How to Sleigh Your Holiday Marketing, if You’re Not One of The Big Guns

The holidays are fast approaching, and businesses should be busy prepping for the one of the biggest retail peaks in Australia. With 5.2 million people shopping online, this holiday season presents a huge opportunity for smaller businesses to compete with the big guns, and get their slice of the pie.

But, sweaty palms aside, if you want to make your holiday season a successful one, you will need to add a few of these tasks to your to-do list.

Know your key dates

Everyone loves a bargain and sale days are not only a great way for shoppers to save during the festive season, but for e-retailers to boost revenue by piggybacking off some of the sale days predating Christmas and Boxing Day.

• 27th November - Black Friday
• 28th November - Small Business Saturday
• 30th November - Cyber Monday
• 25th December - Christmas
• 26th December - Boxing Day

In addition to these dates, e-retailers also need to be aware of the last posting dates for Christmas. With the parcel networks being so busy, it's important to encourage your customers to send as early as possible to get their parcels to their loved ones on time. As a general guideline, parcels should be sent out by these dates if they are to arrive before Christmas day:

• 21st December - East Coast Capitals
• 21st December - Perth Metro
• 14th December - All Other Domestic Areas
• 15th December - United States, Canada, United Kingdom
• 15th December - China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Malaysia
• 17th December - New Zealand
• 7th December - The Rest of The World

These dates are service dependent click here for the last posting dates for Christmas

Creating a gift shop

If there's one overarching purpose for e-retailers during this holiday period, it's to make gifting as easy as possible. No one wants to have to troll through hundreds of products to find the right product or deal. It would be a real bummer to the holiday period.

So, how do you create a good gift shopping experience?

• A clean landing page with plenty of white space so shoppers don't feel overwhelmed
• Striking colored call-to-action buttons, used to draw the user's eye and make conversions a lot more simple and easier for the consumer
• Beautiful and relevant product imagery is critical for any lifestyle brand. This is Christmas, so make any imagery family related
• If one thing is certain, gift-givers are uncertain. The addition of a recommended or best sellers product row to your landing page will give them the social proof that will push them into converting
• Helpful blog articles that allow you to attract and nurture new customers, through Google, is a guaranteed crowd pleaser
• Delivery information is the most overlooked tool when it comes to online stores, but it's one of the most important tools in your arsenal. If a customer can't be sure that the gift they are giving will be received before Christmas, they are less likely to purchase that product.

Holiday email campaigns

Thanks to its strong return on investment, email is a popular choice for any small online business during the Holidays. When done right the ROI for email marketing can be as high as 4400%. You need to start thinking strategically, if you want your email campaign to be found through the noise of a customers inbox. Start with segmentation. The thing about email, is that the more hyper-targeting you can get with your offering the better. There are a few ways you can segment your audience:

• Active versus inactive: Separate your customers into active versus inactive customers. Those that haven't purchased your product in a year (depending on your industry) can go into the inactive pile. This is your chance to send them an offer or something else of value to reactivate them before Christmas.
• Interests: Separate your subscribers based on product-interest and then send them email campaigns related to that particular category.
• Coupon lovers: Identify customers who have purchased as a result of discounts or offers on your website and reactive them by sending them a discount or promo code.
• Affordability: Identify customers who have purchased high-ticket items from your store, versus those who have purchased low-dollar items. Send them an email campaign featuring items within their price range.

You should also time your campaigns in accordance with the following dates for maximum effect:

• $1 of every $5 spent online for the holiday season took place during Cyber Week
• Mid-December sees a big uptick in "free shipping" searches as the shipping window for Christmas delivery starts to close
• Mobile searches for "gift ideas" increase after Black Friday, reaching their peak a week before Christmas

Extend your reach with Facebook Ads

It's a common known fact that most Facebook users use Facebook as a means of discovery - discovering new products, articles and even people. This is why Facebook has started to invest in eCommerce on their platform, with the introduction of Facebook Shops. People spend an average 142 minutes a day on social media. This is an opportunity for retailers to catch the interest of new users.

Once you've segmented your database you can run ads on Facebook retargeting website bounces, or create a lookalike audience from your active customers to drive more traffic to your website. You can also target based on interest as well, if your database is large enough. You want to separate these ads into two basic types:

• Acquisition: You want to build as much traffic and brand awareness as possible with these adsets. Try different triggers and lead magnets to bring people to your site.
• Retargeting: You're essentially targeting warm leads here. They're already interested in your product, bring them back and encourage a purchase by offering a discount.

Retarget with Ads across the web

If people are spending 142 minutes on social media, how much do you think they spend on the internet as a whole. It's a lot more than just 142 minutes. So if you want those "window shoppers" to come back to your online store, you can't just retarget them on Facebook and Instagram. You have to put your ads in front of them wherever they go online. A good way to do this is to set up a Google Adwords account and use their Display Network. Another way to do this is using AdRoll. The best performing ads, have a clear call-to-action and have a compelling offer.