Holiday Season In Ecommerce: 9 Steps To Crush It

Are you ready to jump into the craziest shopping season of the year?

Now’s your chance to shine and attract new customers with amazing deals.

The most exciting time for online shopping is almost here, with big holidays and sales events like Halloween, 11.11, Black Friday & Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year.

It’s the perfect opportunity for online business owners like you to take advantage of the global shopping excitement and increase your profits.

Let’s aim to make this holiday season the most successful one yet!

Tackle the holiday rush with confidence

The holiday period brings a huge boost in online shopping but also lots of competition. Feeling a bit overwhelmed? The best strategy is to start planning early, focusing on improving your website’s SEO and using smart content marketing.

Starting early is key

Beginning your preparations early can reduce the stress of last-minute scrambles and catch the attention of shoppers who like to buy their gifts early. About 42% of shoppers plan to buy their gifts sooner than usual.

This guide will help you stay ahead of the competition, keep everything organized, and prepare your ecommerce store for a busy season.

1. Mark your calendars

When: September

Begin by noting important calendar dates to plan your sales campaigns. Don’t just think about Black Friday and Cyber Monday; also consider other significant shopping days important to your customers. Apart from these major events, enhancing your website’s SEO, both on and off the site, is vital for increasing organic traffic and sales during this peak time.

For on-site SEO, consider creating articles with gift ideas for the upcoming holidays. These articles can draw in visitors looking for specific items. To ensure these articles rank well, use free keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner or Semrush to find relevant keywords that potential customers might be searching for.

For off-site SEO, getting high-quality backlinks from well-known sources can boost your online presence. Moreover, listing your store in classified ads can bring targeted traffic straight to your website. Using these strategies together will make your store more visible during the busiest shopping days of the year, setting you up for a successful sales season.

2. Plan your sales and offers

When: September

Next, think about what promotions and deals you want to offer during the holiday season. Whether you decide on discounts or special promotions like buy-one-get-one-free, pick what fits best with your audience’s preferences. You can add a pop-up on your website to collect email addresses, which helps turn visitors into potential customers. Offer them a welcome email with a discount code to get them more involved and excited about buying.

Once you’ve built a good list of email addresses, consider sending out newsletters that showcase gift ideas from your products. These emails can give personalized suggestions that cater to different groups within your audience, encouraging them to check out what you have to offer.

You might also think about adding new categories to your website, such as “Holiday Gift Ideas” or “Stocking Stuffers.” These categories make it easier for shoppers to find the perfect gifts. To make sure your catalog attracts online visitors, think about expanding your range of products to include something for everyone. This variety can help catch the interest of different types of customers, making it more likely they’ll buy something during the holiday rush.

Use the Rule of 100: choose percentage discounts for items under $100 and fixed dollar discounts for more expensive items to show bigger savings. You might also want to set a minimum purchase amount to increase the average order value. Always keep your customer’s preferences in mind when planning these promotions.

3. Upgrade your store’s tech

When: September

Shopping online can be distracting, so it’s vital to keep your customers focused and engaged from start to finish. Using advanced SEO strategies and tools like retargeting ads and web notifications can help bring visitors back to your site. To increase your sales, think about adding special features that make the shopping experience better and boost conversions.

One effective feature is the Abandoned Cart add-on. This tool saves the contact details of visitors who almost bought something and sends them attractive reminders to come back and complete their purchase. This can greatly lower the number of abandoned shopping carts and help you regain lost sales.

Another useful feature is the Bulk Discounts add-on, which gives discounts to customers who buy products in large amounts. This encourages them to spend more per order and buy multiple items at once, helping you move more inventory.

The Product Bundle add-on is another good way to increase sales by offering discounts on groups of related products. By selling complementary items together at a lower price, you make the deal look more valuable, which can encourage customers to buy more, thus increasing your average sale amount.

For keeping customers engaged after they buy, the Purchase Upsell add-on is invaluable. It shows customers attractive offers in a pop-up right after they pay, tempting them to add more to their order. This is a simple yet effective way to boost your total sales.

To build trust and excitement, try using the Recent Sales Popup add-on. This tool shows notifications of recent purchases made in your store, highlighting popular products and inspiring other visitors to buy too.

For a broader upsell approach, the Upsell add-on displays extra products that complement what the customer has already chosen. This tool can smoothly increase the value of an order with little effort needed from the customer.

Creating a sense of urgency is another important method to increase sales. The Urgency add-on uses countdown timers, trust badges, and social proof to motivate faster buying decisions. By playing on the fear of missing out (FOMO), this tool can greatly lift your sales during busy shopping times.

Lastly, the Product Slideshow add-on improves how attractive your store is by showing products in a moving image slideshow. This makes the shopping experience more enjoyable and helps appealingly highlight your products, drawing more attention and interest from customers.

Setting up these tools early and testing them thoroughly ensures they work well when the holiday traffic peaks, letting you adjust any issues and perfect their performance for the busiest shopping times. These add-ons can turn your online store into a highly effective, sales-generating powerhouse, letting you make the most of the increased holiday demand.

4. Keep your website in top shape

When: September

Since your promotions will bring a lot of visitors to your website, it’s important to make sure it makes a great first impression. Start by enhancing your homepage with a branded luxury video. A well-made video can make your site look more sophisticated and give it a premium feel, which makes it more appealing and engaging for visitors. This visual improvement does more than just make your site look good—it also helps communicate what your brand stands for more clearly.

Besides looking good, it’s important to keep your product information, store policies, and contact forms up to date. Having accurate and detailed product descriptions helps build trust with potential customers, reducing the chances of returns or dissatisfaction. Clear store policies show customers that their purchases are secure, while updated contact forms make sure any questions or issues can be quickly handled.

To make your website even better for users, think about upgrading its overall design. This includes making sure the site layout is easy to navigate, pages load quickly, and everything works well on mobile devices. A clean, easy-to-use design helps visitors find what they need, leading to more sales. Also, adding features like customer reviews and testimonials can boost credibility and encourage new visitors to buy.

Regular testing and optimization are also key. Use tools like Google Analytics to watch how people use your site and find ways to improve. Making small changes, like tweaking your call-to-action buttons or making the checkout process smoother, can have a big impact on turning visitors into buyers. By improving both the look and functionality of your site, you can create a website that not only draws people in but also keeps them coming back.

5. Prepare engaging emails

When: October

Email marketing is still a very effective and affordable way to connect with your customers. Even though there are many new ways to market digitally, like social media, email still provides great returns on investment, making it a key part of any full marketing strategy. Whether you’re trying to get the word out about your brand, follow up on potential sales leads, or get direct sales, a well-planned email campaign can make a difference for your business.

To begin, it’s important to write engaging emails. Make sure your emails are clear and to the point, as people usually spend only about 11 seconds reading an email. Every word has to matter. Your content should create a sense of urgency and relevance to keep your messages powerful and memorable. Including strong calls to action (CTAs) is essential—these prompt your readers to take the next step, whether that’s buying something, signing up for an event, or checking out a new product.

Using attractive visuals is also crucial. Good-quality images and design elements not only make your emails look better but also help break up the text, making it easier to read. This is particularly important today when it’s harder than ever to keep people’s attention online.

We suggest using Mailchimp for your email campaigns. It’s known for being easy to use and has many helpful features like templates, automation tools, and analytics that simplify creating and managing your email efforts. It’s a great option for businesses of any size, adaptable and able to grow with your needs.

Another good choice is Klaviyo, especially for ecommerce businesses. It has excellent features for segmenting and personalizing emails, letting you send very targeted messages based on customer actions and preferences. This customization can greatly increase how much people engage with your emails and how often they buy, making your email efforts even more successful.

Email marketing is great because it lets you directly connect with your customers, unlike social media, where algorithms affect who sees your content. Email allows you to reach your audience’s inboxes directly. This control lets you customize your messages, try different strategies, and track results accurately.

Additionally, email marketing is fantastic for personalization. You can group your audience by different characteristics like what they’ve bought before, how they browse, or how much they interact with you, to send content that speaks to each person. This tailored approach not only improves the customer experience but also increases loyalty and keeps customers coming back.

In summary, using email marketing well can help your business stand out in a busy market. By using platforms like Mailchimp or Klaviyo, you can create effective, focused campaigns that work, helping you to build stronger relationships with your customers and reach your business goals.

6. Develop social media content

When: October

To make the most of your social media strategy, it’s crucial to post when your audience is most likely to be online. For Instagram, posting early in the morning around 4 AM on weekdays has shown to be very effective in 2024. For Facebook, the best times are usually on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 8 AM and 12 PM. You can determine the best times to post for your audience by using tools like Instagram Insights or Facebook’s Page Insights. These tools give you specific data based on how your audience behaves.

Regarding how often you should post, aim for 3 to 5 posts per week on Instagram and 1 to 2 posts daily on Facebook. Using dynamic formats like Reels and Stories on Instagram, and posts with images or videos on Facebook, generally yields good results. Try incorporating popular content types like memes, giveaways, and trending formats like reels to catch your audience’s attention. For instance, you could create a meme that relates to what your brand is about, or organize a giveaway where participants need to follow your page, like a post, and tag their friends to enter.

Memes are a fun way to connect with your audience, and reels are great for showing your products in use. Giveaways are particularly good for growing your number of followers and increasing engagement. You might consider giving away a popular item from your product range as the prize. Using these strategies will not only make your content more varied but also boost interaction and make your brand more visible across different social media platforms.

7. Schedule and launch campaigns

When: November

When your content is ready, it’s crucial to time it to go live when it will make the most impact. Starting your campaigns at least four weeks before the peak shopping season can help you stand out from the crowd.

It’s also a good idea to use automation tools to keep your posting schedule consistent across all platforms. Both Facebook and Instagram offer features that let you schedule posts ahead of time directly within their platforms. For instance, with Facebook’s Business Manager, you can set up your posts to go live at the best times automatically, saving you from having to post manually every day.

You can further streamline your scheduling by using tools like the Social Rabbit plugin. This plugin automates the posting process across several social media platforms, ensuring your brand stays visible and relevant without needing your constant attention. With automated posts, you can keep a steady presence online, keeping your brand top of mind for consumers during the holiday season.

This proactive planning not only boosts your visibility but also allows you to tweak and improve your campaigns based on the initial feedback and performance indicators you gather. By starting early and using these tools, you can make sure your social media strategy is both effective and flexible, maximizing your reach and engagement during key shopping times.

8. Maintain customer engagement

When: November/December

Stay active in interacting with your customers as your marketing campaigns unfold. Make it a daily practice to quickly answer questions, keeping your communication consistent and professional. Regularly connecting with your customers builds trust and nurtures a sense of community and loyalty.

To make this process more efficient, consider setting up automatic responses for commonly asked questions. Both Instagram and Facebook have features that let you create these automated replies, which can help you handle customer interactions more smoothly.

For instance, Instagram has a feature called quick replies that allows you to save and reuse responses to frequent questions. This ensures you can communicate quickly and consistently without having to type out the same answers over and over. Facebook also offers automated messaging features, enabling you to set up instant replies and FAQs so that customers receive immediate responses, even when you’re not directly available to answer.

Furthermore, keeping templates saved on these platforms can improve your response times. By having pre-written responses ready for various common situations, you can ensure your communication remains professional and quick, which is especially important during busy campaign times when customer questions increase. This proactive method not only keeps your customers happy but also allows you to dedicate more time to other important tasks in your marketing strategy.

9. Retain your customers post-holiday season

After the busy holiday season, focus on keeping the new customers you’ve attracted. It’s usually more cost-effective to keep existing customers than to find new ones. Use strategies such as personalized email follow-ups and active social media engagement to leave a lasting impression. Think about starting a loyalty program that rewards repeat purchases to keep customers coming back. Also, get customer feedback through surveys to understand their needs better and continuously improve what you offer based on this feedback.

To strengthen these relationships further, encourage your customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google Reviews or Yelp. Positive reviews not only enhance your online reputation but also serve as strong recommendations for potential customers. Urge customers to share their experiences on their social networks and to tag your brand. You could offer them a small incentive like a discount code, a free sample, or an entry into a giveaway for doing so. This method not only boosts your visibility on social media but also fosters a sense of community and involvement around your brand.

By using these strategies, you can keep the momentum from the holiday season going and turn new buyers into loyal, repeat customers. This ongoing engagement not only helps keep customers but also promotes valuable word-of-mouth marketing, supporting your business well beyond the holiday season.

Final thoughts

With many tasks to handle, the key to success is starting your preparations early. The earlier you begin, the better prepared you will be for the holiday rush. Starting now not only gives you a head start but also a significant advantage in managing the busy period effectively.

Beginning early allows you to fine-tune your strategies, making sure all aspects of your operations are ready for peak performance. By tackling potential issues early, you can avoid the usual problems and chaos that often come at year-end. This proactive approach ensures the smooth handling of challenges and keeps your business running efficiently.

Furthermore, starting early gives you time to launch and test new initiatives, streamline processes, and adjust as necessary. It also helps you better predict and meet customer demands, leading to greater satisfaction and potentially higher sales.

Ultimately, taking action now lays a solid foundation for a successful and profitable holiday season. It enables you to approach the busy period with confidence and preparedness, rather than being overwhelmed. So dive into your preparations today, and let’s work together to make this holiday season not just successful, but the most rewarding one yet for your business!