Online Marketing for Christmas

Online sales during the Christmas season have increased significantly from year to year.  Unfortunately, so have the number of competitors.  Have you developed a plan to stand out from the crowd?  If not, now is the perfect time to design and implement your online strategy.

Here are a few key areas to consider:

Indentify and Understand Your Target Market

As with any marketing campaign you should consider the needs of your average and returning customers.  However, there is a unique group of consumers that only shop online during the Christmas season.  This group is generally less familiar with technology and will require a highly usable site.  Your products must be easy to locate with prominent “Buy Now” options and clear instructions.  Often this group is less trusting of online purchasing than the year round online shopper.  You should consider investing in privacy and security seals such as TRUSTe and Hacker Safe to show potential customers you take these issues serious.

Create Dedicated Landing Pages

Christmas shoppers are often looking for the perfect gift ideas.  A Christmas themed landing page can provide direction as well as introduce your customers to products they normally would not be interested in.  You should consider developing several different landing pages based on the source of the originating link. 

Review the Accuracy of Your Site

Although this area seems obvious, site accuracy is often overlooked.  Ensure each item has an accurate description and clear picture.  Review your inventory to ensure all new items are represented.  Test all navigation and links to ensure each is working.  As the Christmas season gains momentum, customers will not have patience for broken links, missing pictures, or poor navigation. 

Optimise Your Search Engine

Your placement in the results of popular search engines will be critical to attracting new customers.  Each page in your site should have relevant and descriptive Meta tags.  Keep your content updated as frequently as possible to ensure your site is attractive to web crawlers.  If you aren’t ranking well you may want to consider paid search.  This option allows you to list your website at the top of search results when specific keywords are searched.

Focus on Conversion Rates

All your hard work to increase traffic will be worthless if visitors aren’t buying your products.  Generating a sense of urgency can help drive conversions.  Consider running specials with an expiration date or providing a countdown of days left to order for Christmas delivery.  Offering unique give-aways can also help you stand out from the competition.  Many sales are lost during check out.  Test the usability of this process frequently.  Consider showing additional costs, such as shipping, as early in the process as possible so the customer isn’t surprised at the end.  To obtain the highest ROI possible you must focus on your conversion rates throughout the season and adjust accordingly.