Are you on top of your Christmas marketing and promotions? Christmas is not only a prime selling season but also an excellent chance to attract and retain new customers. By providing exceptional experiences to those who engage with your business this year, you have the potential to foster their loyalty for the future. This is the time to showcase your capabilities.
We’ve compiled a helpful checklist of actions that online sellers should consider to maximize their online sales this Christmas.
1. Get your SEO/keywords in order
During the holiday season, search terms can undergo significant shifts as consumers prioritise shopping for gifts. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure that your keyword research remains current and relevant.
To stay in the loop regarding what people are currently searching for, here are a few tools you can utilize:
Google Trends
Google Trends will tell you what is trending around your topic and also what search terms are being used.
You can use the settings to only search within your country and you can choose the timeframe in which you want to analyse your topic. If you choose to analyse activity over the last 7 days (which, in this case, will be the start of Christmas activity), the results will be very different to a search across the year or in the summer.
Google Search
To discover the current search trends, Google search is a valuable tool. Open your preferred browser, such as Chrome, in an incognito window. In Chrome, navigate to File > New Incognito Window. By using the incognito mode, Google treats you as a new user without any browsing history.
When you enter your search term and press the space bar, Google generates a list of relevant terms that people are currently searching for, based on your keywords.
For example, if you sell wax melts it’s beneficial for you to be aware that wax melt gift sets are currently popular. To capitalise on this trend, you could offer your wax melts in gift bundles and incorporate the term “wax melt gift sets” into your product descriptions, metadata, and URLs.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is another useful tool to help you expand your keywords. The valuable element to this software is that it tells you how competitive its keyword suggestions are. It’s beneficial to use some less competitive keywords. However, it’s only beneficial if there are plenty of monthly searches using those terms. Ubersuggest will tell you roughly how many searches there are for each term.
2. Place stocking fillers strategically
Consider placing some cheaper products in amongst other products, allowing customers to easily add them to their cart. Everyone is looking for stocking fillers at this time of year and being able to add a £3.50 lip balm while buying that luxury £20 bath oil will solve a problem for many gift-buyers.
3. Make email your priority
This is exactly the time of year that many businesses will say that they’re too busy to email. Yet this is exactly the time of year that we all need help with our gift buying, meaning many of us are quite receptive to emails from businesses. Keep your emails simple and to the point. Showcase your best-selling products and link directly to them. It’s often worth including testimonials in emails
4. Publish your cut-off dates
You must publish cut-off dates for Christmas delivery, both to make your customers aware and also to create a sense of urgency. Guiding people to do now what they would otherwise put off until later will work in your favour. Most web platforms will allow you to put a thin banner across the top of your web pages.
5. Get local
‘Buy local’ has become a big deal over the last couple of years. Consumers are increasingly motivated to help the planet and help small businesses by buying locally instead of from Amazon, etc. Make sure your business is seen in all the local social media groups and any online markets. Remember to use local hashtags and also make sure that your website is optimised for local SEO.
6. Plan your social media
Even if you ignore all the other suggestions on this page, don’t ignore this one. Plan your social media now and, if possible, create the majority of your content now. Tools such as Hootsuite will allow you to schedule your content in advance, leaving you free to run your business over your busiest period.
7. Be festive!
Don’t forget to make your content festive. Your website is your shopfront and should be constantly changing. Make sure that your shop is festive and welcoming for Christmas buyers. This should apply across all your social media. Tools like Canva have plenty of free images.