The holiday season is a time of celebration and gift-giving, and for businesses, it’s a great opportunity to increase sales. Today, more and more customers are shopping and searching online, making your website and digital marketing essential for bigger holiday sales. With this in mind, let’s explore effective ways to get more holiday sales by leveraging your website and digital marketing efforts. From enhancing your digital store to optimizing ads, these strategies will help you make the most of the holiday season.
Your Business and The Holidays
The holiday season is different for different businesses, however, improving your website and digital marketing efforts can help to improve sales during your busy season. For many consumer products businesses, Christmas, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are important holidays to prepare for. For brick-and-mortar businesses like restaurants, event venues, hotels, entertainment venues and more, holiday events, gatherings, and vacation time surrounding the holiday may be most important. Manufacturers might focus on the lead-up time to the buying season, preparing products to hit the shelves.
Busy holiday seasons may apply to both B2B and B2C businesses, though at different times for different reasons. These strategies to improve your website and digital marketing can help get more holiday sales, regardless of what your busy season looks like.
Ways to Get More Holiday Sales
Improve your Digital Store
More than half of customers now shop online during the holidays. This means your website is essential for the holiday rush. This is particularly important for consumer product retailers who are busiest on holidays like Cyber Monday, though it can also be helpful for brick-and-mortar stores and shoppers during Small Business Saturday and similar shopping holidays.
1. Enhance User Experience (UX)
To make shopping as easy as possible, review your user experience and streamline it. Make navigation intuitive and user-friendly. Streamline the checkout process to reduce cart abandonment rates. Ensure your site is mobile-responsive for shoppers on smartphones and tablets.
2. Holiday-Themed Design
Holiday themes are certainly optional, but help to put customers in a festive mood. Consider updating your website with festive visuals and a holiday-themed design. This not only creates a seasonal atmosphere but also signals to visitors that you’re ready for the holidays.
3. Speed and Performance
Website speed is essential for an enjoyable shopping experience. Most customers expect a website to load in about 1 or 2 seconds. Optimize your website’s loading speed by compressing images, reduce unnecessary plugins, and investing in reliable hosting.
Create New Downloadable Content
Offering valuable downloadable content can attract more visitors and capture leads. Consider the following downloadable content that might attract new leads and convert new customers.
4. Holiday Gift Guides
Create holiday gift guides tailored to your products or services. These guides can help shoppers find the perfect gift and encourage purchases. Consider your ideal customer, and who might be buying for them. For example, if your products are aimed at men, your buying guide might include “The Top 10 Gifts For Dads.”
5. Printable Resources
Offer printables such as holiday-themed coloring pages, checklists, or recipe cards related to your niche. Share these on social media to drive traffic to your site, get your customers’ attention, and stay at the top of their mind as they work through their holiday buying list.
6. Digital Downloads
Consider how holiday-themed digital downloads might fit into your marketing mix, like holiday-themed ebooks, checklists, or templates. This can be especially helpful for B2B brands. Downloadable content or tools that solve common problems in your industry will be impactful during hectic holiday preparations.
Claim and Optimize your Google Listing
Google is a powerful tool for attracting local shoppers during the holidays. About a half of consumers look for information about local businesses online, and about a third do this daily. Optimizing your information on Google will make your business easier to find and more inviting to consumers.
Government buildings like this one wouldn’t be claimed by a business, but you can use this button on your own listing to claim it.
7. Claim Your Google My Business Listing
If you haven’t already, claim and verify your Google My Business listing. Ensure that all the information, including your holiday hours, is accurate.
8. Keywords and Descriptions
Optimize your listing with relevant keywords and a compelling description. Include high-quality images of your products or services.
Work on Reviews and Testimonials
Positive reviews and testimonials can boost your credibility and influence purchase decisions. Adding more reviews or testimonials to your own website, or other sites your customers might be looking at, can especially help boost sales during the holidays.
9. Request Reviews
Reach out to your satisfied customers and ask them to leave reviews on your website or third-party review platforms.
10. Highlight Testimonials
Display glowing testimonials from happy customers prominently on your website and in your marketing materials. This is particularly helpful for your landing pages, product pages or contact pages, where prospective customers can see how much current customers have benefited from your business.
11. User-Generated Content (UGC)
Encourage customers to share their experiences with your products or services on social media using a specific hashtag. Repost this UGC on your platforms to extend the reach of your content and reach new customers.
Starbuck’s Red Cup Contest is a particularly famous holiday-themed contest generating lots of UGC.
Increase Sales Efforts on Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for connecting with your audience and promoting your holiday offerings. Increasing your efforts on social media during this time can help you reach new customers and get more sales.
12. Engaging Visuals
Create eye-catching and high-quality images of your products or services. Showcase them in a festive and inviting setting to evoke a cozy holiday feel.
13. Holiday Contests and Giveaways
Organize holiday-themed contests or giveaways on your social media platforms to engage your audience and generate buzz around your brand.
14. Storytelling
Share holiday-related stories or anecdotes that connect with your audience emotionally. Emphasize how your products or services might make your customers’ lives more comfortable, enjoyable, relaxing, productive, or something else.
Optimize Ads
Paid advertising is a strategic way to reach your target audience during the holiday season. Since more people are looking online for products, services, and experiences, optimizing your ads to reach the right audience will help you reduce ad spend, while improving conversion rates and clicks.
15. Detailed Targeting
Refine your ad targeting to reach your ideal customer. Consider factors like location, demographics, interests, and shopping behavior.
16. Seasonal Keywords
Use seasonal keywords in your ad copy to align with holiday shoppers’ search intent. Monitor and adjust your keywords regularly to stay relevant.
17. A/B Testing
Experiment with different ad creatives, headlines, and calls to action. A/B testing can help you identify what resonates best with your audience.
The holiday season offers a prime opportunity to boost your online sales and capture the festive spirit of giving. By improving your website and digital marketing strategy, you can capture the attention of more online shoppers and get more holiday sales. Remember to plan and execute these strategies well in advance to maximize your holiday sales potential and make the most of this joyful season.