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Blog / Marketing tips / How to Jumpstart Your Holiday Preparations
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Blog / Marketing tips / How to Jumpstart Your Holiday Preparations
This will be a holiday season like no other. With more people shifting to online shopping, it’s predicted that global e-commerce market will reach $4,117.00bn in 2024, growing at an annual rate of 9.49%. As an ecommerce store owner, this means new potential customers and the opportunity to grow your online business this holiday season.
It also means a lot of competition and that can be stressful. Since there’s also been quite a lot of pandemic stress during these past years. The secret for making it happen—planning ahead.
Early planning will not only reduce the pressure of getting everything done in time, it will help you reach the 42% of holiday shoppers who plan on buying gifts earlier than last year.
In this article, we’ll talk about getting ahead of your competition, staying in control, and getting your ecommerce store ready for the holiday season. Look for the free downloadable holiday checklist at the bottom of the article to help you keep track.
When: September
First, mark down the important dates in your calendar so you can plan your campaigns.
You can download our ecommerce holiday calendar here.
While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the stars of the season, there are other shopping occasions you shouldn’t miss. I suggest thinking about the events that are important to your customers and focusing your efforts on those. Here are a few you can research:
When finalizing your marketing plan for the holidays, think about the information you need to include in your campaigns, like order deadlines, shipping information, return policies, and so on. Contact your fulfillment partners to get the information you need in advance.
When: September
Next on your to-do list—deciding what deals you’ll offer this holiday season. Pick one or mix and match to find what works for your audience:
If you’re thinking about percentage or dollar value deals, stick to The Rule of 100—use a percentage discount for anything below $100, and a dollar value discount for anything above, as that makes the customer perceive the deal’s value as higher. You can also try setting a minimum order amount for receiving a discount, free shipping, or a promo code to increase order value.
Once you’ve made up your mind about the deals, think about the products to put on the pedestal. Are you going to promote your bestsellers, or will you try to get customers interested in your yet undiscovered treasures?
If you’re looking to add holiday-themed products to your store, consider these trending products:
Decide which marketing channels you’re going to use for your campaigns. Keep in mind that different channels are used for different purposes. Use social media for visual content, your store’s website for storing all the important information, and emails for promotions, reminders, and newsletters.
When: September
It’s easy to get distracted when making an online purchase, so make your customers stay focused before, during, and after shopping. The good news is that there are loads of functionalities to help you out. Research and try:
Whichever tool you decide to experiment with, set it up ahead of time. You want to have some wiggle room to test it so everything works when shoppers rush to your store in a couple of months.
When: September
Your email campaigns, social media posts, blogs, and videos will direct your audience to one place—your website. To make it smooth sailing for your customers from there, run store maintenance now.
Here’s what you should pay extra attention to:
If you notice anything that needs improvement, make the necessary changes right away to avoid having your customers inform you about the malfunctions of the store, or even losing potential sales.
You also want to make sure your customers can find all the information they need about your store, products, and policies. Check if everything’s up-to-date in your:
Pro tip: Find time to go over the tools and plugins you’re currently using on your website. If you stumble upon something that you haven’t used in a while—uninstall it. Any implemented software, even when it’s not in use, can slow down your website or cause downtime.
When: October
Email is still one of the most effective ways to reach your customers: 72% of adults in the US prefer receiving communication from brands through email. There are also many benefits for you—it’s cost effective, easy to get started, and easy to track and measure the results.
So it’s not a question of whether you should send out emails, but how to craft the best ones.
I advise spending some time crafting copy before the holiday season starts. Write down the important things you want to mention, and keep your notepad somewhere near—the best subject line idea might come at the most unexpected moment.
Think about your audience and what kind of relationship you want to establish with them. That’ll help you with the tone of the messages you send.
Taking inspiration from the list of campaign ideas I shared previously, here are a few ideas for your holiday emails:
Be informative, but keep it short. On average, the attention span for reading emails is only about 11 seconds.
When: October
The most popular social media channels for ecommerce businesses are:
To get a better picture of what content will get more attention on your social media accounts, examine your audience’s behavior on each channel paying extra attention to user activity peaks and top performing content. Use this information to decide which social media channels will work best for your brand. If you spread yourself thin on all channels, you’re not going to be effective on any of them. So find the one that works, and focus your efforts there.
When creating copy for your holiday social media posts, remember that each channel is used for slightly different purposes. While TikTok is gaining popularity fast, it’ll only work for targeting a younger audience as roughly 41% of TikTok users are between 16 and 24.
When: October
People remember up to 80% of what they see, and only about 20% of what they read. So if you want to stand out from the crowd this holiday season, invest some time into creating eye-catching imagery for your marketing campaigns.
Depending on your plans for the holiday season, you might need to create visuals for:
The good news is that you don’t have to take all the photos yourself. Use our product templates to download lifestyle mockups of your products.
For general visual materials, browse websites like Pexels, Unsplash, and Pixabay to get royalty-free images that fit your store’s aesthetic. If the pictures need some adjusting, make sure to check our list of free Adobe Photoshop alternatives.
When: October
It’s important your customers order in time to receive their orders for the festivities. Clearly communicate the dates by which orders have to be made for them to arrive on time a.k.a. order deadlines. To make sure your customers get the information:
We usually share Printful holiday order deadlines in October. Keep an eye out for any updates, inform your customers, and always keep them up to date.
When: November
You’ve done the work, now it’s time to put the plan in action. No matter how great your content is, it can get lost in the sea of offers during the busiest shopping season. That’s why it’s important to schedule the content to go live when you’ll reach the largest audience. You can double your sales potential by starting your campaigns at least four weeks early.
When: November/December
Once your content starts reaching its audience, you’ll have another important task—keeping up with customer comments, replies, and questions. Schedule time in your day to spend just on answering your customers; it’ll be more productive and less stressful that way.
Make sure your customers know how to reach you, and that they can rely on you answering. Communicate using the channels your customers use the most.
When: November/December
Following the suggestions in this article will not only help you plan ahead for the holiday season, but also bring quite a few new customers to your business. But the real art is keeping them. It’s at least 5 times more expensive to find new customers than retain existing ones, so make sure you’re doing what you can to make them come back.
We’ve all heard how important it is to make a good first impression. Make yours memorable by:
There’s a lot to do in the upcoming months so start now and it’ll pay off. Download the free holiday checklist below, and use it to make your holiday season organized and as stress-free as possible.
If you need some more marketing inspiration, check out these articles:
Is this your first holiday season, or are you an experienced player in the game? Let us know in the comments below!
Elizabete Smite
Blog author
Elizabete is a Product Marketing Team Lead who works closely with the Product Category Management team and has a more in-depth knowledge about Printful’s products. She has a bachelor’s degree, work experience in several industries, and a passion for the ever-changing art of marketing.
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