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We are just weeks away from Christmas 2014, and with it being one of the busiest times of the year for online spending you need to ensure you are engaging with your customers. This blog outlines a number of key promotions tips for you to run during this time of year.
Firstly, ensure promotions are a large part of your Christmas marketing plan
Promotions are what keeps Christmas shopping going! Make sure you run cross-channel promotions. This means leveraging online promotions with mobile and in-store activity. Why is this important? Many Christmas shoppers use browse via multiple channels before ultimately making their purchase. You need to ensure that you are targeting your customers at every touch point. If a customer is too late to order online, offer a promotion for delivery to a store or store collection. Likewise, if you are running an in-store promotion and stock runs out, you need to match the offer online to reduce the likelihood of losing customers.
Varying promotions between different channels will encourage shoppers to use a number of these. Just launched a mobile site? Use your desktop and in-store traffic to as a platform to entice your customers to start using your mobile store so they get familiar with it and have a reason to return after Christmas.
Promotion combine-ability and budgeting
Popular promotion options are free shipping, 20% off discounts, half price items and discounts on specific categories. On any given day an ecommerce site can easily have a handful of these promotions underway. However, most ecommerce systems will only allow one effective promotion to be applied. Our WebPOS platform is capable of running multiple promotions at one time and won’t confuse your customers or deter them from making a purchase. One if the most important elements when running multiple promotions is ensuring clarity between each and limiting the number of promotions an individual sees.
A great example of this is free shipping. Many successful ecommerce companies run free shipping promotions over the Christmas period, however your challenge may be to increase basket spend and encourage customers to purchase multiple products per order. WebPOS allows you to simply create a free shipping limit and associated promotion such as ‘Spend £50 and get Free Shipping before December 23rd!’
Customers are all different, you will likely be sending multiple email campaigns, running social activity and amending your paid advertising to attract each and every buyer to your website. Each campaign should be linked to a new promotion – an impulse buyer may want a quick 10% off all items, a bulk buyer may want free, quick delivery over a certain amount and a cautious buyer may want to be enticed with a longer returns period. First understand your buyers, then develop your promotional activity.
Daily shopping period
Most people don’t have a lot of time to do their Christmas shopping. One way to generate extra sales is to promote a daily shopping period at a set time to help these people. Create a window for special offers such as lunch time or in the evenings when people will have time to visit your website. Get the most popular items on your ecommerce platform together with a special Christmas gift and/or promotion.
We recommend undergoing some competitor research before running your time-based promotion. Is a competitor running an in-store day on 22nd? Is another competitor offering 30% on Saturday evening between 6pm & 8pm? Create a competitor promotions activity calendar and select the right dates and times to reach out to your audience.
Be sure to set up your promotions in your ecommerce platform prior to the event. In WebPOS, simply input the dates and times you for when would like your promotion to run. Set up your landing pages and sit back and wait! WebPOS will take care of everything else and fire off all of the data for you to report on.
Collect data
Think ahead. Help prepare for the 2015 Christmas season by collecting as much analytical data as possible this Christmas. You’ll be glad you did when planning next year’s marketing promotional campaigns!
We recommend collecting as much data as possible and collating in to an easy-to-read report. When did people order? Which channel produced the most amount revenue? What is your typical sales funnel? All of these questions will help you to plan your 2015 Christmas promotions and marketing campaign.
You should already have your analytics set up and receiving analytical data. Track your promotions more effectively with the use of a code, this will highlight cross-channel purchasing.
What about CSR?
As consumers get savvier about where their purchases originated and perhaps how they were made, you’ll need to consider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
If you are looking for an edge over your competitors, sometimes highlighting your CSR benefits is more powerful than another sale or special offer. It will help attract loyal and conscientious customers.
Are your products all made in England? Do you have organic products? These points can be excellent KPIs and may just help a customer make the decision between your company and your competitors.
Are your promotions all ready for Christmas? Get in touch with us if you want to discuss how the WebPOS ecommerce system may help you increase sales for Christmas 2015.