Prepare Your Holiday Season Internet Marketing Strategy
Posted in: Internet Marketing Buzz Words, Internet Marketing Strategies by Fran on November 18, 2010
It is imperative to get your internet marketing strategy in place for the upcoming holiday season as it is the busiest shopping time of the year.
Here are 10 tactics that we consider to be best practices that will impact your ability to leverage this purchasing season. These ideas will help you bring targeted traffic to your website and to convert that traffic into sales:
1. Black Friday, (November 26, 2010) is one of the biggest days for sales online. Create a unique Black Friday promotion that can be promoted via Social Media Marketing and PPC. Submit a press release through prweb.com or prnewswire.com for some added traffic and link juice. If your press release is well written, it may get picked up by some good media sources. Last year many big sites actually crashed due to the heavy volume of traffic. This should be your biggest problem too, but if there is even a chance that this may happen, you should pro-actively check your network’s capabilities and your service agreement with your hosting company.
2. Ensure your website is in holiday mode. Modify your logo to look seasonal. Add holiday related optimized images and copy to your home page. Don’t forget to optimize your tags!
3. Offer holiday gift wrapping or gift boxing. It’s okay to charge for it.
4. Create holiday momentum on your site and via social media by using phrases like: “Only 20 more shopping days left until…” and “have you done your holiday gift shopping yet?”
5. Add a personal touch to your consumer thank you. Once a customer has made a purchase, wish them a Season’s Greeting. Throw in a small gift, or coupon code toward their next purchase. When shipping out items, add a hand written Season’s Greetings card thanking consumers for their loyalty.
6. There are plenty of last minute shoppers. Be honest and let consumers know when the last Ship Out date is. Whenever possible, offer an expedited shipping option. At this time of year, you can offer the expedited shipping as the default option. Shoppers are only too happy to pay for the convenience.
7. Create a seasonal contest. Ask users to write a review of their 3 favorite products on your site. Those who participate will automatically be entered into the contest. This way, you get lots of free reviews, users will have an opportunity to be enticed by your product pages and you can collect email addresses for future email blasts.
8. Don’t forget to bring some seasonal cheer to your PPC campaign by using holiday related keywords like “Christmas gifts” and “Cheap Christmas Gifts”.
9. Create a gift card program and promote it on your home page, in your shopping cart and through social media marketing. Make sure gift cards can be received before the holidays.
10. Create a dedicated Holiday Gift Ideas landing page – it’s a great place to introduce new products.
Bonus Tip: It may sound obvious, but check for broken links and download time. Make shopping on your site a pleasure. The added benefit will also continue long after the season is over – until the next big event.
