How to Increase Your Online Sales Through Christmas Shopping

The Christmas and New Year period is one of the absolute best times of the year for online retailers to skyrocket their sales. However, you won’t be surprised to learn that all your competitors have the same goal in mind. 

So how can you stand out and overcome your main rivals? The answer is a dedicated approach to internet marketing. With a detailed understanding of your company’s products and what your audience is looking for throughout this unique time of year, you can deliver an online marketing strategy that drives huge interest and conversions.

Internet Marketing Techniques That Boost Online Sales

As the big day is fast approaching, consider these strategies for increasing your online sales alongside a selection of content ideas that will help capture the attention of enthusiastic Christmas shoppers.

Create a Festive Sales Plan 

You can’t expect to outperform your competition if you don’t have a plan going into this hyper-competitive time of the year. However, developing a considered strategy ensures you arrive in the New Year with top-notch sales under your belt. 

First, determine an offer that will resonate with your target market. Whether that’s free express delivery, a buy 1 get 1 free deal or a limited-time-only gift bundle, these concepts will help drive more relevant customers to your website.

Considering many of your rivals will be developing similar concepts, keep close tabs on what ideas they deliver and take steps to snatch away their customers.

Holiday Deals and Discounts

Although the holiday season is a joyous occasion, it’s also a time of year when people are particularly receptive to deals and discounts as the cost of all these gifts can add up quickly. 

Buying presents for family, friends and colleagues can also be a stressful experience, so a cleverly marketed bargain can be hugely appealing. As bundle deals mean customers can spend less time shopping, this added convenience is a huge motivation. 

Meanwhile, festive bundle promotions are also great for business because you can shift more inventory with every purchase. Supported by some sharp holiday season messaging, a targeted deal is a quintessential Christmas sales strategy.

Get in the Spirit with a Xmas Theme

The Christmas and New Year period is all about celebrating, so why not transform your online store into a vibrant digital space? 

Although you might think Christmas decorations are limited to bricks-and-mortar enterprises, an attractive banner and fresh product photography celebrating the festive season might just be what convinces a customer to purchase.

Outside of the aesthetic benefits, making these changes to your website make it clear for website visitors that your brand is celebrating Christmas and offering great deals.

Refresh your social media imagery as well to ensure your entire online platform features the kind of Christmas spirit that customers love to see.

Get active on Social Media

Striking the right amount of social media posts is vital for brands throughout the year, as overloading your customers’ feeds with messaging is a quick way to get unfollowed.

However, this issue isn’t nearly as important throughout the holiday season, as customers want to know more about the promotions available through your brand.

By posting regularly about your incredible deals, you can constantly remind customers that making a purchase will cross one more present off their to-do list.

If you really want customers to know that you’re getting in the festive mood, producing special Christmas-themed brand videos and holiday-greeting content will perform great.

Enhance Your Email Marketing

You should also ramp up your email marketing campaigns when the festive season arrives. Just like social media marketing, your email subscribers are more willing to see messages from your brand landing in their inbox. 

As you highlight your online store’s best deals and share content that showcases how recipients will love their gifts, Christmas e-newsletters are perfect for increasing traffic to your eCommerce platform. 

To achieve maximum impact, redesign your email template with a Christmas theme to express your brand’s values. With an eye-catching and personalised subject line using terms like “last-minute” and “gift bundle”, you can soar past your sales targets.

Invest in Online Advertising

If you operate a small eCommerce business, investing in Google Ads or Facebook Ads throughout the rest of the year can be a daunting prospect. 

But if you want to make sure this festive season delivers your best sales yet, throwing your budget behind a carefully targeted PPC (pay-per-click) campaign is a great decision.

By understanding the core demographics of your audience and what deals are bound to resonate with their needs, you can produce a targeted message that drives people to click through to your website.

Alongside optimised landing pages that align with your ad copy, don’t forget to target festive keywords. For example, a travel business might use “Christmas getaway presents” and “Christmas gifts for travellers”.

Optimise for Mobile

Your eCommerce store must be fully optimised for mobile users if you want to cater to modern-day online shoppers. Even outside of the holiday season, it’s now a fact that most people are browsing online stores using their smartphones and tablets.

So what optimisations are most important? The first step you should take is removing any annoying hurdles that limit how your customers browse your store. This includes hard-to-close pop-up windows that simply lead customers to click away.

You also want loading times to be as fast as possible while streamlining your menu system so customers can easily browse from one category page to the next.

Renew Focus on Customer Service

As much as we like the holiday season to be a stress-free experience, the leadup to Christmas Day is a rushed process for many people. This means your brand has to remain on top of its customer service throughout this period. 

By optimising your communicating channels – from phone and email to instant messaging – you can ensure customers experience the least amount of frustration. 

Whether someone has a quick question about shipping or needs to make a return, leaving someone to fend for themselves will definitely harm your brand reputation.

However, achieving stellar customer service is a big challenge for small businesses. Therefore, adopt AI-driven chatbots and craft detailed FAQ pages to limit the number of incoming customer inquiries.

Communicate Shipping Information

Perhaps the most critical information you can provide at this time is shipping information. As Christmas Day approaches fast and people grow concerned about gifts arriving on time, this information should be at the forefront of your eCommerce store.

As previously mentioned, dealing with vital questions upfront through FAQ pages will save you plenty of time and effort handling endless customer inquiries. However, giving customers easy access to this information also boosts conversions as more people feel comfortable committing to a purchase.

If your brand has a strong relationship with its shipping provider and can offer clear deadlines for delivery dates, this kind of transparency will also help enhance your digital marketing success.

Add Extra Value

The holiday season provides the perfect time to enhance your relationship with your target market. Of course, selling customers a high-quality product they love undoubtedly grows your reputation.

But you can drive this connection to your business even further by adding a personal touch that sets your operation apart from the competition.

It doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Yet a small gift ensures customers remember your name the next time they need a present. For example, a cosmetic company could include free samples with every purchase to encourage future purchases.

If your brand has a gift card scheme, slipping a $10 promo voucher into the box with a personalised message is also sure to drive positive reactions from buyers.

Think Beyond Christmas

It’s only natural for your company’s main focus over the festive season to be about maximising sales. However, always keep an eye on what comes next, as a forward-thinking perspective will help transform one-time buyers into long-term customers. 

Backed by a thoughtful online marketing campaign, delivered across your social media and email channels, you can ensure customers develop trust and loyalty with your business.

As you look to stay in touch long into the New Year, implement techniques that keep the conversation going. Whether you ask for consumer feedback or host a new flash sale, build solid relationships with customers at every step.

Best Content Ideas for Boosting Christmas Sales

Customers will be bombarded with endless internet marketing campaigns over the coming weeks. However, make sure your content ideas rise above the rest with an attention-grabbing strategy. Consider these digital marketing ideas to enhance how you reach and convert your target market.

Create Gift Guides

The bustling nature of the holiday season means strategies that simplify consumer choice are often highly effective. One of the most productive ways to approach this concept is through a Christmas gift guide.

By highlighting a selection of products themed around specific recipient personas, you can help busy people make a prompt decision instead of getting lost amongst dozens of product pages. The natural place to share these gift guides is on your company blog, as they can deliver considerable traffic via SEO. 

However, this content also serves as a great lead magnet. By exchanging these gift ideas for fresh email signups, growing your brand’s reach becomes significantly easier.

Identify Great Product Bundles

Most people don’t want to spend hours browsing eCommerce websites and travelling between bricks-and-mortar stores. By coming up with clever product bundles that save people time, effort and money, attracting sales through your platform is made simple.

Naturally, the perfect product bundle for your brand will depend on your target market. However, you can delve into your previous sales data to identify groups of products that are frequently bought together.

As this approach reveals bundles that customers are unquestionably keen to purchase, you can repurpose these ideas for the holiday season. Alongside some custom Christmas packaging, get ready for your conversions to surge.

Convert Former Customers

Although businesses are always looking to expand their reach, it’s a well-known fact that converting previous customers is far simpler. Fortunately, targeted PPC advertising and personalised email marketing campaigns make it easy for brands to re-establish contact.

For instance, a series of Christmas-themed emails is the ideal way to show former customers how they matter to your business. By providing extra value like an exclusive promo code, convincing past customers to re-engage isn’t as hard as you think.

Alternatively, you can host a special giveaway available only to former customers. By tying these promotions to a purchase price – such as automatically entering customers who spend $100 or more into a special competition – it’s possible to increase the average spend per customer.

Generate High-Quality Content

A detailed gift guide is a great way to provide informative content that also benefits your business. However, high-quality online marketing content doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to your products directly.

For instance, consider producing content designed to help customers get through the next couple of weeks unscathed. A cooking accessories company might develop easy-to-make festive recipes that save their customers from umming and ahhing about what to make for the family.

With industry-leading content that provides genuine usefulness, your brand can remind customers about your existence and get them to check out your products and services.

Share User-Generated Content 

Leveraging social proof is incredibly powerful during the holiday season. As you encourage customers across your social media channels to share their festive creations – ideally made using your products – this content can be used to convince more customers to purchase.

However, you must effectively encourage your audience to get involved to benefit from user-generated content. One easy solution is hosting a competition where you give out free gifts for the best submissions.

By getting active in the comments and showcasing your brand’s unique personality, establishing strong bonds with your customers is bound to develop even more throughout this period.

Chat to the Experts

As the holiday season is nearly upon us, you need to be prepared if you want to skyrocket your Christmas conversions. By implementing a festive online marketing campaign, it’s possible to stand out against your rivals and attract massive amounts of customers to your online store. 

As our leading digital marketers know the benefits of marketing inside out, we can develop a tailored strategy that converts your target market with huge success.

Backed by our team, we’ll ensure your business surpasses its Christmas sales expectations. Get in touch to find out how this holiday season can be your company’s best one yet.