Making the most of your Christmas and New Year Sales

Aside from Black Friday and Cyber Monday, your Christmas and New Year Sales can have a major impact on your revenues, setting you up for the year ahead, so it makes sense to maximise the opportunity with a solid plan of action.

Here, we are looking at a few ideas to help you generate a higher return on investment, increase order value and generally beat your competition to the punch.

Some suggestions for you…

Decide on your product strategy

Many online sellers will offer a blanket sale and spread the deals across the whole of their inventory, whilst that may be ok for some, its smarter to include specific product categories but exclude others. naturally, some of your stock will have lower margins with less room to manoeuvre on price, so simply don’t include them at sale prices. conversely, you may have products that are high margin, popular and seasonal – so great candidates to be included in your promotion.

Be persuasive, creative & personal

Whilst some e-retailers will see it as ‘just another sale’ you have the opportunity to differentiate in a crowded marketplace through your attention to detail and care in investing the time to create more eye-catching promotions that really grab the attention and clearly convey your offer and brand positioning. Don’t just carelessly throw it on to your website, get creative input and high-quality graphics and images to give your sales more impact and punch. your audience will reward you for it. Try to think in terms of who your customers are to provide graphic and copy they will personally relate to.

Think frequency and timing

It is up to you to decide on the frequency of your outbound communications to your customers, and what media you decide to use, be it printed and post, email, SMS or through social channels. What is important is that you obviously engage with your audience in a timely way, so they can react in plenty of time to your campaign. Check your analytics regularly for signs of opt-outs or spam complaints. Time your releases for maximum engagement, i.e. your social posting my be most effective from 6pm-8pm when customers are watching TV but on their PC’s, tablets or phones shopping.

Experiment with care!

You’ll be aware that the Christmas and New Year sales are important for your business, so probably not the best time to be beta testing new technology, channels and riskier creative approaches. Sure, you need to innovate, but it’s usually best to do this on a smaller campaign, out of your main sales season, rather than rolling out something completely new. Stick to what you know works for you, but aim to do it better.

Capture your customer data

One of the best things about the Christmas and New Year sales periods, is that you’ll usually be seeing an uplift in both organic and paid for traffic to your website, marketplaces and social channels. Put in place mechanisms to encourage subscriber sign-ups, so you can then use this data into the New Year and beyond. It’s always much easier, and cheaper to convert an existing subscriber, so ensure every possible customer is opted in for future promotional communications.

Follow up your sale, thank your customers

It goes without saying, online customers like to feel valued. Remember, of all the many competing online traders out there, they chose you to do business with. That’s worth thanking them for and keeping them onside much longer than the sale itself. Following up can be done via a variety of channels, usually a simple message on the website and social channels telling your customers how they contributed to making it a great year for you and that you’re looking forward to helping them again in the year ahead. It may sound mushy to some, but a simple thank you can go a long way.

Whatever you’re planning for your Christmas and New Year sales drive, we wish you every success and of course, if you’d like our expertise by your side for any of the potential ways we can help you to develop your business, we’re only a call away.

Call our experts now on 01254 279 998 or email us here for a no obligation free initial consultation.