Ho, ho, ho. It’s that time of year again! Yes, we are getting bombarded with catalogs, but what I am referencing is that it is high time to start looking for holiday deals online! Yay!
There is nothing better than doing all my holiday shopping from the comfort of my PJ’s with a cup of hot cocoa by a roaring fire with Bing Crosby playing in the background. Am I right? Even if you disagree, apparently the rest of the nation does agrees with me, as online shopping continues to grow year-over-year.
If you own a product, store or service that increases during the holiday season, it might also be time to quickly ramp up and review your online holiday marketing strategies to take advantage of how we are avoiding the malls and hitting our laptops and mobile phones this year.
Here are five tips and trends to start you thinking about your online marketing strategies for this season:
1. Mobile is King. 2013 December sales on smartphones and tablet were up threefold from 2011 to 19.1% (IBM ExperienceOne, 2014) so do not overlook this vital method to reach shoppers. More than half (52%) of smartphone users utilized their phones while shopping (Google and Ipsos MediaCT, 2014). Looking at last year’s increases in mobile use for shopping, we can expect the numbers to rise even higher this year. What is your mobile plan? And don’t forget, shoppers need to be able to find your location or product locations on their phones, so make sure that information can easily be accessed via a mobile device.
2. Move Over, Black Friday. In 2013, Black Friday was more gray than black. The biggest online shopping day was Cyber Monday, which actually was “Mobile Monday” – and we enjoyed an 18% increase over last year. Most of the purchases were made on our phones and actually occurred earlier than Black Friday and were spread across the month of November. That tells me that since 4 out of 10 shoppers started early and continued to make purchases far into December, you should consider a long campaign which continues deep into December as well.
3. Rise of the Informed Shopper. We’re smart, we’re savvy and we’ve even done our homework. The new era of shopper is informed and ready – we’ve researched online, looked for coupons and deals, read the reviews – and we know what we wish to purchase and what we are willing to pay. Many educated holiday shoppers are also brand neutral – which means they are open to influence – which is good news! The trick is to accurately find and target the right buyer and capture our attention across many platforms to engage with us and share your promotions. There are many ways to do this depending on the brand, product or service which you are selling (and we can help our clients craft just the right approach), but one idea is with video. YouTube is a runaway hit with shoppers – 64% credited video as the most influential social media platform for making shopping decisions. I would add Pinterest at – or above – YouTube for online purchasing influence.
4. What Are We Looking For? Naturally, cost savings are paramount to consumers and, bottom line, we are looking for deals we don’t see the rest of the year. An extremely high 92% of holiday shoppers are checking online for price comparisons (Parago, 2014). We are also using our phones to find other promotional deals, find locations where goods/services are sold (as mentioned above) and to lookup store hours. If nothing else, please make sure these are working and accurate!
5. Get Social. Email campaigns and social media channels such as Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, will go hand-in-hand this season. Have a plan for each channel that makes sense for your brand to keep shoppers engaged and interested. Make sure you have a good blend of e-mail and social marketing in your plan and a well designed campaign specifically for e-mail and mobile is key. Deep discounts in e-mail marketing campaigns resonated with 45% of shoppers when the sale or offer discounted 70% or more. And remember, we LOVE free shipping!
Those are just a few trends and tips to consider – but there are many, many others. We would welcome your call or email to talk specifics to help your holiday marketing be filled with joy this season!
