3 Ways to Increase your Sales This Holiday Season
Hype-free strategies you can implement TODAY to see results almost instantly
Hype-free strategies you can implement TODAY to see results almost instantly
It’s a brilliant time to be an entrepreneur. Whether you’re an online retailer, a brick and mortar business, consultant or coach, it’s never been easier to connect with your customers, raise awareness for your business and to generate more sales and profits especially in a short period of time when everyone seemingly goes on a buying frenzy.
But it does take a bit of planning ahead to make sure you’re going to hit your targets this year.
We’re fortunate enough to be across 50+ client accounts implementing sales and marketing systems so we get to see what works and what doesn’t during the holiday season. More importantly we help implement these strategies so we can validate what is pure hype – that can easily distract the newbie entrepreneur – and what it really takes to optimise your business to smash out those sales targets this year.
Here are our top 3 strategies to grow your sales this holiday season. Ready?
With competition at an all-time high for views and engagement, it’s more important than ever to be specific about who it is you’re looking for to invite to your website to buy. “Spray and pray” has never been a good strategy in the best of times and going into the holiday season this will wipe out your marketing budget.
1. Paid Search. Plan Ahead. Get ad campaigns set up well ahead of key dates and ensure that you’ve been testing well before the important dates. It pays to know your niche so well that you can niche down to specific search terms that you can own – that are specific to your product.
It’s going to get very competitive around socials. So stay on top of key dates on social sites and how to plan around them, e.g. with these handy tips from Facebook.
2. Ride the search trail. Gather interest using hashtags such as #BlackFriday, #CyberMonday, #SmallBusinessSaturday, etc and make sure you are scheduling your best offers ensuring air time even when you’re crazy busy fulfilling buyer demand.
3. Emails can still win. And nurturing your list makes all the difference. This is where understanding your audience and meeting them where they are at in their buying journey is absolutely critical.
Consider segmenting your list and sending different content to new customers versus repeat customers. Use content to create the culture for your brand, introduce product features that fill their needs, then use offers to move them closer to you.
You’ve done a lot of hard work getting a visitor to your website. Make sure what they want is easy to find and even easier to buy!
Consider…
1. enabling buying on all devices, i.e. mobile, tablet and desktop.
Is it easy to use? Are there any confusing parts? Why not watch someone else use the site and listen to their feedback?
Time to make sure that your webpage has a responsive design which means it optimises itself to the user’s screen size. According to Shopify, 64% of all sales during Black Friday came from mobile (2017) and it’s growing 10% year on year. There’s no excuse any longer with easier-than-ever to use templates and designs that are mobile responsive straight out of the box!
2. using the header to create a buying mindset, such as free shipping and guarantees.
Have you mentioned delivery before Christmas? What about hassle-free returns? Any gift options? Gift wrapping perhaps?
It’s important for prime web real estate like your header to clearly articulate what you sell but more importantly why buy from you and why now.
3. testing for a sudden surge in traffic.
Is your website designed to deal with sudden surge in traffic? Have you got shared hosting that may be susceptible to glitches when there is a surge?
If you have experienced problems in the past you might consider upgrading hardware, using CDN like Cloudflare and enabling caching and compression of your website assets.
And don’t forget to run a check for broken links!
Websites these days change a lot and you may be surprised how many broken links you have. Don’t fall prey to broken links to order forms. Imagine the number of sales you could be losing!
4. intuitive product listings.
Have you ever gone to a website and found it difficult to find what it is they sell?
Are your products sorted into categories that make sense? Have you included a bestsellers menu item – for those who need help making a decision? What about menu option for ‘gifts’ seeing as it IS the holiday season, including ‘under $25’, ‘under $50’ or ‘gifts for the person who has everything’ etc.
5. optimising product pages.
Your product pages are a major opportunity point to get people to that final step…the purchase. But how many are optimised?
Instead of just checking off a list of items that must be on a product page, we also need to look at page holistically from a buyer’s perspective. Are we answering these buying questions?
6. bolstering trust factor.
Make sure you add social proof throughout the buying process, e.g. accreditations, customer reviews, testimonials and any press coverage.
Your contact details should also be obvious. Add a phone number if there’s not one already. It may seem like it’s going to create a lot of work answering calls, but the feedback will be INVALUABLE. You are also able to reassure customers if they have any concerns along the way and help to overcome any objections.
These days it’s relatively simple to set up an online chat. You might want to consider adding web support to your current inquiry process especially if you’re anticipating a busy time for your business over the next few weeks and months.