1. Ramp up your advertising
Once your website is ready to go, you need to drive some new
traffic. Earlier in the season (there is no ‘too early’ for this!) work
on your search engine optimization, or SEO in order to optimize your
stores placement in the organic listings before the holiday season
arrives. According to a 2011 Marketing Sherpa Marketing Benchmark
Survey (1), 75% of marketers consider search engine optimization to be
effective for their business. 29% felt that SEO was more effective than
any other form of marketing. After August, concentrate on more quick-
win efforts like blogging and PPC campaigns. Pay-Per-Click remains one
of the best ways to drive traffic to your store, even if your store
already has good search engine placement for your major keywords.
Nobody wants to start thinking about the Biggest Shopping Season
of the year while on summer vacation, but the truth is: If you haven’t
started preparing yet, your competitors may have a head start on you
already! To help you get started and get your online store in shape for
the holidays, we’ve prepared a little Holiday Checklist – make sure you
check it twice!
Web.com eCommerce has the services to help make this your best
holiday sales season ever! And to help you out this holiday season,
we’ve outlined 5 steps to prepare your online business success.
75% of marketers consider SEO to be effective for their business. — Marketing Sherpa Marketing Benchmark Survey01
2. Refresh your store design.
Search engines love new and dynamic content. Holiday shoppers love
clean, modern sites that simplify navigate and make it easy to find what
they are looking for quickly. If you haven’t updated your store
template in the past 18 months, now is the perfect time. Almost as
important, make sure that you have a fresh and current blog to stir up
interest in your products. Now is a good time to make sure that your
blog matches your online stores, so that customers will recognize your
brand. Some things to think about: Clean, simple navigation is one of
the most critical elements in your control to help convince browsers to
become shoppers once they’ve reached your site. Make sure your
navigation supports shoppers by providing categories like ‘For Him’
& ‘For Her’ or ‘Gifts for Dad’ and ensure they can sort the products
in each category by price, name, popularity, etc.
3. Maximize Online Shopping Engines.
Make sure your products are listed in aggregate shopping engines.
When trying to find a lot of gifts, consumers start on sites that
display a lot of products to try and start narrowing their search. Make
sure your products are listed in popular comparison shopping engines
like ‘Shopzilla’, ‘TheFind’, ‘PriceGrabber’ and ‘Shopping.com’ so your
store can be found.
4. Execute Enticing Email Offers.
Email Marketing is still one of the best ways to spend your
marketing dollars in 2012. Email will boost traffic to your website,
help reinforce your brand, and drive repeat customers. To maximize your
sales with email marketing this holiday season, use a trusted email
provider to ensure the best delivery for your marketing messages - don’t
send from your personal outlook, or gmail account! Also, personalize
your email to maximize opens and click- through’s, include a strong
call-to action and be consistent in your message across the holiday
season; eg “Avoid the lines, avoid the traffic, shop online for the
Holidays!”
5. Engage a call center to handle volume.
By now the holidays are quickly approaching. You love the look of
your new store template, you are showing strong in the search engine
pages, both in the organic and paid results, and you have email
marketing campaigns rolling out regularly – and you are likely running
out of hands. A good call center goes beyond simple customer service
help. They can answer all your phone calls or just the overflow (talking
to customer C instead of making them wait on hold while you talk to
customers A & B!) They can help you during regular business hours,
or just at nights and on weekends when you are off duty. They can be
trained to sell, upsell and cross-sell your products, handle returns
& exchanges, answer email, or even run live chat on your site.