The holiday shopping season represents just a few months out of the year, but it can be the most critical time frame for a marketer. If ecommerce marketing is your sweet spot, there is no room for error. Your performance across the holiday season has an outsized impact on your company’s bottom line.
To help your holiday marketing campaigns succeed, I’ve outlined research-backed tips to plan your holiday marketing calendar, plus 5 additional tips to maximize your ecommerce revenue.
Timing is everything
First and foremost, when is the right time to hoist that marketing mistletoe, and which days should you check off on your holiday marketing calendar?
There’s a balance between getting your message out early enough to capture the attention of customers, but not so early that you annoy them. Some may not wish to receive Christmas-themed content while they’re still picking out their Halloween costumes!
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), however, a rule of thumb is to reach out to early birds around September. But recent data suggests the holiday season is starting later, and becoming more compressed.
Deloitte’s Holiday Survey 2015 found that fewer people were expected to shop earlier than December; only 23 percent planned to start shopping in November, down from 25 percent the year prior. Some (16 percent) even planned to shop after Christmas Day.
However, the National Retail Federation (NRF) suggests that, though one in four will wait until December, with men being more likely to procrastinate than women; 19 percent of males and 22 percent of females indeed begin shopping even before Halloween. That said, overall, the majority of spending happens in November — 42 percent of men and 38 percent of women, according to the NRF’s five-year average. Statista echoes similar figures.
In particular, the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period – the Friday and Monday after Thanksgiving – are peak-days for promotions. This year, that’s Friday, November 25 and Monday, November 28. (For a complete list of holidays, national days, and observances to springboard your content, grab a free copy of our Ultimate Holiday Calendar for Marketers, which covers 2,300+ holidays.)
More generally, iMedia reports that Mondays, and increasingly Wednesdays, are the best days for ecommerce conversions.
The bottom line: The peak target time for allocating your holiday marketing budget is November and December, but it can be worthwhile to send out marketing messages as early as September, and to continue well into the first few weeks of January.
5 tips to boost your holiday ecommerce revenue
Now that you know how to plan your holiday marketing calendar, use these five ecommerce marketing tips to make the season’s revenue extra jolly.
1. Be mobile-friendly
A Facebook IQ study, conducted by GfK, found that 60 percent of omni-channel shoppers plan to start purchasing, or purchase more, from their smartphones, and 64 percent will be doing more shopping research from mobile devices.
This means ensuring websites and email campaigns are mobile-friendly and optimized for viewing (and, if applicable, transacting) from smaller screens, like smartphones and tablets in order to maximize your ecommerce marketing strategy.
2. Don’t push urgency, but promote quick delivery
Instead of using messages that imply a sense of urgency, like “hurry before it’s too late!” for example, focus on more positive messaging that encourages problem-solving, like, “here’s how to find that perfect last-minute gift.” Alongside that, tout your ability to ship quickly to ease their minds.
The aforementioned Deloitte survey found that consumers have “aggressive” holiday shipping expectations: 96% of consumers view “fast” shipping as either the same or next day, and 92% at least within two days. Apparel retailer Lululemon once ran a last-minute holiday campaign that simply read “Breathe Deeply. Your Package Can Still Make It,” which promoted its clothing, and a last-minute free shipping offer.
3. Keep themed content fresh
Update themed content online and via social media channels on at least a monthly basis. This prevents it from becoming stale, and also allows for targeting various holidays, from Christmas to Hanukkah and the New Year.
4. Focus on emotions and benefits, not transactions
Focus messaging on how you can benefit the customer, not just what you offer. A bakeshop might share great holiday cupcake recipes and holiday baking tips versus just a line list of their specials and menu, for example.
Don’t be afraid to encourage staff — and loyal customers — to spread the word through personal social media accounts. Both can be valuable brand advocates.
And keep a keen eye on social media chatter about your brand or industry in order to tailor campaigns to key demographics, and adjust plans to suit emerging trends.
5. Personalize it and have some fun!
In a Forrester Consulting study, 94 percent of customer insights and marketing professionals across multiple industries rated personalization as “important,” “very important,” or “extremely important” in meeting their marketing objectives.
This could include seasonal and customer-specific promotions and incentives that are crafted using technologies like location-based beacons, which can send notifications to consumers’ smartphones when they are close-by one via Bluetooth (with prior permission, of course), to deliver real-time messaging and capture them when they’re most interested; or even viral campaigns.
OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself campaign allows website visitors to place photos of their own faces on digital elves, then create cute and shareable music videos. It brought in 193 million visits in just the first year, and continues to go strong.
Bottom line
The holiday season can be a fruitful time for business (not just cake!) and there’s plenty of opportunity to reap the benefits through accurately timed marketing campaigns, effective customer outreach, and a focus on problem-solving versus product-pitching.