The holidays are here and everyone is stepping up their marketing game for online shoppers, but is your website ready? It seems that the entire world of retail has changed with the global pandemic, and what used to be a chaotic mess of foot traffic customers, is now mostly online. If you’re looking to compete with those in your sphere of competition this holiday season, here’s a checklist to help you prepare for increased online traffic and sales.
Prepare Your Server for Increased Traffic this Holiday
What’s worse than a slow-moving website during the holidays? On a regular basis, your site should have load speeds of no longer than 3 seconds. If you’re planning on having additional traffic on your site than normal, this can contribute to slowing down your website servers, causing it to run slower than normal.
Your online shoppers want it now and they want it fast! Don’t let slow website speeds cause shoppers to leave your site. Check with your hosting provider or website management team to make sure that your servers can handle the estimated traffic you plan to drive to your website this holiday season. Have company team members test out the loading speed by running through a few fake product orders just to be sure it’s all working as expected.
The loading speed of your website is determined by several factors and can be tweaked and improved in different ways. If you’re looking for details on how to improve your website page load speeds beyond your server or host, you can run an audit using our free tool here.
Make Your Online Store Mobile Responsive
As we continue forward with new and improved technology hitting the shelves every day, it’s becoming more and more clear that online shoppers almost always prefer using their phones or tablets over desktop devices. Around 80 percent of your online shoppers this season will visit your site on a mobile device, so be sure that your website is showing up and working properly on devices like tablets and cell phones. Many businesses lose sales over poor responsive website design, so don’t let that be you!
You can check your website’s mobile responsiveness by visiting your site on a cell phone and tablet. Walk through various actions on your site to make sure all products, buttons, and other calls to action are visible. Try walking yourself through an online order and make sure you’re able to add products to your cart, for example. If you have a web design or marketing team, reach out to them for help!
Create a Marketing Strategy for Your Online Store
No matter how flashy and fast your website, you still have to put in place a solid marketing strategy that serves to drive customers to your online store. What would you like to accomplish before the year’s end as a company? What are your revenue goals? Your lead generation and conversion goals? All of these are critical questions to consider and answer as a company when creating your holiday marketing strategy for your online store.
Figure out what products you would like to push during the holidays based on last year’s sales successes. Think about where you’re placing these products on your website, and consider creating social media posts that focus on those potential best sellers. You should put the most popular products in front of your customer’s eyes frequently during heavy holiday shopping months.
Consider offering holiday gift cards for your more indecisive customers, and think about ways to upsell by featuring accessories and similar products throughout the purchasing process on your website.
Run Social Media Ads and Create Deals to Drive Traffic
Social media is a great place to drive traffic to your website, but sometimes the algorithm doesn’t feature your posts as much as you’d like. Putting some of your marketing dollars into social media advertising is a great way to drive new and existing customers to your website to increase sales. Consider running carousel ads on facebook and Instagram that feature your most popular products.
When you create your ads, be sure to place any discounts and deals on the image and in the copy of your ad. Make it very clear that your company is offering something special to your customers if they buy something from you this holiday season.
During Christmas, people are always on the lookout for the best holiday deals, so getting your specials on their Facebook feeds can cause a huge spike in traffic—and in sales. If you’d like to dig a little deeper into the possibilities, pros, and cons of Facebook ads, check out our Facebook ads blog! In it, we break down the four reasons your business should be running Facebook ad campaigns.
Offer Something Special to Your Current Email List
There’s no better way to make your current customers feel special than by offering them an exclusive deal or discount on products. Let your company show its gratitude for your current customer support by sending out an email to your current list of subscribers.
Email marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to increase revenue for your online store or business. Believe it or not, consumers spend approximately 138% more as a result of email marketing as compared to consumers who don’t receive email offers. That says enough about how important it is to send out your holiday email!
So, set aside some time to brainstorm special offers for your current tribe, and get to crafting that awesome email. You won’t be disappointed with the results!
