The holiday shopping frenzy offers a chance for online retailers to generate an influx of revenue as the year ends and enter the New Year on a high.
People are in a buying mood, ready to spend, and open to new brands. Here are eight ecommerce strategies that can help you make the most of it as a female entrepreneur.
1. Create Gift Guides
Most shoppers are looking for gift-giving ideas and inspiration. Make it easy for them to buy with gift-giving guides designed around your ideal customer and customer profiles. For example, I have a gift guide with products I recommend for female entrepreneurs.
This is a great way to attract new traffic. A Deloitte Holiday Retail Outlook study found that 73% of shoppers browse Google for gift inspiration and 55% of shoppers browse retailers’ websites just for inspiration. Capture that traffic with SEO and some great content marketing.
2. Offer Buy Now, Pay Later Financing
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) financing is a trendy way for consumers to stretch their dollars. BNPL services let shoppers pay in installments while giving merchants their sale upfront. It’s a point-of-sale short-term financing option that works like a layaway service, but without forcing shoppers to save first.
BNPL is great for tapping into consumers who enjoy actively managing their money. Shoppers already trust and use these services. Research shows that shoppers spend even more on average when using BNPL.
Check out these services:
3. Cart Abandonment Discounts
Cart abandonment is one of e-commerce’s biggest headaches. Almost 7 in 10 carts are abandoned, on average. Do everything you can to cut that number down this holiday season.
Here are three suggestions:
- Create new marketing offering special, time-limited holiday discounts for abandoned carts.
- Offer free shipping and a variety of other fulfillment options such as pick-up points, courier, overnight, etc.
- Improve the checkout process’ usability: here are some guidelines from Baymard Institute.
4. Special Holiday Bundles
This holiday season, increase sales and boost your average order value with strategically created product bundles. This is a classic marketing tactic that gets customers to purchase more.
There are several ways to bundle products. Here are a few tactics:
- Bundle complementary products
- Create volume discounts (buy 3 boxes of cookies, get the fourth for ½ off)
- Bundle slow-moving products with in-demand ones
- Bundle best sellers and customer favorites
- Offer build-your-own product bundle options
Make sure these are special holiday season offers that aren’t available at any other time.
5. Seasonal Branding and Marketing
Create a festive online mood and deck your website, emails, social media, landing pages, and other branding out in holiday themes.
Make your holiday marketing campaigns light-hearted, whimsical, and meaningful. Embracing the holiday spirit shows that your brand thinks about more than just sales and shares your customers’ deeper values.
HubSpot has some great examples of how to do that.
6. Prioritize Customer Service
Customer service should always be top-notch, and this isn’t the time of year to let things slack. Customers often feel anxious during the holiday shopping season. Do everything you can to give them the best service possible.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate. Don’t leave customers in the dark – especially if there’s an issue or delay.
- Keep them informed about fulfillment, shipping, and delivery times. Send out messages at every step. Fulfillment apps are great for this.
- Use post-sale emails to check in with customers and see if there are any issues that need to be dealt with before customers get upset or leave poor reviews.
- Hire seasonal help if you need it, to offer live phone or chat help.
Proactive communication can fend off a barrage of inquiries and improve reviews.
7. Optimize the Site
Make sure your website is optimized and ready for an influx of holiday shoppers.
- Mobile optimization: the bulk of holiday shoppers browse from their phones now. Your website needs to cater to them.
- Checkout Process: make sure the checkout is technically sound, then optimize it.
- Security badges and Trust Signals: does your website convince new visitors that it’s safe to hand over their information?
- Better CTA Buttons: create actionable CTA buttons to drive sales and engagement.
- Website hosting package: what traffic can it handle, how much have you been using, and what are you expecting? Does your service provider offer temporary increases or other flexible deals?
8. Offer Last-Minute Delivery Options
Can you handle a rush order fulfillment crunch? If so, offer late shoppers last-minute courier delivery options, for a higher fee of course.
This can be a great way to one-up your competition. Check out their shipping options and last day for holiday deliveries, then try to do just a little better than them.
Ways to work together:
- Media Pitching: Work with our team at Pink Pearl PR to pitch your product to major magazines, influencers, and high-profile publications.
- Digital Marketing: Work with our team to develop your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, or manage your Google ads. Ask us about our unique PR for SEO strategy for female entrepreneurs!
- One-On-One: Work with Talia to create your signature offer and get media ready. Book our PR Power hour sessions.
- Coaching and Courses: The Public Relations Academy will help you create your own PR strategy with our guidance.
If you are interested in working on your publicity strategy with my guidance and our guest experts from Canadian Women in Public Relations and American Women in Public Relations, I encourage you to join the Public Relations Academy. If you would like to work with me personally to grow your personal brand as a female executive or entrepreneur, you can work with me at Pink Pearl PR. Book a call to see if we’re a good fit.
