Best Ecommerce Christmas Marketing Strategy For Your Business

There’s no doubt that ecommerce is a huge and growing industry. A recent report by Forrester estimated that by 2022, 17 percent of retail revenue will come from ecommerce and according to the 2018 Big Commerce Holiday Readiness Survey, 90 percent of online merchants expect an increase in sales during 2018.

In addition to general sales, the Christmas season offers endless opportunities for retailers to increase their revenue. Capitalising on this is key but in order to do so, you need to carefully prepare your holiday ecommerce Christmas marketing strategy.

So how should you plan your ecommerce marketing for Christmas 2018?

1. Start Early

Although you might do your own Christmas shopping in December, your Christmas digital marketing should start a lot sooner. According to the 2018 Big Commerce Holiday Readiness Survey, 21 percent of ecommerce businesses start their holiday marketing in September.

Some ecommerce businesses start preparing for Christmas from as early as January. By analysing fresh data from the previous Christmas season, businesses can better prepare for and maximise their Christmas revenue the following year.

2. Analyse Everything

Before you start your holiday marketing, you need to analyse the data. To maximise your Christmas revenue in 2018, make sure you research consumer behaviour in previous years. You should also analyse your own successes and failures as well as what the competition are doing. Here are some key things to consider:

Bounce rate – how many people are arriving at your site and leaving soon after?
Conversion rate – how many visitors turn in to actual customers?
Traffic sources – where are your visitors coming from?
Total users vs repeat users vs unique visitors – how many people return to your site?
Which products are most popular?
Which days does your site receive the most traffic?

Analysing these will help you plan structured and relevant ecommerce Christmas marketing for 2018.

3. Be Organised

An effective ecommerce digital marketing strategy must be structured, organised and pre-planned. Create a content calendar for your seasonal marketing and make it accessible to your team using an online collaborative tool like Google Sheets.

From promoting products on Facebook to launching a ’12 days of Christmas’ e-mail campaign, everything should be scheduled beforehand.

4. Convenience is King

Today’s customers have easy access to multiple vendors. To stay competitive, you must make the process as easy as possible for your customers. This includes:

Fast delivery (the preferred final shipping date for most customers is December 20)
Free shipping
Multiple delivery options
Clear and easy returns policy
24/7 customer service (AI Chatbots are a fantastic way of achieving this)
Digital check-outs
Multiple payment options
In-site search facility (be sure to include common mis-spellings of your products in your dictionary so you don’t miss out on sales)

Everything on your site should make the process as simple as possible for customers. Beat your competition by clearly highlighting all your services and added conveniences.

5. Go Multichannel

Digital marketing for ecommerce must take a multi-pronged approach. Any ecommerce business preparing for Christmas should be marketing and selling on various platforms rather than just their own site.

Here are some channels to consider:

Facebook (52 percent of merchants in the BigCommerce Survey said this is their most successful holiday marketing channel)
Instagram
Pinterest
E-bay
Amazon

6. Don’t Be Afraid To Discount

With so many options available to consumers, discounts and added extras are necessary in order to beat the competition. Some things to consider are:

Free gift wrapping
Exclusive holiday preview or sale for previous customers
Store credit for future purchases
Buy one, get one half price

7. Maximise Purchases Per Customer

The easiest way to maximise your Christmas revenue in 2018 is to capitalise on existing customers. Offering products that compliment what’s already in their shopping cart is a great way of maximising customer purchases.

Use AI-powered image analytics to help identify aspects of previously viewed products so that you can offer similar or relevant products that might interest the customer. Take advantage of all up-selling opportunities by promoting product bundles along various themes like ‘Christmas Gifts for Dad’ during the customer’s visit. You can also use these bundles to drive site traffic by promoting them on Facebook, Instagram and e-mail campaigns.

Creating a sense of urgency is also a great way to drive your 2018 online Christmas sales. Prominent banners stating things like “sale ends tonight” and “only five left in stock” are a fantastic way of achieving this.

And finally, don’t forget to include re-marketing in your strategy to re-engage customers who browsed but didn’t commit to the purchase.

8. Search Engine Optimisation

SEO is the cornerstone of digital marketing for ecommerce and marketing for Christmas is no different. To help drive your 2018 online Christmas sales you should:

Optimise product pages for long tail search terms to help you to rank for voice search queries.
Utilise keywords that have proven successful in past holiday marketing campaigns.
Use holiday-specific keywords and phrases in all metadata and copy.
Share blogs and articles with gift ideas and trends early in the Christmas shopping season.
Create in-depth content and include video to earn more backlinks to your site.
Modify your SEO to work well with voice-related searches as well as keyword searches.
Create specific landing page for popular search terms like “Christmas gifts” and “stocking fillers”.

9. Final Checks

Even the best ecommerce Christmas marketing strategy will fall short if you don’t have the infrastructure to back it up. This includes:

Optimise page speed (53% of customers will leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load))
Check your inventory
Set minimum in-stock number thresholds and have products automatically removed from the purchase queue once the threshold is reached.
Sync in-store, online and marketplace sales to keep track on stock levels and revenue
Test your servers to check they can handle increased traffic and transactions
Check all site pages for broken hyperlinks, images, typos or glitches.
Test all third-party integrations are working properly including all payment methods.

10. Dash to the finish

Boost your 2018 online Christmas sales with last minute deals and offers. E-mail marketing and Facebook campaigns like “12 deals of Christmas” leading up to the shipping cut-off can be particularly effective but make sure these are planned in advance.

Be prepared for a last-minute surge in sales and channel your digital marketing efforts towards last minute shoppers. Highlight extended shipping deadlines and create a sense of urgency with phrases like “get your gifts in time for Christmas” and “only three days left”. For shoppers who have missed the final shipping date, offer gift cards, vouchers, and other solutions.

11. Post-Holiday Marketing

Your ecommerce Christmas marketing strategy shouldn’t end at Christmas. Capitalise on your customers’ holiday spirit with festive well-wishes and gratitude for their custom as you enter the next calendar year. Use this as an opportunity to launch new products, encourage people to spend their holiday gift certificates and make the most of your new year sales.