There’s still time to focus your festive digital marketing strategy

If you’ve started hearing Christmas carols in the
supermarket it’s time to start putting your festive marketing plan into action.
Christmas is obviously a massive opportunity for online retailers, but many
businesses notice a dip in web traffic over the holiday season as people take
time away from their computers. Here’s how to boost your seasonal web stats.

Optimise for mobile

Although desktop traffic slumps during the holiday period as
people spend less time at work and more time with their families, nearly
everyone has a mobile device on hand. Mobile shopping outpaced desktop for the
first time during last year’s holiday season, accounting for 66%
of all ecommerce traffic throughout the festive period and 74% of shoppers
used their phone to browse products on Christmas Day. If you run an ecommerce
website, make sure it’s optimised for mobile so you can meet consumer
expectations. If you’re not sure how well your site performs on mobile you can
use Google’s mobile-friendly
tool to see how well it scores.

• Make sure the
  journey from initial browsing to purchase is as easy and seamless as possible,
  taking out any unnecessary welcome screens or lengthy sign-up forms. Online
  shoppers – especially busy Christmas shoppers with numerous gifts to buy – lose
  interest very quickly if there are too many payment and shipping fields to fill
  out on a checkout page, which can lead to the dreaded abandoned shopping cart. Simplify
  the navigation process as much as possible to avoid losing customers at the
  final hurdle.
• Resize seasonal images and optimise them with
  compression tools before adding them to your site so they don’t increase page
  loading times. Add subtle festive touches rather than overwhelming mobile
  visitors with animated images and pop-ups.
• Use trustmarks (e.g. an SSL certificate) to
  reassure customers that your site is secure. This will help to maximise your
  conversion rate.

Build email frequency

The festive period offers numerous opportunities to engage
with your customers, from promoting a special Christmas offer, to creating a
helpful 12 Days of Christmas series of tips, to a simple ‘Merry Christmas and
thanks for your custom’ message. Maximise your email marketing effectiveness
by:

• Cleaning your email marketing list and checking
  that all the data is correct so that you can target your campaigns effectively.
• Personalising emails to address customers
  directly, not just by name and location but also by taking their purchasing
  history into account.
• Segmenting emails to target different audiences
  (for example, offering VIP customers a special offer or invite to let them know
  they are appreciated).
• Using Google Analytics to find out the best time
  to send emails for the highest conversion rates.

Invest in seasonal PPC advertising

With Christmas shoppers busily searching online for gift
ideas, you’re missing out if you don’t adjust your paid advertising strategies
to include Christmas keywords to improve your Google search rankings. If you
don’t currently invest in PPC, you can find out more about what we do at
HookedOn here.
If you are already familiar with paid ads, here are some key strategies to
ensure you maximise your holiday marketing budget:

• Review last year’s campaign results to find out what worked well and what needs adjusting. For example, which promotions drove the most purchases, and which channels were most purchasers using? Did search patterns change compared to the prior year? Which targeted audiences performed best? Keeping the strategies that worked best is a solid plan for this year’s Christmas marketing campaign, but it’s also worth investing a small percentage of your budget (around 5-10%) on testing new platforms and strategies.
• Make sure you update your website so that your marketing campaigns are replicated on your landing pages. For example, if you have a ‘free holiday shipping’ promotion that you are marketing via paid ads, make sure you add a banner at the top of your website with consistent wording and content so customers will see it when they click through from an advert.

HookedOnMedia wishes you all a very Happy Christmas and a
prosperous New Year. For more information about the digital marketing services
we offer or to arrange a free consultation, fill out a contact form or give us a
call on 01872 248376.