Holiday Conversion Guide For Digital Businesses

Introduction

Using This Guide

This guide is made to give actionable advice and strategies in the most efficient way possible. Therefore there may be terms, advices and tips here that you don't quite understand or you haven't heard of before and that's perfectly fine! If there is a page you don't quite "get", just contact us, give us the page number and we'll break it down for you!

The Holiday Trends

We're about to experience a holiday season like no other, with online sales scaling past anyone's imagination. We've seen this year after year, each bigger than the last. In 2019 the online holiday sales in the U.S.A. reached about $135.35 billion with the avg. order hitting $152.19 (https://www.statista.com/study/11860/us-holiday-season-e-commerce-statista-dossier/).

But you can't run into the holiday season without a plan and strategy. You need to have a schedule in place that builds up through the holidays and makes use of every aspect of the season to squeeze the most out of the sales rush.

Part 1

A Smooth Customer Experience

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Before we begin bringing in traffic and volume it's important to make sure you're delivering a perfect customer experience, no flaws, and making sure your site experience exceeds customer's expectations.

Use this checklist to make sure your brand is delivering the personalized experience your customers want:

1. Product pages and descriptions that are engaging, insightful and comprehensive.

• Videos of your product, 360-Videos, unboxing videos, product review videos etc. included in the product description or the product images.

• Product reviews.

• A FAQ section for your product covering the most asked questions before your customer has to reach out.

2. Free shipping option as well as an expedited shipping option, preferably delivered before the holiday (next).

“Have your shipping times available on the product display page, at checkout, and in your email and SMS correspondence. If you offer curbside pickup or local delivery, be sure to highlight this as a benefit for last-minute shoppers.”

3. Guarantees with seamless returns, fast USA based shipping and secure checkouts. Consider including them in the product descriptions.

4. Your sales channels! Start selling on Instagram, Facebook Stores and Google Store!

• Cut down the checkout process by bringing your products to where your customers spend the most of their time: social media. Start selling products directly on Instagram and Facebook by making your posts shop-able with easy checkouts.

"An excellent website develops social proof and trust, answers the customers questions quickly and  efficiently, has easy one-page checkouts, and provides additional resources for contact, tracking and learning more."

5. Partner with an agency.

• Whether you have a small or large budget, hiring an agency is a great choice if you are looking for added support. Leave it to design and user experience experts at SALESTIGHT to craft impressing customer experiences.

6. Website categories and tabs curated for the holidays. Be sure to have these products tabbed in the website header where it's easily accessible.

• Clearance Products

• Christmas Shopping Guide

• Holiday Guide

• Staff Holiday Picks

Part 2

Marketing Strategy

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The season is known to drive record breaking online sales year after year, from customers all coming for different reasons. Some buying presents for themselves or loved ones, others in the mood of giving back, supporting charities, or looking to connect with someone new. We need to devise a strategy that can personally connect with these shoppers, and give them the warm and fuzzy feeling everytime they checkout.

1. Team up with a local or national charity that your brand can relate with and that your customers are passionate about. Highlight your brand's vision and values as well as how you give back.

• Customers want to feel that their dollars are being stretched in a way they care. Illustrate the impact of your donations and charity support to build additional social proof.

2. Stories = sales. Tell a story in your marketing campaigns that captures your target audiences emotion.

• Tell an original story.

• Use videos!

Have customers leave reviews on 3rd party sites like Google Reviews and Trustpilot by creating incentives such as free-shipping or discounts! Getting reviews on 3rd party sites will bring up your brand's Google ranking.

3.Your customers are your best brand ambassadors. Use customer submissions to develop new content and grow your brand's awareness.

• Let customers tag you on Instagram or # in exchange for a discount on their next order! Setup a customer submission or review page on your site and have a daily feature or giveaway setup for customers that tag!

4. Your brand needs to extend into your customer's homes. Work on your brand packaging! Salestight works with USA wide suppliers that can provide custom branded packaging!

• If your customers are tagging you as part of your feature campaign it is integral you have solid unboxing experiences. Brands such as TRUNK CLUB have unique boxes that almost always get into every picture they are tagged in! In generates lots of returning customers, and gets new customers excited about their order!

• Focus on brand. If you have an organic, vegan, eco-friendly brand then it is important to carry that through your packaging as well. Eco-friendly kraft, minimal ink, etc.

"Customers expect additional promotions and during certain periods of the year, such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas etc. Your brand needs to be unique in promotions during this period to meet and exceed the customer's expectations without cheapening the brand. This happens by giving back.

5. Use social media influencers to grow your reach.

• Have influencers promote and show your product through the lens of a memorable holiday memory.

• Use Facebook and IG live stories to connect with your most loyal customers with limited quantity discounts or giveaway entries!

• Many users choose to communicate with brands via social media, so be sure to respond to customer DM's fast.

6. Use loyalty and referral programs to grow your returning customers!

• A loyalty program as simple as a point-for-purchase can encourage buyers to order more for a free product.

• Referral programs supplemented with influencer shoutouts can give influencers more incentive to grow your brand with a unique influencer discount code that their customers can use to order and they they get 10-30% of sales from for every user that orders.

• Get creative with loyalty and referral programs! They are an amazing way to interact with customers! Have a dedicated points or buyout page on your site that goes over:

• How much a point is worth (1 point = 1 dollar)

• A gift page with redeemable items

• A gift-card page

• How-to of the referral program to make it super easy to understand.

7. Emails and SMS campaigns

Email campaigns are a lucrative opportunity to turn cold leads from your opt-in and landing pages into coversions. Email campaigns can also be used to re-market to clients who have already converted; when you launch a new product collection, or a limited time discount, giveaway or shoutout! Using customer data in an efficient manner makes sure you're getting the most out of your advertising campaigns. 

Creating new email campaigns for the holidays enable you to curate and personalize the customer experience. It's important that campaigns during the holidays are ALL about the holidays, from the email themes, copywriting etc. The last thing a customer wants to see is a summer collection discount during the winter holidays.

8. SMS campaigns

SMS campaigns are being used more and more widely as emails don't carry the same weight that an SMS notification can have! SMS campaigns also make a point to start a conversation with a customer (as do emails) but it's much easier to start a convo via SMS!

Anything from tracking numbers or shipping updates, urgent discounts, weekly special offers on specific products (etc.) can be used with an SMS campaign! Make sure to capture customer/clients phone/email/name in your lead forms in order to use these 2 forms of active marketing campaigns.

9. Clicks and signups can only increase conversions if you're delivering value to your customers.

Your email campaigns, texts, and marketing content needs to deliver VALUE to your customers. If there isn't value in your campaigns, anything that can help the prospect or leads RIGHT NOW and FOR FREE - then your campaigns will be considered spam in their heads and they'll be off the email list never to return. A great ratio to use is 3:1 - 3 VALUE based emails for every 1 marketing based email (discount, giveaway, product shoutout, reviews, testimonials etc.)

Part 3

Service and Support

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We've touched on this throughout the article, customer service and support points need to be available where the customers spend most of their time. This is important to develop reliability and close sales as well as provide support after the sale - one of the single biggest factors to gain return customers.

Service is just as important. From guaranteeing easy refunds with automated forms as well as any other follow up required with your product whether it's gift-wrapping etc.

1. Give your customer multiple points of contact where they spend the most of their time.

• This means social media. Making sure your average reply time on Facebook Messenger for your Facebook page is fast. Making sure you reply to all your DM's on Instagram or Twitter.

• Make sure you have an easy to navigate contact tab on your website where customers can easily fill in a form and submit their questions. Have your phone number as well to answer any calls.

• Have your phone number and support email on your invoices and order confirmations as well where customers can easily reach out to you during the shipment process or if there are any changes they want made. The holidays are HIGH-DISPUTE times to multiple points of support is your best interest as well.

2. Brand service during the holidays is a decisive factor in gaining recurring customers, organic traffic and great reviews!

• Excellent service begins with your guarantees on your website, product page etc.:

  • 100% Satisfaction Guarantees

• 30-Day Money Back Policy

• FAQ sections

• Quick answer BOTS

• Easy Product Tracking Service

• Multiple Monitored Points Of Communication

• Not all aspects of service need to be human based. Checkout support bots that can sift through customer answers or create comprehensive FAQ forms embedded on product pages and other pages as well for easy access and easy navigation.

• All communication and "tickets" are answered within 12 hours.

• Understand that most of the holiday sales are last-minute or urgent purchases which require urgent support.

• Following up with an email or SMS 1 week after product delivery to make sure customer likes everything and if they have any questions.

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With the presented advices and strategies you'll be able to curate and craft a campaign that can transcend your expectations this year! Partnering with an Agency like Salestight gives you the advantage of experience, and saves you the time to do it yourself.

Whether you have an agency build your holiday campaigns or do it yourself, the experience should immensely rewarding. You should learn new things about marketing, about your business, about your customers and most importantly find new opportunities on growing and scaling your business for the next year!

The campaigns don't just stop during the holidays, so keeping your content fresh, engaging and up to date throughout your social media, ads, blogs etc. is of utmost importance to continue to grow your brand and drive the relevant traffic and clicks.

To break the article down you need to:

• Offer a customer experience that's personal, value-based and easy.

• Offer guarantees your customers expect.

• Sell where your customers spend the most of their time.

• Make your website navigation easy with relevant collections and tabs.

• Get your customers in on your marketing campaigns with tags and features!

• Get influencers to give you shoutouts, offer discount codes and tell a story!

• Build an unboxing experience unlike any other!

• Build smart re-marketing and re-targeting campaigns with paid ads.

• Use Email and SMS marketing to provide value to your customers and personalized support.

• Strike the right balance of value and promo in your marketing to avoid being considered spam but to also establish yourself as an authority in your niche.

• Provide customer support where your customers spend the most time.

• Multiple points of contact that are regularly monitored with super fast response times.

• Extend support ever after purchase with follow ups.

Year after year Salestight works with brands to cover these topics in order to ensure a successful holiday season. Brands we work with continue to work with us year after year because we provide exactly what we stated above:

• A great product

• A great service

• An amazing support experience.

Whether you decide to build your funnels yourself, work with Salestight or any other agency, the best thing you can do is start today. The more time you have to optimize your campaigns, the more effective they'll be in growing your conversions!

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