The holiday season is one of the sweetest, if not the sweetest, times for eCommerce businesses. And it is almost here. A lot of your competitors are already on the move, heavily preparing.
With all the excitement in the air, many business owners commit mistakes that can keep them from utilizing the maximum potential the holidays bring. The following are some of the most dangerous eCommerce marketing mistakes. We have also compiled what you need to do to avoid them:
The first one is a classic: you have a favourite holiday campaign, so you choose to do it again, especially because it worked before, so it might work again this time. While that may work, say, you should avoid making it a staple for a second time.
You are given enough time to think of unique holiday campaigns each year so that you may continue to impress your target audience. If you only recycle last year’s holiday campaign and then do it again in the next, you are limiting the potential you may attain from the season.
You have a whole year to prepare for the next holiday – make sure you craft unique and creative campaigns that are bound to win the hearts of your audience. Capitalize on what is hot this year.
One of the most typical strategies implemented during the holiday season is giving out discounts. While this is a proven strategy, giving it out way too early does not put you in the best position. Doing this will spoil the holiday season for you.
When you give out discounts way in advance, your customers will feel that there is nothing special about your holiday promotions anymore. With that in mind, you should put serious consideration into coming up with a yearly e-commerce business plan where you can strategize the best time for you to offer discounted rates each year.
Again, discounts may bring in a lot of potential sales, but calling on them way too early may defeat that purpose because the perceived value of your promotion is simmered down. So, learn the importance of making them wait, then surprise them with truly exciting offers at the right time.
Social media is a marketing channel you should not take for granted, as it is one of the most effective. However, your social media strategy should not be just about sharing content and ads but also about improving your engagement with your potential customers.
Social media offers an excellent opportunity to connect with your target market. There are many ways to do that. However, many businesses fail to treat this as vitally important and take it for granted. They focus on promoting and promoting, without thinking that one good promotion is forging a great relationship with your clients.
Since it is social media, highlighting the social aspect, especially around the holiday, makes a lot of sense. To ensure that you maximize your engagement with your customers for the holidays, the following techniques may help:
They will likely become actual customers if you can engage your target well. And doing that during the holidays can help you maximize your potential sales.
Bonus tip: SEO will never go out of style. At least as long as there is Google. Get a creative SEO service provider to put your best foot forward and maximise what Google offers. That way, you can focus on your business without worrying about extra tasks.
A lot of businesses think that email marketing should be extinct. And this is one of the biggest mistakes that they can commit. Email marketing remains relevant today, maintaining effectiveness, which is crucial around the holidays.
Email marketing is a strategy that can help you realize a lot about holiday sales, but that all depends on how you craft your marketing emails. When executed correctly, email marketing can drive traffic to your e-commerce site while increasing conversions.
So ensure you strategize your email marketing and execute them at the right time for the best results.
Also Read: Common Mistakes With ECommerce Websites
Remember: Email marketing does matter; don’t make the mistake of taking it for granted.
A bit similar to the first item is when your campaigns repeat the same message repeatedly. While it is true that consistency is required, there is a limit to that, too.
Make sure that you craft unique but well-coordinated messages throughout your campaign. But don’t go on saying the same lines unnaturally across your campaigns, especially if this is not your business’ slogan. There’s a creative way to be consistent with your words, so please go with that.
Something that a lot of businesses, even outside of the realms of e-commerce, fail to do is to have a full understanding of the arena that you are playing in. Many business owners overlook the benefits of knowing your market and your competitors.
If you are aware of these things, you can strategize your campaigns holistically. You will know what works with your customers, and you will also be able to develop better strategies than your competitors.
To do this, research is vital. Execute research to make your strategies the best ones for your target audience and better than what your competitors offer.
With similar products and sometimes identical offers, customer support may be your business’s only differentiator over other providers. However, a lot of companies do not realize its importance.
Customer support is a marketing strategy in its own right. It helps you build relationships with your customers. When you address the concerns it makes them stick to you.
With the right quality of customer support before and after sales, you may be able to beat your competitors, especially around the holiday season.
Some of the things that you can do to push customer support forward are:
Many businesses see the value of investing in analytics after learning it hard. For them, gathering data and insights is a tedious and costly process. Making decisions based on a pure hunch or just simulating your competitors’ actions is an uninformed decision. It might work once if you are lucky, but it is not sustainable.
To ensure that you always come up with the best strategies, make sure that you do an analysis. The holidays are some of the best times to do this because you can capture and use much data.
The holidays are almost here, so be prepared. Preparation with the wrong strategies will only fail you. So be aware of these mistakes, and always do your best to develop original and creative thought-of plans. Make the holidays the best time not only for your customers but also for yourself with this guide.
Also Read: Critical Elements For Creating A Powerful ECommerce Website