Planning a Holiday Marketing Strategy to Drive Ecommerce Sales

holiday shopping

The festivities have begun.The holiday season is the most wholesome time of the year. For business, both online and offline, it’s one of the busiest times of the year. From Black Friday, to Christmas, Halloween, and others, each holiday season comes with its share of challenges. With the Covid-19 pandemic, there’s a universal challenge for all businesses to adjust their holiday marketing strategy according to government regulations.

In this post, we’ll discuss ten strategies for the holiday season and how they can drive more sales to your business.

1. Segmented targeting

The holiday season is a busy time, and you can’t possibly focus on selling your products like it was just another day.

To make the right sales, you need to target the right audience. Segmentation helps you analyze which products the customers are more interested in. With that analysis, you can tailor your holiday marketing strategy to that specific segmentation. 

With the right discounts and offers, you can make more sales for such products while maintaining customer relevancy.

2. Product bundling

In the previous section, we talked about selling a specific set of products that are of interest to the customer. 

The question then becomes, what about the rest of the products? Should they remain unsold?

To solve this problem, you can try a concept called product bundling

Product bundling

All you have to do is take the main product and bundle a couple of less popular items together with it.

But here’s the thing. 

With product bundling, you need to provide options for the customer to purchase a single item or the entire bundle. You don’t want to lose your existing profits in pursuit of selling more.

3. Mobile messaging 

No, you’re not returning to antiquity. 

While it’s true that SMS marketing has become somewhat a thing of the past, it doesn’t mean that it’s ineffective. 

Mobile messaging holiday marketing strategy

Consumers are using their smartphones for just about everything. 

That includes eCommerce as well. Therefore, you can try to target them with your product offerings, discounts, and promotions through text messaging. 

This marketing activity is to build interest in your products. If it’s successful, customers will avail the discounts and coupons being provided. 

4. Social media marketing

Never disregard social media. Ever.

Whether you’re using Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, or Twitter, having a social presence during the holiday season helps you reach customers both organically and through paid mediums like Facebook/Instagram ads.

Social media marketing

The audiences on these platforms are huge and can help you gain the necessary traction for your holiday marketing strategy.

Through groups, pages, and hashtags, you can reach a wide variety of audiences.

Of course, building credibility on social media takes time. If you’re short on that, you can go ahead and run ads for specific target demographics.

Whatever course of action you select for your store, social media helps you engage with customers on a more personal level. 

With the right branding efforts, you can build brand awareness and gain more sales during the holiday season. 

Therefore, always remember to post your holiday marketing collateral on social media.

5. Search engine advertisements

We’ve all heard of search engine optimization, but it’s a slow process. 

Sure, it gives out more solid returns when done right, but it’s slow nonetheless.

For businesses looking to promote their offerings quickly, digital advertisements on search engines like Google and Bing are the most effective.

Search engine advertisements holiday marketing strategy

Besides social media advertising, you can use this phenomenon to your advantage. 

With digital advertisements, you can go ahead and display your services to a wide range of audiences searching for a particular product or service. The result is more traffic to your eCommerce store that you can convert.

Now digital advertising isn’t just limited to bringing people to your eCommerce store. It can also take the form of promoting of your physical stores and their associated holiday discounts.

6. Plan for the holiday business

Oftentimes businesses fail to take some time in preparing for the holiday season. Ideally, the preparation for the holiday season begins two or three months before the actual season arrives. Many businesses, however, consider it at a later stage when the time is near. While this may or may not work for them, you need to plan for the holiday season to make up a good strategy to drive more sales.

7. Expressing gratitude

While we could discuss all the possible strategies, tips, and tricks you can use to convert your customers during the holiday season, you should never compromise the human connection.

We’re living in a very uncertain timeline. 

With the socio-political upheavals happening all around the world, it makes sense to develop a sense to trust with the customers. 

Again, the end goal is profit, but giving your customers a cheer during the holiday season always works well for brand engagement.

From handwritten thank you notes, loyalty points, rewards, giveaways, and providing special offers to close customers, you can express gratitude for the purchase. 

The more you relate to the customer on a personal level, the more they will appreciate your efforts. As a direct result, they’ll be more inclined to invest in your business and become a point of reference for your brand.

8. Emotional marketing

With the Covid-19 pandemic showing signs of slowing down, there is no shortage of stories. People, businesses, and organizations alike have had a rough time during the pandemic and now that recovery’s finally come, it’s time to share.

Your holiday advertisements and marketing collateral doesn’t have to be just about products. You can share stories and case studies that relate to the customer at a personal level. 

This form of emotional marketing is best used by small businesses. 

Of course, because of their size, they can relate more to the audience than conglomerates and big businesses.

Either way, emotional marketing has a lasting impact on the consumer. It doesn’t just keep you as a brand, but rather gives you a human feel.

9. Email marketing

There is no denying the time-tested technique of email marketing. It’s always been great medium for informing a large audience of people. 

It’s also a great A/B testing tool, allowing you to tailor your offerings during the holiday season to reach prospective audiences.

Email marketing holiday marketing strategy

If you have a big enough emailing list, then you can go ahead and target them with your holiday marketing collateral. 

This, when combined with the other strategies we’ve mentioned in this post, can prove to be a game-changer for your business during the holidays.

Again, if the marketing messages are not right, you can always go ahead and change the message to connect with the audience.

Emails have always been effective in getting the right audiences to your offerings. Because of this, you need to keep it in your marketing arsenal at all costs.

10. Optimizing your web store

From the theory, we come to the practical stuff. Website optimization is extremely essential to any eCommerce store looking to drive sales during the holiday season.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s essential every quarter, but during the holiday season, it gains more emphasis. Here’s why:

The season of festivities is likely to bring a lot more users in than a general eCommerce store is used to. With so much traffic coming to your store, there’s bound to be a load on your hosting server. 

Optimizing your web store holiday marketing strategy

Now, without optimizing your store from the get-go, you’re going to have a bad time getting those customers to make a purchase. That’s a major gap in your holiday marketing strategy.

Why? Because half the time, your users will be waiting for the website to load due to the increase in traffic.

The result is that potential customers will bounce off and leave your website. The modern customer doesn’t want to wait for the website to load. This isn’t 2009. They’ll go towards the competitor.

So you see, the holiday traffic needs to be adjusted and accommodated. Failure to do so will lead to increased load times and fewer sales. 

With the right eCommerce platform optimized to handle traffic of all sorts, you can apply your holiday marketing strategy more effectively.

What’s the key takeaway from all this?

There are plenty of factors that go into making the holiday season profitable. Besides the ones we’ve already mentioned, there are plenty others as well. Some are even targeted solely for small businesses and their holiday rush.

Every business is unique in its own right and you should take these strategies and adjust them according to your business process.

So, have a blast selling more during the holidays!

If you’re a WooCommerce B2B store owner and want to enhance your productivity, then B2BWoo is the best option for you. It’s a one-stop-shop for your every WooCommerce B2B eCommerce solutions.

Technical writer by day, focusing on all things WordPress, programming, and B2B eCommerce. On the down-low, I like to read historical non-fiction or watch movies, depending on my mood.