday season. To make things easier, you can consider adding a new holiday category tab.

Use clickable banners and imagery on the homepage to guide customers towards campaigns of Black Friday sales, Christmas combos, New Year specials, and more.

This will not only help them find what they’re looking for in seconds, but it will also boost sales.

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3. Partner With Influencers to Maximize Engagement

According to influence.co, the average engagement rate of influencer marketing on Instagram is 5.3% while the average sponsored post rate is $180.

If you look closely at the cost per average sponsored rate, you will notice that the charges of influencer marketing are less than the cost of social advertising. Influencers are a great way to reach your target customers because they already have a large group of people who trust them.

When influencers endorse your products and share your offers with their followers, it has a direct positive impact on your overall sales.

Moreover, it is important to choose the right influencer for your brand. Additionally, you also need to decide how you can inspire them to promote your brand. For example, you can pay them a fee for an endorsement or give them free products in exchange for a mention.

H&M partnered with fashion blogger, Julie Sariñana, to promote their fall 2017 catalog. The post received more than 66K likes on Instagram.

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4. Bundle Offers to Attract More Customers

Bundling offers is one of the best ways to attract potential customers and boost sales. Create a combination of three or more products and offer the whole package at a discount.

People always want to get the best value for their money. Therefore, bundled offers work like a charm during the holiday season. Additionally, you can look for opportunities to give freebies with the combos and still make a profit.

If you sell complementary products for your core product, you can offer a product bundle of core and complementary products. For example, if you sell wireless headphones, offer a Bluetoothbluetooth speaker, and a power bank in the bundling widget.

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5. Create a Sense of Urgency

The holiday season is known for deep discounts and special offers. Many companies even reduce their profit margin in order to increase sales and boost brand awareness.

Limited time offers help retailers boost their sales while still maintaining their brand image. Use enticing phrases like “Deal of the Day” or “Deal of the Hour” to remind customers about these special offers. You can also use a timer that shows them how much time they have if they want to grab the deal.

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6. Leverage the Power of Email Marketing

The best way to spread awareness about upcoming holiday promotions on your online store is through email marketing. It’s better to start email campaigns 10-15 days prior to the holiday season with an alluring subject line. Here are some subject lines for your inspiration.

You wouldn’t want to irritate your customers by sending them emails every few hours just to remind them about your sale. When you start a week or two prior to the holiday season sale, you give enough time for people to prepare for the sale.

People can browse the products of their choice and keep their shopping carts ready. They are ready to buy as soon as the sale goes live.

Besides, by looking at your customers’ carts, you can have an idea of how much stock you will need when the sale goes live. You can increase your stock if necessary depending on the exact needs of your buyers.

American Eagle Outfitters sent this email to subscribers to increase their sales during the holiday season. Notice the clever choice of words in the email.

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7. Use Web Push Notifications to Remind Customers About Sales

Web push notifications can be sent only to the users who have opted to receive these notifications. Push notifications get 7x the total number of email clicks and have a 50% higher opening rate.

The best part about push notifications is that you don’t need any personal details about your visitors. You can simply send personalized notifications based on their browsing history.

Additionally, if you have a mobile app for your store, you can leverage the power of app push notifications to further increase your engagement rate.

Final Thoughts

Every holiday season provides a golden opportunity to increase sales. Start optimizing your website and improve your site navigation. This will help your visitors to find holiday-specific products and gifts easily.

You can also leverage the power of influencer marketing, email marketing, bundle offers, and push notifications to attract potential customers.